This was a moment between Charlie and Me.(Betty) It was 1979. We sat alone in a camper van, my father and I, with rain streaming down the window panes outside. He was huddled in the corner with a pout like a six year old on his sixty six year old face. It was summertime in Ireland and we were on holiday, away from South Africa. A holiday we had saved towards and talked about for months on end! This place and it memories of the past were never far from his mind back then. We were led to believe this as we grew up; and now my young family and I were here with him, learning all that there was to love about Ireland, his Ireland. “I want to go home!” he said. My birthplace and his old home town of Waterford moved about outside in the rain, the street filled with commuters on their way home after a long day. He had no eyes for them, nor cared to look outside. When you leave a country you know so well, how much of the yearning back to it, is for situations and events which have long changed; a way of life that has moved on decades. Just like Charlie’s life had, and he was now disappointed. “I want to go home! And not come back n’more.” Charlie said again folding his arms. The message was clear. South Africa was now his home. “Mommy is so happy touring, seeing everyone, all the old faces, she is loving it! Please don’t put a damper on things. Not on her spirits. Only two more weeks, please? Don’t say a word, Daddy.” Their home in South Africa was situated in Pretoria those years. It was a comfortable three bedroom place with a guest wing. The roads were wide, planned and straight. He was thinking, sunshine and Jacaranda trees and long languid days pottering about in his garden and workshop. It was the place he wanted to be. His memories were there now, they were current; his family was in South Africa where his roots had sunk deep into the often dry parched earth. South Africa was where originally he had planned to spend just five years of his working career, giving Ireland a chance to get back on its feet after the second world war. Back then South Africa was just a name to the Irish, and an alien place where he had made a decision to take his young wife and babies to, so that he could support them; but now, a place that he had grown to love which had become his home from home. Today having long since left South Africa myself, living back in the U.K., there are days when I drift, dream and imagine myself half way back around the world. Like Charlie, there is a question to ask; how much of the longing is for a time or event which have long changed; a way of life that has moved on decades since you departed those shores.