The sky’s awash with wooden ships, their gondolas bright as frogs’ eyes. They steer between silver clouds, between golden empires, and between the flimsy veils that barely separate alternative worlds. My father stands at a polished rail, a telescope levelled at his eagle eye, setting a course by a star named after my mother on the morning of her miraculous birth. Beside him stands his second-in-command: a dishevelled collie in a cable-knit sweater and stocking cap, head cocked with the wisdom of canine years. It’s a scene from the endpapers of a Christmas annual, or a Saturday pictures cartoon. Just out of shot, there are pirates, or Nazis, or anonymous henchmen cutting brake cables: but Dad and the dog have a pack-up lunch and infinite pluck, so there’s no need for any of these sliding, gliding worlds to worry.

Bio: Oz Hardwick