shewhomust | Journeyman

Today is the 90th birthday of my uncle Ted, the last survivor of the five brothers of whom my father was the youngest. I've been struggling to describe him, and to tell some of the stories I know about him, but I keep coming back to the autobiography he self-published five years ago. So here's a summary:

In his autobiography, Journeyman, Ted Rogers describes his youth in Sunderland as a bricklayer and trades union activist, his war-time experiences in Africa, where he was badly burned in a dive-bombing raid. He underwent extensive (and pioneering) plastic surgery, but as soon as his children were old enough, he and his wife Enid bought a boat (advertised ominously as "a boat of character") which they repaired and sailed around the Mediterranean. They sold the Veng, and, undeterred by their experiences (which included arrest by an Albanian gunboat), put the proceeds towards building a new boat, which they sailed across the Atlantic.

And there's more about Ted here.

Happy birthday, Ted.