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      Michael Morpurgo

      Unforgettable Journeys:

      Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea, Running Wild and Dear Olly

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea

       Running Wild

       Dear Olly

       Keep Reading

       About the Author

       Also by Michael Morpurgo

      Copyright

       About the Publisher

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      To Lula Léa and Clare, who helped make this book with me.

      Contents

       Dedication

      Part One: The Story of Arthur Hobhouse

      Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening

      Three Red Funnels and an Orchestra

       The Centre Will Not Hold

       Oh Lucky Man!

       Kitty Four

       Part Two: The Voyage of the Kitty Four

       What Goes Around, Comes Around

       Two Send-offs, and an Albatross

       Jelly Blobbers and Red Hot Chili Peppers

       And Now the Storm Blast Came

       Just Staying Alive

       “Hey Ho Little Fish Don’t Cry, Don’t Cry”

       Around the Horn, and with Dolphins Too!

       Dr Marc Topolski

       “One Small Step for Man”

       Alone on a Wide Wide Sea

       “London Bridge is Falling Down”

       Now you’ve read the book

       Afterword

       Acknowledgements

image Part One The Story of Arthur Hobhouse image

       Arthur Hobhouse is a Happening

      I should begin at the beginning, I know that. But the trouble is that I don’t know the beginning. I wish I did. I do know my name, Arthur Hobhouse. Arthur Hobhouse had a beginning, that’s for certain. I had a father and a mother too, but God only knows who they were, and maybe even he doesn’t know for sure. I mean, God can’t be looking everywhere all at once, can he? So where the name Arthur Hobhouse comes from and who gave it to me I have no idea. I don’t even know if it’s my real name. I don’t know the date and place of my birth either, only that it was probably in Bermondsey, London, sometime in about 1940.

      The earliest memories I have are all confused somehow, and out of focus. For instance, I’ve always known I had a sister, an older sister. All my life she’s been somewhere in the deepest recesses either of my memory or my imagination – sometimes I can’t really be sure which – and she was called Kitty. When they sent me away, she wasn’t with me. I wish I knew why. I try to picture her, and sometimes I can. I see a pale delicate face with deep dark eyes that are filled with tears. She is giving me a small key, but I don’t remember what the key is for. It’s on a piece of string. She hangs it round my neck, and tells me I’m to wear it always. And then sometimes I hear her laugh, an infectious giggle that winds itself up into a joyous cackle. My sister cackles like a kookaburra. She comes skipping into my dreams sometimes, singing London Bridge is Falling Down, and I try to talk to her, but she never seems to be able to hear me. Somehow we’re always just out of reach of one another.

      All my earliest memories are very like dreams. I know that none of them are proper memories, none that I could really call my own anyway. I feel I’ve come out of half-forgotten, half-remembered times, and I’m sure I’ve often filled the half-forgotten times with made-up memories. Perhaps it’s my mind trying to make some sense of the unknown. So I can’t know for certain where the made-up ones end and the real ones begin. All the earliest childhood memories must be like that for everyone I suppose, but maybe mine are more blurred than most, and maybe that’s because I have no family stories to support them, no hard facts, no real evidence, no certificates, not a single photograph. It’s almost as if

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