When Dad takes early retirement, he says he should never have been a dentist anyway
He and Mum move to a bungalow in Rottingdean, better known as Boring On Sea. Dad sports oiled-wool sweaters and jaunty caps, grows a white-bristled beard like Captain Birdseye. ‘I’d like to have been a lighthouse keeper,’ he says. ‘A wicky.’ Every time I visit, they’ve become more maritime: a coiled mooring line …