Eco from the past

Over the weekend I saw online that Umberto Eco has died aged 84, but it was only this morning when I read a newspaper article that I realised that he was born in the same year as Jim.

I always found Eco's writing impenetrable, but much admired Sean Connery's performance in the film of The Name of the Rose.

And that reminded me how Jim had revered Joseph Conrad as a writer and had been amazed when he realised that Conrad's life had died just eight years before his birth.

As a teen, Jim had applied to join the Merchant Navy. In his 60s he asked his mother whether she had ever posted that application. "No" was the immediate and firm response. She had not wanted him to have a life on the ocean waves.

I sometimes wonder where Jim's imagination would have taken him, had he been allowed the opportunity of such a life.