Simon's story:

I grew up on an Island with my mother and sister and brother. On the Island lived some other families that had "always" lived there. My mother came from another country, with another language. She came to the Island to be a maid and then met my father who was a sailor. I was born and she stayed - my father went on board a ship and I didn't see him more than a few times on his short visits on land.

Quite often we were visited by Gypsies that came by to sell things like mirrors, pearls, combs, underwear, watches...

We sometimes let them spend the night with us. I remember one of them especially who always wanted to sing for us while we were sitting waiting for the fire to burn out for the night. He sang a song - I think it was a Tango and it was about longing. That melody has followed me through life.

My mother sometimes told me a story (like a joke) that she found me in a sack by the road and that she thought it might have been the Gypsies that had left me there. My mother loves Tango and my father disappeared on the Ocean.

I decided to go to sea too, as a bartender on a ferry where I could enjoy the music and the people.

Homer Simon