My Great Uncle Cyril stowed on a ship as a lad...discovered and made cabin boy...arrived in Canada and spawned. Met him on a visit to Australia where he enchanted me with the way he said "Hi"...or was it his 17 year old granddaughter that caught my eye? One of his daughters represented Canada in the Winter Olympics in Curling..."What's that?" I remember asking. He smoked a pipe so I made him a pottery ashtray. Years later I heard he had become blind and was responsible for burning down his retirement home in Canada...some mishap with his pipe in bed...or was it 'cos of my ashtray? As we cruise the Volga-Baltic Waterway in Vologda Oblast of northern Russia...crossing Beloye Lake (White Lake) where the Sheksna River joins the flow...another Cyril is about to enter my life...St Cyril
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