The Art of Possibility

THE NINTH PRACTICE

Lighting a Spark

BEN: One of my most vivid childhood memories is of my father, dressed in a three-piece suit, leaving on the overnight train to Glasgow. I asked my mother how long he would be gone, and she assured me I would see him the next evening. “Your father has some things he wants to discuss with a gentleman in Glasgow. They will have breakfast in the Glasgow Railway Station, and then he will take the next train back to London.”

“Is it a special friend of his?” I asked, but was told that the gentleman was no one I knew, and someone with whom my father had only a brief acquaintance. This puzzled me. I think I was about eight or nine at the time. Later I asked him why he had not used the telephone. Adopting the stance ...