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I do not remember my father. My mother never said his name to me. I know he was a curse, a low note in a bad song no one sings any more. I was told by a drunk uncle that his name was Ralph. There could be some saint, a perfect man called Ralph, but I couldn’t stay in the same room as him. He could be smiling and carrying flowers but I’d feel some rage building in me, the rage I know very well indeed. It has saved my life, and threatened it. I don’t blame my father for anything; weak people mean nothing to me. He left before my birth, before the midwife shook her head over me and told my mother that I would be the luckiest child in town. Luckier than Robert and Diane Grey, next door’s children, and they were very lucky children indeed.

Robert and Diane had been riding down the West Ferry Road in their father’s delivery van. He had swerved suddenly to avoid a road-sweeper, the back doors had opened and the children had been thrown out, into the path of a bus. They went under the bus.

The driver braked and fainted. Passengers flew from their seats; the conductor’s pouch sprayed loose change. People on the top deck screamed, and a woman in a hat began to gibber. One pedestrian went to a telephone, and another yelled for a doctor. Mr Grey leapt from his van and ran to the bus. He yelled madly, and as he did, the children crawled out and stood up. They were untouched. Their elbows weren’t even grazed. A devout husband and wife came from a grocer’s shop and went down on their knees. Lucky Robert and Diane were talked about for years, and pointed out to strangers. Once, a sick man was brought to them to be touched, to be healed, but Mrs Grey drew the line at that. ‘Who do you think we are?’

I will be the luckiest child in town because I was born in my caul. I can spit on water, walk on it, give it flowers. I’ll never sail a sinking ship, and every port I visit will know my name. I am special, I am touched, I will never be drowned. It’s that simple.

My mother knew about luck. She spat over her left shoulder, clicked the wind away with her fingers, took my caul, wrapped it in a lint-free cloth and carried it home. She wiped it and dried it slowly and carefully, and when it had shrunk to the size of a slice of bread, sewed it into the lining of a man’s leather cap. She rocked my cradle and sang a song for the dead in my ear. A song for the living or one for the dead, it never mattered to me.

Nothing touched me, hurt me or changed my mind. I grew up in London, on the Isle of Dogs. I had a view of the river from my room, and could sit day or night and watch ships arrive, dock, unload, reload and leave. I watched the sailors come and I watched them go, and I copied their walk. The tides were my clock, and navigation lights blinked for me. I knew every tug by name, and every line flag that ever sailed up the Thames to the West India Dock, Greenland, South Dock or Shadwell.

I was a strong boy and if other boys wanted to talk about why my father (Ralph) was not living on Strafford Street I would kick them in the knee and warn them that when he returned from a voyage to India and Australia, then he would nail their feet to the trapdoors on the pavement outside the Dock and Chain. As soon as I could think, I knew what I would do. Mother never told me that my father was a seaman but I knew that, somewhere, somehow, and I would be a seaman too.

One day, Mother was down the road talking to Mrs Rodden of the baker’s shop. I was alone in the house. I was six. It was just before the war.

I went upstairs to her dressing table, and sat on the stool. I looked at her powder compact, and ran her brush through my hair. She had a bottle of perfume, but I didn’t touch this. I looked at myself in the mirror, licked some crumbs from the corner of my mouth, and then I went through the drawers.

The top drawer was full of underwear. I caught my sleeve on a hook on the back of something, and couldn’t get untangled. I pulled and all this stuff fell on to the floor, corsets and bras and belts all snarled up on my sweater. I had to get down from the stool to sort this mess out. I was standing in the middle of the room picking these frightening clothes off my clothes. They had so many clips and buckles and the more I tried the worse it got. I sat on the floor and concentrated on one corset at a time, then another, then a belt, and I took them carefully and dropped them in the drawer before they did any more damage.

I opened the second drawer. There was a cardigan in it, some pullovers and a nightdress. Some mothballs rattled in the corner. I lifted the nightdress out, and held it to my face. It had lace around the collar. I smelt it. It was cotton, and very light. I put it back and rummaged under the other things, but I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

The bottom drawer was difficult to open. It contained three shoe boxes.

There was a dried bouquet in the first box, with a message attached. I couldn’t read the words. I touched one of the flowers and its petals dusted under my fingers. A money spider froze on one of the stems. Carnations and roses, all faded and over.

The second box was heavy, and full of jewels. I know these were paste and gilt, but when I was in my mother’s room on that day I thought I had discovered the wealth of London. My eyes watered, the jewels sparkled. I could hear them singing, calling out in song, giving me instruction. I shut the box quickly, and pushed it to the back of the drawer.

The third box contained a paper bag. I opened it and the man’s leather cap was inside. My heart jumped, and then beat faster. I thought I heard someone coming in the back door; I stood still and listened, but I had been mistaken. The wind, the cat, a stray dog…I was shaking but took the cap out of the bag and sat back on the stool, and turned it over in my hands.

It was black with a handsome peak, and a thin strip of leather running around the rim at the back to a button at the front. It was lined with calfskin and cotton, and I could feel something through this, hard and ridged like a hand. I held it to my nose. It smelled of fog and dust, and something acid.

I smiled at myself in Mother’s dressing-table mirror, and then I crowned myself with the cap. It covered my eyes and the back of it sat on my collar. I tipped it back and to one side, and ran my fingers along its peak. I whistled at my reflection, and winked at my smile.

I knew again. I knew who I was and how I was going to sea, and how one day I would end up old and alone in a place like Port Juliet. Born old. Never be fooled.

I knew this knowledge would detach me. I would never be like other people, and they would confuse my certainty with pride. Or arrogance. Or a bad temper. I’ve got a temper but only fools see it. Maybe I am too quick to judge, maybe I see fools everywhere, but maybe I am right to. At sea in storms with loads of shifting timber, or steel, or with broken pumps and filling bilges, then you have to have a temper, you have to know who the fools are. You do not sail every ocean for fifty years with only a caul in your cap. Luck is conscious. It needs friends, it wants to know you care.