About Uncle Fred
Great Uncle Fred lives alone (on an island) approximately 623 miles away from where I live. I am Jack, his great nephew. I am a very curious person and I have several very curious friends. (Curious meaning questioning, not curious meaning peculiar.)
Great Uncle Fred is as old as an 80-foot tree, he says, but he does not say what kind of tree, (he is old enough to have fought in the Second World War), he was married once but he "lost her", he says, (I do not know what he means by that), he likes young people, and he likes thinking about their questions while sitting by the fire after dinner (he loves dinner).
Although he is old, Great Uncle Fred still fixes his own roof and cuts down trees with a chain-saw. As well as being a soldier, he has been a merchant seaman and a journalist and a farmer and a museum curator and a builder and probably lots of other things too.
He can be a grumpy old curmudgeon and might answer a question in grumpy, and short, fashion.
He drives an old Land Rover and gets to his house on the island by dinghy which sometimes he rows and sometimes powers with an outboard motor. (His island is on a freshwater body of water located on another much bigger island: he lives, you see, on an island on an island.) He has white hair and wears jeans. He loves nature and cooking and games and stories and history and people. He does not love, he says, advertisements and newspapers and "liars in general". Luckily, he likes young people and the questions that they ask.
The thing is, I was with Mum and Dad and I had a question and they didn't know the answer and then I asked my teacher and she was too busy and then I asked my friends and they did not know the answer and then we went to stay with Great Uncle Fred and so I asked him the question and he had a good answer and then I thought of more questions and he didn't mind answering them and then some of my friends had questions and he didn't mind answering them as well and I gathered the answers together and then my cousin saw them and we had the idea of putting them on a website and inviting other questions and Great Uncle Fred said that would be fine, he would be happy to answer questions so long as no one gets to know where he lives so that's how it all happened. OK?
I think he's handy to have around and I like him. I hope you like him too.
