SIR, - ON Tuesday, May 18 it will be my father's 60th birthday, and as I am currently on the other side of the world, having been travelling since last August, I would just like to use your columns as a surprise to say Happy Birthday Dad!

He is Barry Stocks, a retired local newspaper editor who is well known on the Fylde Coast and formerly worked for the Daily and Sunday Express among many other papers.

I'm so sorry I can't be there, but I'm currently in Perth, Western Australia, having arrived here after travelling through Eastern Europe, followed by two months living on beaches in Goa and the SW Indian Coast, riding camels through the Thar desert near the Pakistan border, whitewater rafting on steep, fast Nepali rivers (a hobby you introduced me to) and trekking in the Himalayas outside Kathmandu and Pokhara.

I've been followed by vultures and wild dogs, I've watched bodies burn on open fires at holy cremation sites in Veranasi and, of course, I've got sick (I know you told me so!).

Now I'm trying to earn some much-needed cash as a furniture removal man in Perth before heading east to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

I am grateful to the Citizen for allowing me the chance to make amends for my absence by saying, thanks for all your help and have a good one Dad, from your Wandering Walter of a son.

Russell Stocks,

formerly of South Hey,

Ansdell.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.