Short Classics Top o’ the World, North Pole Thursday December 20th 1928 My dear boys, Another Christmas and I am another year older—and so are you. I feel quite well all the same—very nice of Michael to ask—and not quite so shaky. But that is because we have got all the lighting and heating right again after the cold dark year we had in 1927—you remember about it? And I expect you remember whose fault it was? What do you think the poor dear old bear has been and done this time? Nothing as bad as letting off all the lights...

Do you know everything about your family - your parents, your grandparents, your brothers or sisters, your uncles or aunts? Does your family know everything about you? All families have secrets — they can be big secrets, small secrets, things to laugh about, things to cry about. Jan lives in Oxford with his English wife Carol, and his father Josef, who is Czech. Jan was born in Prague, but he came to England with his father when he was a baby. He never knew his mother - she died soon after he was born...