What keeps my father going is the thought that one day he will be vindicated

In the Montblanc/Spectator Art of Writing Award last year, readers were invited to submit a short essay on the subject of immortality. Here is the winning entry.

My father is old. He does not believe in God. He was 90 in December, an event celebrated with a family lunch at a hotel of his choosing. It was a very happy day, for both he and my mother are physically and mentally fit, but I was aware that he resists death. He will not go gentle into that good night, not because he is frightened of dying, but because he is afraid of the loss of his ideas.

For half a century my father has pursued ideas about the evolution of modern man. He believes that our species is the result of isolation on an island in the Indian Ocean. The sea, he maintains, has been left out of evolutionary theory. He has never found a publisher for any of his extensively researched writings, and they have long been the subject of affectionate family mockery.