Every family has its black sheep – in ours it was Uncle Petros.

My father and Uncle Anargyros, his two younger brothers, made sure that my cousins and I should inherit their opinion of him unchallenged.

“That no-good brother of mine, Petros, is one of life's failures”, my father would say at every opportunity. And Uncle Anargyros, during the family get-togethers from which Uncle Petros routinely absented himself, always accompanied mention of his name with snorts and grimaces expressing disapproval, disdain or simple resignation, depending on his mood.

However, I must say this for them: both brothers treated him with scrupulous fairness in financial matters. Despite the fact that he never shared even a slight part of the labour and the responsibilities involved in running the factory that the three inherited jointly from my grandfather, Father and Uncle Anargyros unfailingly paid Uncle Petros his share of the profits.

(This was due to a strong sense of family, another common legacy.) As for Uncle Petros, he repaid them in the same measure. Not having had a family of his own, upon his death he left us, his nephews, the children of his magnanimous brothers, the fortune that had been multiplying in his bank account practically untouched in its entirety.

Specifically to me, his 'most favoured of nephews' (his own words), he additionally bequeathed his huge library which I, in turn, donated to the Hellenic Mathematical Society.