He opened the letter from his cousin, reluctantly breaking open the blue air-mail envelope. Who uses old-fashioned snail mail these days? It was from Cat, of course. His good-for-nothing lay-a-bout drop=out relative who had adopted a ridiculous animal name and gone off to live on an remote island in the West Indies. Practically a desert island. No email there, of course.

Meanwhile, people like himself, sensible people with ambitions and mortgages, had to eke out a living in London, or Sydney, or Rome. Wherever he could. And that is hard when you are a classical musician - a violinist - and opportunities to earn decent money are rare indeed.

As he expected, Cat's letter was another begging missive. Would he come and do a concert on this god-forsaken desert-island? To support the local school? What cheek!

The photo plopped out from the blue folds of the paper. A faded picture of a group of smiling children, squatting on a patch of dirt in front of what appeared to be a tumbledown ruin. A sign read "Junior SKool". In the background were palm trees and golden beaches. The children had no shoes.

A concert? On a desert Island? Maybe....