chapter 1. Pip and the stranger
My real name is Philip.But when I was younger , I was only able to say Pip.So Pip became my name.And this was what everybody called me.I came from a small village in Essex.I lived there with my elder sister.She was older than me by more than 20 years.Her husband's name was Joe Gargery，who is the village ironworker.My sister raised me because my parents had died when I was a baby.I was not able to remember them at all.Still, I would often go to visit the church yard, which was about a mile from my village.They were buried there in the graveyard,and I would go to look at their name on the stones.
One December afternoon, I went to sit in the graveyard.I was looking out at the dark, flat , wild land divided by the black line of River Thamesand listening to the low sound of the sea far away.