My wife's father died when she was sixteen and his place had been taken by an uncle. Her uncle had visited the village regularly on a bicycle when he was a lad and had visited at least once a year when he grew up and had a car, which was why my wife had visited in the first place. It meant we had a string of visitors, who expected to be fed as if they were staying at the Buchanan Arms hotel. It also meant we were supplied with roasts and joints and the odd bottle of whiskey in case we could not afford that level of luxury. It also meant my new wife had to cook according to the culinary standards she had been taught at her Cordon Blue course at Glasgow's Domestic Science College. We didn't realise it but, in our own way, each of us was being prepared for the nomadic life of senior management in the mining industry and the writing of the Oakhaven stories.

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