My mother’s father, Thomas Francis Ord Rippingham, already retired when I knew him, was a quiet, chess playing English architect, who had come to Ulster in the late 1920s to work as a government architect.

As we used to say ruefully during the Troubles, he designed the Police stations that they blew up.

My father’s father, Harold Taggart Scott, was amore lively character, given to doing a conjuring act at children’s parties.

As a young man he had been a mechanic, working according to family legend in a motor repair shop where at some time Dunlop, inventor of the phumatic bicycle wheel, had worked.

His garage was well stocked with tools and jars full of screws. He was a fisherman, golfer and a fine figure on the bowling green.