Having successfully negotiated the main section of the journey to Edinburgh with my maternal grandmother in the smaller of my mother’s two silver Volvos, I lost concentration on a road that had been partially cordoned off, slammed into a traffic cone, and turned over the car. We were both flung out of our seats onto the tarmac.

While I soon picked myself up from the road, my poor maternal grandmother remained splayed across the lane. Although not visibly injured, I feared that she was dead. I reached for her arm and felt for her pulse. All was well, she was alive after all, and happily returned to her seat in the back of the car.

A young man with dark hair stepped forward from the small crowd of on-lookers and insisted that he take over the driving for the remainder of the journey. (The Volvo itself was roadworthy. The only visible damage was that half the bumper had been sheared off the rear of the car.)