It snowed all the way through ‘spring’ in the Republic of Ireland. Even in mid-summer big patches of the white stuff were piled at the side of the road and scattered in patches in the fields.

TPR and I were the guests of JG and BG. We came to the Emerald Isle as tourists, but before long we knew that we were set up as terrorist kidnap victims. BG confiscated our passports and my Kindle (crammed with contact details of key members of the British establishment), and the tall man to whom I had taken a fancy confessed that he was an IRA ringleader.