You were not a person given to excessive words (verbal diarrhoea, as you would always call it), and so a lot of the advice that you imparted to me when I was growing up was by example rather than spoken. However, I do remember two pieces of advice that you gave me when I was at school. One was that if you ignore them they will go away (they did) and the other was that it's ok to hit someone back if they hit you first. I'm pleased to say I haven't had to use that second one recently but I can confirm it had the desired effect at the time, so thanks for that.

In addition, you unwittingly instilled in me a great aversion to DIY, after I nearly disembowelled myself messing about with your ratchet spiral screwdriver (I'm genuinely sure you never knew that), and also to hedge trimming, after too many times (as I remember) when I had to collect all the cuttings into endless numbers of sacks to be taken to the tip. Not to mention my wariness of ladders, after the time you fell from on high and landed on the daylilies in the back garden ... at least that's what I was told happened. Either way you seemed to escape remarkably unscathed, and I think the daylily might have survived to bloom another day too.

Happy lawn-mowing,

Carolxxx