For most of his life, my Father has worked and farmed the same area of loam rich land, in the undulating Howe of Strathmore, deep in rural Perthshire.
Agriculture has been core to our family for countless generations just as medicine, academia, high finance or public service has for others.
As a son of the soil his life has been shaped by the vagaries of the weather and politics of the day.
He has watched his children grow, celebrated births and weddings, mourned the passing of close friends and the tragic death of his first Grandson.
And like many of his generation, he has done so with a stoic good grace, and fortitude of spirit, that I and others of my time can only aspire to.
My overriding memory of my Father will always be of an unrelenting and hard working man whose kinship with the land, knowledge of livestock and the network of farmers across Scotland, is legend.
That was, and still is, the public face of my Father.
Privately he is someone who would pull his sleepy children out into the steel cold of a winters’ evening to awe in wonder at the splendour of the aurora borealis or suddenly pounce lion like into a summer meadow as he unfolded a delicate skylarks’ nest!
That I should even consider to write these words will be a source of deep embarrassment to him!
However today is his 80th birthday and this is my tribute to the person who created a fabric into which each of us has woven our own tapestry, and to which I now accord my thanks and gratitude.
Happy Birthday Father!