Duty of a good death

In the age of steam, sportsmen bumped into each other at Euston Station on their journey to the Highlands. Today, we flock together at Tebay North services on the M6 or at Inverness Airport.

So it wasn’t a great surprise when I was greeted by an old mucker at the latter in the hire car queue. I’d seen him last in his summer plumage as we drank supermarket champagne in the grounds of the local theatre, but now the salad days were over, he was up for the salmon, myself for the stags.

Wishing him luck at the car park, I’d soon left the city, crossed the magnificent Kessock Bridge spanning the Beauly Firth and revelled in the steady diminution of roads — As, then Bs, until I was finally