My father thought we were insane. He had a kind of grudging appreciation for Sarah, but his opinion was that a wife shouldn’t work. If your wife had to work anywhere except the house and the garden, then you had obviously failed as a provider, and in some sense failed as a man. Mum never wanted to work on the farm, but I think she would have if she thought she could contribute. Despite the dominance of my father, she grew stronger and more assertive as the years went by. They fought loudly when they thought I was out of earshot. It was mostly about money, but it often seemed to be about the smallest things — things you would not think were worth having a heated argument about.

After James was born, Sarah had enough to do, so we settled back into traditional roles. And as James grew he had to do those outside tasks, and Sarah never went back to changing tyres. It is not helpful for me to think about this stuff.

But I remember now how quickly she got pregnant. We joked about being able to get pregnant by just ‘passing each other in the corridor’. (It is my recollection we did a damn sight more than just pass in the corridor.) Which made it so much harder to accept when she couldn’t get pregnant again. We saw doctors, nutritionists, and reproductive specialists, and read about turkey basters and fertility gurus. It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t her. It took us so long to accept that it wasn’t going to happen, but by the time we got to the possibility of IVF we decided we couldn’t face it and the associated pain. We agreed we should count our blessing: James.