Thereafter, Hugh spent his life trying to better himself, but without great success. He was a lorry-driver, a bus-driver and ended up as a traffic inspector. He left this secure employment for a better paid job with the National Coal Board and was quickly promoted to a position of administrative responsibility. Then pits began to close and once again Hugh Muirhead moved on. Ultimately, he became a Church Officer, an old-fashioned beadle, in a church in Dundee.

He married Sarah Russell, a kind and gentle girl from Cowdenbeath, and from the day they married till the day he died of a massive heart attack, they were never apart. They had only one child, James. Hugh was determined that his son would not repeat his mistakes, but would go on to university and become a doctor. The Muirheads were never well off – indeed, money was always tight. However, Hugh Muirhead was fiercely independent and would never countenance putting himself or his family into debt. If he could not pay cash for something, he could not afford it. He accepted full responsibility for the decisions he had taken in his life and believed firmly that other people should do the same. He regarded himself as being an individual, not belonging to any class. He encouraged this independence of spirit in his son, and often told him: ‘Be yourself, not what people want you to be.’

At secondary school, James was invariably top of his class. Consequently, he was steered towards science subjects and a place at St Andrews University to read medicine. Muirhead applied himself with diligence, but no real enthusiasm. Deep down he knew he did not want to be a doctor. He wanted to be a lawyer.

In the early fifties, when he was a boy, James was fascinated by a programme which he watched through the snow of the black-and-white eleven-inch television his father had bought. Called Boyd QC the programme starred Michael Denison as a barrister who donned wig and gown to defend those unjustifiably accused of committing crimes. While other youngsters followed Watch with Mother for Andy Pandy or The Woodentops, James never missed an episode of Boyd QC. He knew there and then that this was what he wanted to be: the man who stood up for the little guy when he was opposed by the big guy.

One day, James Muirhead went to see the rector and returned home to inform his father that he had finished with science in all its forms, was not going to read medicine but intended to become a barrister.

‘It’s an advocate, unless you are planning to go to England. And what do you know about the law?’ his father replied dryly.

‘As much as I know about medicine.’

‘You’ve always wanted to be a doctor.’

‘No, you’ve always wanted me to be a doctor.’

‘No one in the family has ever had anything to do with the law.’