He was born on the top floor of what was then a tower block of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital in the centre of Norwich. The hospital site is now flats with a new hospital being built just a couple of miles from where I am writing this.
In those days, women in labour had to somehow get to the top of this tower block. You could imagine the scene if the lift was slow or not in use. I could never understand why the delivery floor wasn't at the bottom rather than the top of the tower.
Anyway, everything went well. I was tired out because the birth was in the early hours of the morning and the previous evening I had run 20 miles as part of my preparations for a marathon. Over the next two days when my wife was in hospital the staff became a touch alarmed.
One, I seem to remember, assured her that there was nothing wrong with the baby. It was all down to the regular appearance of clergymen to her bedside. The reason was quite simple. Anne has always been a very active Methodist wherever we have lived. We hadn't lived in Hethersett too long, having moved back from the Midlands and previously having lived in Beccles in Suffolk.
The first visitor was the Methodist Minister from Beccles the Rev Al Loades - a wonderful man who I remember with great affection. After him came the Hethersett Minister the Rev Brian Dann who I also remember with great affection. Brian now lives up north. Then the trio was completed by a visit from the Rev Trevor Hughes, a remarkable man who was a retired Methodist Minister who was still active in Hethersett. We had to explain to the staff why all these men wearing dog collars kept coming in!
Those were remarkable days. Our early years in the village and our early years as parents. They seem so long ago but at the same time so close.
* * *
We have travelled a bit in Russia and the surrounding countries that used to be part of the USSR. We have been to Moscow and St Petersburg (three times). We have been to Estonia twice (once when it was part of the USSR and once when it was an independent country) and we have been to Latvia (again when it was an independent country).
Back in 1974 Estonia was still part of the USSR but independence was pending. It was a strange situation. We travelled from Moscow to Tallinn as a group with an interpreter who was British but who spoke fluent Russian. When we got to Estonia the people wouldn't talk to him because they thought he was Russian. They immediately changed when he explained he was British.
A similar thing happened to us many years ago when we were in a restaurant in Amsterdam. At the times I was learning to speak Dutch and tried it out in the restaurant. They ignored us. So we spoke to them in English and everything changed. They thought we were German.
But back to Estonia. In Moscow everything was very "behind the iron curtain." Shops were short of goods and everything was very grey. In Estonia things were much brighter and they were working hard on becoming westernised.
A few years ago in Riga in Latvia, it was all systems westernised and much had changed.
Sadly we now seem to be regressing and the news yesterday morning of Russia's invasion into the Ukraine is hugely concerning.
I don't want to go into the politics of things but I can't help but see comparisons between Putin and Stalin. The man justifies his actions with a string of lies and mental instability. I will say no more.
You know how hated he is in the UK by the fact that the Media now address him simply by his last name - Putin.
I'm also amused by the fact that on television when interviewing politicians etc the phrase Good Morning is still used. There wasn't much "Good" about yesterday morning. Perhaps we should just say hello or morning without the Good. Or how about "Bad Morning Mr Politician type."