This is a true story, the details set out as accurately as knowledge and memory permit
Peter was born in Thurso, the most northerly town on mainland Britain, where the wind and the turbulent waters of the Pentland Firth carved the rugged geography of the coast. He was subsequently brought up in a large happy home in Elgin, a sedate market town enfolded by farmlands in the lee of the Grampian hills. His mother was a devout Catholic, her faith inherited from a line of ancestors traceable back to the days of Mary, Queen of Scots and the Auld Alliance. Like many cradle Catholics, her belief was rarely reinforced by intellectual ponderings but was the simple, natural devotion born of practice, ritual and the unquestionable comfort which came with it.
