For me, the Scottish male is the most unattractive of creatures. Of the many things there was to rebel against when I was younger he was well to the fore. How pleased I was to learn at sixteen that there were other criteria by which one could live a life besides those laid down by the older men I had known.

My grandfather was a good example. I never liked him much and got the feeling he didn’t like me either. Maybe he sensed I wasn’t the tough and rugged type and the thing to do with sensitive types in the old days was to try and bash it out of them.

Still, I had no trouble in passing all that off. In the 60s sensitivity in a male was becoming fashionable. Such men could develop cachet. The central aspects of my personality which at one time would have been a liability began to have real currency. People like my grandfather, in the context of emergent feminism with its preference for softer males, seemed like dinosaurs. Rather than feel intimidated by his type I was able to disregard them as no longer relevant. Most Scotsmen as I saw them belonged to this category.

I should say though, that male sensitivity without some kind of edge is not all a good thing. Far from it. Too much of that can make a man unfit for the world. The parts of me that were able to cut through and make a difference - ambition, desire for power, survival through adversity etc. - probably had much in common with my grandfather and his tough regimen. Though these are not all necessarily Scottish traits, they were native to him. If there’s a genetic inheritance there, maybe I might be thankful for it.