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From the time I was about six, Roy and I would walk along the drive between the milking parlour and our bungalow, lined with alternate bushes of double-white and purple lilac interspersed with laburnum, whose poisonous qualities are belied by its outward beauty. On and on we would walk, to whichever field the cows were grazing. On what today seems like a very small farm, the distance felt long to my short legs. Then I would stand at the top of one of the all-steep fields and call: cuuuu'p, cuuuu'p, cuuuu'p, cuuum'-on, which would make some of the cows look up. I would say the magic Scottish command to Roy and he'd be away, but he always slowed down once he'd rounded the cows up, and walked them home gently.

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My tenth year, 1963, was the coldest for two hundred years. I enjoyed it immensely. The snowdrifts were beautiful and excitingly challenging. I had a hand-me-down teddy-bear suit, sent by an American relative, which zipped me into a warm and draught-free onesie. The walk from our house to the farmyard required the skill and courage of an Arctic explorer, which is what in my mind I became.

The trials my parents had to overcome that winter were huge. Frequently there would be no electricity for long periods of time, but my resourceful father managed to attach belts from the milking machine to the tractor pulley he normally used to saw firewood. With the pulsators connected to the tractor battery he managed to milk our herd of Ayrshires twice a day as usual.

Our neighbour, Frank Moy, took a three-legged stool and set to work to milk his Dairy Shorthorns by hand. He just had time for a very strong cup of coffee after finishing the morning milking before commencing on the afternoon stint. I learned more from his empathy with his cows and deep knowledge of most things than from any other person. Frank demonstrated to me just how much cows can be trusted when they are never hurried or bullied. He walked his Shorthorns in for milking through part of the village, winding slowly downhill to his farmyard. He opened the gate from their field and then followed behind them. They knew where to go and behaved beautifully, walking into the traditional milking shed and stationing themselves in their own individual stalls, ready to be fed and milked.

Getting the cows milked and the milk into ten-gallon churns in that cold winter was one thing, but taking it to rendezvous with the lorry that could no longer drive to the village because of the ice and snow was an altogether different and more dangerous adventure. In fact, for the first six weeks of Arctic weather, the milk had to be tipped away. By mid-February, my father, Frank and other men from the village had forged a passageway by shovel and fore-loader through one long section of snowdrifts, so that our tractor and transport box could slide down a very steep lane where the snow had not drifted, to meet the milk lorry on the main road each day. Richard or I sat in the transport box to make sure the churns of milk did not tip over. On the way back the tractor would gather speed in an attempt to get up the steep icy slope. Often we didn't quite make it to the top, and had to shovel more grit onto the road before having another go. After this, it became possible to bring in supplies of fresh food: the first for six weeks. I wonder how many people could manage without fresh supplies for six weeks today? It wasn't easy then and everyone went short in one way or another but it was a different world. None of us had heard of a supermarket, let alone seen one. Most people had some home-grown food stored away and went shopping only occasionally.

When summer finally arrived, our tiny, remote village organised a fete, the highlight of which was to be a hundred-yard dash, open to all ages, with an alluring cash prize of £5 that proved irresistible to a group of fit young men from surrounding villages. Richard, aged fourteen and wearing his shorts, running vest and prized spiked running shoes, was a contender. My thirty-seven-year-old father arrived a few seconds before the start, still wearing wellingtons and his cap, and outran them all.