He and wife Gillian, 68, a retired doctor, have three children of their own: Nicholas, 39, a plumber and musician; Zoe, 35, an art director for film and television; and Katrina, 34, who designs home-wear and fabrics. Does he wish they had carried on the family tradition? “Not at all. In Dad’s days, it was such an interesting profession – different to now. It was 85-90 per cent farm work – my father would answer 20-plus calls a day: a cow calving, then stitching up pigs which had been fighting. Every call was an adventure. Now it’s principally small animals in the surgery, and the 90 dairy herds locally of my youth have been reduced to two.