Pessimism? Melancholy? Depression? The established view is that whatever ails Hugh results from his childhood as the clever, but emotionally confused youngest son of highly motivated parents, who invested lots in him and expected plenty back. His father, William "Ran" Laurie, was a GP, working in the sprawl of Oxford council estates that housed workers from the old British Leyland factory. Young Hugh appears to have idolised his father (and certainly understands the piquancy of his playing a doctor for hundreds of times more money than Ran earned from actually being one). But he had a troubled relationship with his late mother, Patricia, who he suspected – at least until he grew up and understood more – didn't like him.