Chris, Mary and I went to a barbecue in Somerset. You may think seventy miles is quite a long way to go for a barbecue but it was a special one, and some people had travelled even farther than us. You see it was a bit of a get-together with a branch of my cousins, many of whom we hadn’t seen for seven years or more, from my Dad’s side of the family. In the intervening years some of my first cousins once removed (and even one first cousin twice removed) had brought new members of the family into the world.

I must say the thing that struck me most – even more than the evident good looks shared by all of my blood relatives – was the uncanny family resemblance. Yet stranger still was that that same resemblance occurred also amongst some of the in-laws and non-family members.

“My goodness,” exclaimed a friend of my cousin Stephanie who was hosting the party, “We all look related!”

“Well, we are in Somerset so that’s not unlikely,” piped up my brother Robert.

And everyone laughed, including the lady who had always lived in sight of the tower on the hilltop in the distance, which we could see from the garden.