There are 11 months between us, and my surprise arrival may well have generated some ‘heat’ for our father at the time. Me on the left, John with one hand protecting me and the other picking my pocket, perhaps. His birthday is on the same date as the King’s, so he gets a reminder. The cartoonist and the antique dealer, who would have thought it, both now at an age where we are both not quite antiques but might be termed ‘collectables’.

The plan was to take a trip to West Wales to celebrate my brother’s significant birthday. I thought it might be a good idea to add to the weekend trip by taking a rare trip to see my ex-first business partner, Graham, and his wife Margaret. Landing on them for a selection of free meals and a shedload of reminiscing over those early days of drawing together in downtown Shepherd’s Bush. Graham and Margaret moved out of the verdant pastures of the Bush to the wilds of West Wales, where they were both brought up.

Graham started in business again, bringing Graphic Design to the Welsh in Pembrokeshire. He and his new business partner, Tim, built up a fine business with a first-rate reputation, but he always wanted to devote his energies to drawing landscapes of his homeland, and he did. Building an enviable reputation with prints of his work now available throughout West Wales and further afield. Take a look. I don’t quite know how he does it.

They made me really welcome, and we had a brilliant time, venturing right to the end of the Peninsular to St Davids, where the sea boils like it’s got huge potato rocks. The wind whistling around finds the smallest crevice in any jacket with icy blasts. How anyone boards a lifeboat and goes out in this sort of weather is really beyond comprehension.

The nearest I got to it was a telephoto lens.  St David’s Cathedral was epic, worth the trip, and the tea rooms offered a wide selection of Welsh Cakes. “Traditional?” was the question behind the counter. ‘I suppose it is, ‘ I replied, thinking that she was commenting on the cakes, when in fact she was offering a choice of flavour.

After a few nights with Graham and Margaret, I was supposed to go over to the other side of the county to meet up with John and family for his Birthday weekend, but we had a surprise snowfall, so I stayed an extra night. G and M drove me over the next day, taking us over the Preseli Hills, where they had had quite a large dusting of snow. Stunning landscapes in every direction, it was like being within a Graham Brace original. We all met at the old Workhouse where we were staying.

A weekend in a Workhouse might not sound too promising, but we had lots of fun and managed to keep ourselves nicely warm around a blazing log fire. Eleven of us were expertly fed by my youngest niece, Beth, an ace in the kitchen. Afternoons on the beach, working up another appetite and experiencing the raw energy of the North coast of Pembrokeshire and chasing after the variety of family dogs, or were they chasing us?

I was lucky enough to be driven back most of the way to Gloucestershire by my nephew, a big cheese chief designer for a menswear company. Coincidentally, a graduate like myself who went to the Manchester School of Art, whose son shares the same birth date as my mother, as do my own twin grandsons.

Someone was looking over us.