Meanwhile Janet was offered a season at the Stratford Festival following the death of her parents and sister Susan in 1991. We moved there the following year, bought a house in the country, and stayed until 1999.

I became a Jack of all trades – took up advertising sales, cab driving, jobbing for the Stratford Festival, priest, plague victim, trade show sales, pizza delivery, editing and publishing. Oh yes, and delivering circus tickets for the Firefighters Association. Then one day I picked up a book on cells and molecules and fell in love with proteins for the next ten years.

Couldn’t stop reading. As if I wasn’t spread thin enough as it was (maybe it was something to do with sitting in an empty cab at 1 a.m. 5 days a week in the middle of a Stratford winter). But whether it was driving, or sales or editing, I met so many people and heard so many great stories I’m just as proud of those times as any other, anywhere. And once in a while you got to help someone. Nevertheless, after ten years in Stratford I was yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel, when in 2000 I got the phone call…