“Their forages for the fruit of the field, the woods and the hill had them coming back tired and sunburnt.

David was still with The Black Watch but due to be demobbed soon. They had no children, so to fill the days Mahri determined to find a job. As always it was difficult for her. She had several jobs and then landed up in a Pakistani restaurant working for ‘Fat Joe’. I watched her grow paler and thinner. “Mahri, what hours do you work?” I asked her. “I get time off till midday but sometimes I work till two in the morning,” she replied.

I whittled out more information and found out he was paying her a low wage and, what was more, wasn’t paying his dues in tax and insurance for her and refused to sign a necessary form.

Mahri wouldn’t let me interfere until one day I said: “If you ever have to leave that job or are sacked you will be in trouble with the government. No tax has been paid.”

Mahri could never bear the thought of being in any kind of trouble. “Will you go and see if you can get Joe to sign the form?” she asked. Loose end

I needed no second invitation. When I went into the restaurant he was missing as usual. I was confronted by a handsome Pakistani waiter carrying a tray. I told him what I required.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll see to it and give it to Mahri when it’s signed.” Put off again I thought.

“I’ll come and get it tomorrow,” I said, “and if I don’t, there will be trouble.” I didn’t get it, of course. As usual, when I called he wasn’t available.

Instead I went round to the job centre where Mahri had got the job and told my sorry tale. His business was investigated and subsequently closed down when it was discovered he was doing all sorts of illegal things. The government got the money due to them but, as is often the way, Mahri never got a penny.

Mahri was now at a loose end. It was high summer. Inchmichael was hotching with children. Mahri loved children, so I asked her: “How about coming down to help keep an eye on them while their parents are busy?” She’s been coming down on weekdays ever since.

For Ronnie and Judith, setting up their winery was more difficult than going into the shed-making business. Although much was done within the family as far as possible, plumbing, electricity, building, plastering, concrete, of necessity quite a few people from the outside world had to be involved. It had to conform to all environmental health regulations for instance. And then there was Customs and Excise.

They, we thought, would be the bogey men but as it turned out,they could not have been more helpful.

Somewhere to have a bond in which to keep the bottled wine had to be found. Again the old farm steading supplied the perfect place.

Dark cool buildings that no one had been in for years with thick stone walls, no windows; the old meal and cake house. From one dark corner, a huge boiler had to be removed. It had once been used to boil up small potatoes, chats they were called, to mix with meal and feed to the pigs.

Also turnips for feeding to cattle in the winter had been stored in this place. The turnip cutter was still there and hadn’t been used for years. The shed boys got busy making racks to hold the bottles of wine.

Henry made a strong door of steel and other things including a huge Heath Robinson sort of water boiler. It’s still in use. Other necessary equipment they managed to get second hand. Determined

“You are going to make wine,” people would say. “Wine, when there are surpluses of the stuff about. Lakes of it, in fact.”

“Mine will be different,” Ronnie would reply. “You wait and see.”

There was of course a great deal of work involved. Sometimes Ronnie and Judith were at it night and day, especially in the summer months.

To begin with they grew the raspberries and strawberries and collected the elderberries, oak leaves and brambles from the hills and fields around.

But as the winery grew bigger they gave up growing raspberries and strawberries. They just couldn’t do everything. The farm boys were involved in other things and had no wish to go back into berries. Besides, there were farmers round about who could supply them with excellent fruit.

But still their forages for the fruit of the field, the woods and the hill, especially in spring and autumn, had them coming back tired, scratched and sunburnt.

One thing Ronnie was quite determined to grow after a while was elder trees. He began to need a lot of both berries and flowers.

There were plenty of wild places where the trees had a foothold but sometimes the fruit was difficult to get out. Often they had to scramble through enormous thickets of nettles or thistles, the best always seemed to grow in the most inaccessible spots.

He would plant his own. He got one or two odd corners from his brothers and in every available spot in would go an elder tree, down the farm road, on the banks of the pow, everywhere.

Today we have a couple of elder tree orchards. I read somewhere they had them long, long ago. Their fruits and flowers were known to be valuable for medicinal and cooking purposes but they were so common in Scotland and considered a poor man’s fruit, that elder went entirely out of fashion.

My grandmother may have known of their usefulness but she died before I was born.

Ronald and Judith made an elderberry wine from the beginning. It was rich and dark, of an indefinable red colour. It looked wonderful before you tasted it. Refreshing

One day, after being out for lunch at a neighbouring farmer’s delightful restaurant, I came back raving about elderflower cordial.

The whole meal had been deliciously flavoured with herbs growing in their own acres but the elderflower was the biggest surprise – cool, refreshing and a wonderful taste. I never expected it.

Ronnie and Judith were looking round to make something non-alcoholic at the time. “How about elderflower cordial?” I said extolling its virtues.

They eventually developed an elderflower champagne. They made a light brew, and had it aerated and bottled. It was bubbly and fresh like champagne. They were in business.

Because of the law concerning patent, they knew they would be in trouble if they named their product champagne, but that was certainly the image it evoked.

Ronnie and Judith wandered round supermarkets and wine shops looking at all the champagne bottles and chose the one they liked the best.

They had a similar label made just using the word elderflower written in an attractive gold scroll and added a gold top. It looked good and tasted delicious. Later they won an award for it.

From the beginning the wine makers had an image for the wine that they intended to stick to. The first priority was it had to taste good, be good. No short cuts, no expense spared in the ingredients used. More tomorrow.