AFTER 32 years this is my last column for The Irish Field. I seem to have made it through to 70, so I suppose that means I’ve been writing for a great newspaper for almost half my life.

I wouldn’t have had this job but for my predecessor Jonathan Powell, a good friend who recommended me to the then editor Valentine Lamb. I remember the interview at Wheeler’s fish restaurant in Soho quite clearly. “I hear you want to be the British correspondent there’s no money in it,” he said.