A maestro spadesman

I WAS telling somebody the other night that the most creative thing I observed throughout last year was Denis Dougan planting a few ridges of spuds in the corner of his garden, back in my home parish in the north west.

It was nostalgic, every effortless, smooth stroke of it. I watched him for 15 or 20 minutes, and it would have been longer only I was called away.

He is no longer a young man, our Denis, but his wrists and arms are about 20 years younger than the rest of his wiry self. He is of a dying breed, maybe one of the last few maestro spadesmen of my youth. They were true rural craftsmen.