When I look in the mirror I see this crusty old profile looking back at me. Sometimes I am not even sure it is me- the years go by. My eldest son was forty recently- impossible to believe.

We have been holidaying at Croyde on the north Devon coast since he was three, and his younger brother a babe in arms. So what better place to return to, to celebrate a landmark birthday. On the day, Ben took his father, his father-in-law, John and his ten-year-old daughter Bethan, for a five-mile walk around Baggy Point to Putsborough.  It is as fine a coastal headland as can be found anywhere and we stopped, as we often used to, to make a brew in the lee of a stone wall.

Twenty-five years ago, probably to the day, Ben and I had risen early and did the same walk. Out on the point stands an old wooden coastguard watch-pole. We both climbed it in 1987 and took it in turns to take each other’s photographs. We did the same today. It is significant that back then it was the son who stopped one step short of the top, while this time it was the father who was a step short. Maybe Bethan, who made it to the first step this time, will bring her father back here in another twenty-five years and we will see then who stands on top. It is what life is all about.