The highlight of my month was the reunion of Edinburgh’s East of Scotland College of Agriculture HND class of 1986.

Hugh Henney and Gus Armstrong had gone to extraordinary lengths to get people to come from as far away as Kenya, Ukraine, Ireland, England and, of course, Scotland, to meet at a much frequented pub in 1986, the Peartree, before going on to dinner at the five-star Balmoral Hotel.

It was great to catch up on old friends 25 years later, most of which have not changed much except for the thinning and greying of hair; plus there is a healthy collection of wives, ex-wives, husband (there was only one girl in our year), ex-husband, children and even grandchildren in our wake.

To hear of the achievements of all the people there was fantastic, and a great tribute to their abilities. All of us agreed that while there have been some very difficult times in agriculture, it has nevertheless been a great choice of career and will continue to be even more so in the future.

A few absentees from the gathering included Angus Howie, who turned up 24 hours earlier, but couldn’t understand why there was no one else in the pub. He must have been quite annoyed, especially as he had been the only one of us who had booked into the five-star hotel for the night.

Various amusing events of our student past were recalled, like, for example, when a deadline was given for all to return to the bus in Paris and as expected four were left at the top of the Eiffel Tower. We also discovered that one of our more successful colleagues has business cards with the letters BSc after his name, and as far as we know did not go on to do a degree later. I will not stoop to naming him.

Farmer Focus: Neil Thomson