Graham died from a coronary on his daughter, Christina’s, wedding reception (to put a bit of a dampener on things, Mum said, no doubt correctly). The story goes that Glenda, another of the daughters, said to him “If you’d wanted to create a stir, why didn’t you just stand on the table and down trou.” They carted him out to the ambulance, and the last thing he said was “If I’d known this was going to happen, I would have changed my underpants.” He died soon after.

In the second world war he had the same rifle number as his father did in the first world war. Quite a coincidence.

Mum says he was very funny, great repartee, and very slick talker. Lovely man, apparently.

Graham was an accountant in Dunedin and he married …er…. (pause from Mum as she tries to remember the name}… Joyce Ewart. They moved to ChCh and always came by to visit my parents. One day he backed on to the stove, and burned a hole in the seat of his trousers.

He and Joyce went for trip to Germany and he had a heart attack. Mum thinks so, anyway. But he survived, only to die of a heart attack at his daughter’s wedding. He commented, as he was carried out to the ambulance “If I’d known this was going to happen I would have changed my underpants”. Typical Graham remark, says Mum.

I visited Joyce in December, 2008; she was then living in Christchurch, in Althorp Place. A charming lady, she showed me all her records of the McPherson family, and a letter which her uncle, Benjamin, had written to her father, Adam. I’ve got a lot of information from Joyce, so a big thank you to her. In payment I fixed her range hood! Hooray. Let’s hope it stays fixed.