Fred lives on the edge of Bradford in a house which looks like it has never left the 1960s. His hallway overflows with fishing paraphernalia, whilst his attic houses a fully functioning dark room: bottles, trays and developing tanks, all meticulously organised into a careful workflow.
The real joy however is Fred's garden. He told us once that his mother helped him fall in love with gardening at the age of five. His garden therefore is a testament to eighty years of gardening knowledge and understanding: a labyrinthine maze of potatoes and carrots, towering sweetcorn, gnarled apple and pear trees, raspberry canes, ripe tomatoes, and juicy strawberries. My daughter loves exploring there in the summer, and so do I.
Before she became a vicar, my wife had been a primary school teacher, and of course I was in my first year of running a PGCE course. Our discussion that day therefore turned quite quickly to teaching. And so it was that we ended up talking about Fred's "remedial class" over a mid-week discount carvery at the local pub. This is a story about that meal.