But what were you doing there perched above the North Sea, with you yourself pushing 60?

Helicopter approaching Sumburgh Airport, Shetland, at twenty-past-five on Friday. At least I’ll have the weekend, you must have thought.

When it ditched into the sea and turned over ‘in seconds’, did it take you too long to crank up your old bones and get the hell out of there? Perhaps you banged your head struggling to get out of the cabin, or just couldn’t keep afloat till rescued, like the younger ones managed to do.

Pushing 60 you should have been pootling round the Edinburgh Festival – naah, too many tourists.Or home in Inverness, ensconced in the Castle Tavern, chasing down the whisky with a half of heavy. Instead your name came up at the police press conference: one of four fatalities. Low key affair: handful of reporters, rows of empty blue chairs in the hotel room they always use.

You made it back to Aberdeen on the Monday morning ferry; paper work complete (somebody has to sign for these bodies, y’ken), transferred to the waiting hearse after a respectable amount of time for passengers to disembark.

Sorry it wasn’t the weekend you were hoping for.