It’s now a year on since I got done and I still haven’t got over it. I get my licence back next week and I can’t wait. It’s been a hell of a year, every small journey has been a major operation. Julia and I have rowed about it over and over again because it’s been so hard on her. It was hard too to have to ask my son for a lift, once he’d passed his test… it sort of reversed the roles. He looked so damned superior as he dangled the keys from his little finger as I negotiated lifts to and from work with him. I can see he won’t like me having the car back.

So what have I learned? I think as a man in his 50s, we were sort of brought up with “one for the road” and that attitude has stayed with us a bit. We don’t go out and get legless like some people but we do just push our luck a bit. We think because we are fine, upstanding citizens, we don’t “do” crime, but drink driving is a crime and its consequences can be one of the worst possible offences. Now when I go out and I’m driving, I don’t touch a drop. I could have killed someone, I could have killed Julia.

Now I have to live with that.