SCENE: OUTDOOR FRENCH RESTAURANT IN PROVENCE. LOCALS SIT AT TABLES, GLASSES OF ROSÉ IN HAND. A WAITRESS MAKES LEISURELY PROGRESS AROUND THE FEW OCCUPIED TABLES EXCHANGING NEWS AND GOSSIP. A LARGE DOG LIES FLAT OUT IN THE SHADE OF AN UPTURNED WOODEN BARREL, A SMALLER DOG WITH A FETCHING SCARF AROUND ITS NECK IS ON SCRAPS PATROL.

ACTION: The waitress approaches our table, indulges us in the conceit that we may be fluent French speakers (one of us is) then asks us if we are from England.

‘I’m from Scotland.’ I answer.

My face is red from the unnatural September sun and unhealthy amounts of wine. A large insect bite shines evilly on my cheek.

‘Oh! That’s not so bad!’ She refers to my nationality, not my bite.

I unpack her throwaway comment as we eat our lunch. I may be from Scotland but have only lived there for half of my life, the previous half split between England and Wales. My wife is fully Scottish and my cousin, Michael lived in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), then the Netherlands and has recently moved to Provence. We are a cultural mélange and difficult to deconstruct into ‘types’ or ‘characters’ or even ‘nationalities’. But it’s something we’re all guilty of, isn’t it? Applying labels to individuals, groups of people, even entire nations without knowing anything about them as people.

It’s an innate human condition, to see ‘others’ as somehow different from ourselves. Politicians work this shamelessly: illegal immigrants; muslims; LGBT+. They whip people into a frenzy of flag waving which at its worst results in genocide. But the first recorded Englishman – Cheddar Man – dates from the 8th millennium BC, had black skin and predated every religion known to man. We were all once immigrants and judging by the way the climate is changing, may all become immigrants again.

We chatted of field recordings along the Zambezi River, of family members no longer with us, our children and when we would meet again. We are on a journey and our paths cross too rarely. He plays his music, I write my books, we both grow older if not wiser and there’s an awareness of time where it once used to be infinite.

On returning to Edinburgh airport, jaded from our RyanAir sardine can flight, we were met by UK customs. In France we all shared the one, efficient and friendly queue: French, Germans, Italians – it didn’t matter. We were all treated with the same courtesy. Here those not in possession of a UK passport were snarled at. ‘That way, non UK line,’ as if they were less than human.

The waitress’s words haunt me still.