Hearing some George Gershwin music on the radio earlier on brought back a beautiful memory. It’s the Autumn of 1968. I’m in the refectory of the newly-built Mountbatten Building in Edinburgh’s Grassmarket. The building is a hotel nowadays, but back then it was the latest addition to Heriot-Watt University’s campus. The refectory is practically empty, that quiet time before the loudmouth Hooray Henrys with their three O-levels turn up in Daddy’s Lotus Elan. All I can see through the ceiling-high windows is early morning mist and the silhouette of the janitor sweeping up leaves in the courtyard below. It’s not cold outside, though, and one of the windows is open. The janitor is a tall, thin man with a large hooked nose and a permanent scowl. Naturally, everyone calls him Lurch. Suddenly, I can hear Lurch whistle as he sweeps. He’s whistling the tune to It Ain’t Necessarily So from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess. His notes rise up slowly through the mist, clear and perfect. So clear and perfect and ethereally plaintive that I don’t want the whistling to end; I want to stay in that moment for ever.