He gave brilliant advice and brought calm and perspective. 
 
When I was 17, basically a child, and had recently started going out with my boyfriend James, I was worried that I should break up with James because we were going to different universities. Roger told me that good relationships can survive challenges and time apart and bad relationships can fall apart even without these challenges. He used Catherine and Ian’s relationship as an example. He told me I should just see how it went. I remember this conversation so vividly - I know where I was sitting in my house when I talked to him on the phone, what I was wearing - it had that much of an impact on me. I decided not to break up with James pre-emptively and instead to see how it went.
 
20 years later, married to that very same boy and with two kids of my own, his advice was spot on.
 
When we were at Lindsay’s wedding, he told me how he felt he’d ‘fallen in love all over again’ when he described how it felt to hold his grandchild Anna in his arms for the first time and how happy he was being a grandparent.
 
Life with Roger and Jill felt idyllic. They were so kind and welcoming, including in my horse mad phase where I went to ride Jester every day and they let me stay on the farm for weeks at a time 
 
Days on the farm, an aunt and uncle who were in love with each other, who were happy together and worked as a team, Roger and Jill taking me to country shows, Roger teaching me how to drive a quad bike, climbing the big trees on the driveway, learning how to tip a sheep up for shearing, collecting warm fresh eggs from underneath contented hens, staring up at the stars in the night sky out of the skylights above Catherine and Heather’s old beds, being greeting by dogs and cats and sheep at the gate all wanting strokes, experiencing dogs who did exactly what you wanted them to do and cats who climbed all the way up your body for cuddles and stayed on your lap for limitless amounts of time….this was the idyllic and contented life with Roger and Jill on their beautiful farm.