When I was a teenager, and saw things in black and white, I recall thinking that death was too good for Ian Paisley. Many years later, I almost met him. One of our ministers was doing a speech on the School Fruit and Veg Scheme. I remember she was nervous about it and gave her young speech writer hell because he had used the phrase ‘suite of measures’ five or six times in the course of a fairly short speech! Because she was anxious about it, she wanted us in the box in case supplementary questions came up, but things ran late and she didn’t finally get to make the speech until about 10pm, by which time there were only half a dozen left in the house – Ian Paisley was the one who snored loudly throughout!