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I felt ill. I could barely lift my head and the conversation buzzed around me. The words became jumbled and I could no longer make them out, as the kitchen walls seemed to close in. It was like a bout of cholera, the claustrophobia enhanced by the cramped kitchen and the desperate shows of love and affection my poor family poured on me.

‘He was killed on his first mission over Europe,’ Dad said. ‘He was a rear gunner, a real brave soul.’

It was all too much, yet another kick in the face. Even though I had been around so much death, lived it and breathed it, nothing prepared me for the loss of such a close friend. All I could think was, Why then am I still alive? By what miracle had I returned home? Suddenly I snapped. I slammed my fork down on Mum’s finest crockery plate and stood up, the chair screeching on the wooden floor. The room fell silent. It was so unlike me to make a scene, completely out of character. I knew they were trying to help but I just couldn’t stand it.

‘I’m going out,’ I announced. I was already half out the door when a chorus of ‘I’ll come with you’ and ‘Come back, Alistair’ rang out.

But I was off. I needed to be alone. My head felt like it was going to pop and fresh air seemed the only answer.

I walked and walked. Past the Co-op and up Auchinyell Brae, I hardly broke stride. Before long I was miles from home, walking with purpose but without forethought or direction. Aberdeen could not possibly have physically changed much during the war years but somehow I failed to recognise any of the surroundings. It all felt surreal and nothing seemed familiar. God knows where I walked but I kept on going, strolling without respite. Even when it got dark I kept on going and going, step after step, on my own enforced route march.

I did not return home until around five o’clock the next morning. My parents were still up, obviously worried sick. As I crawled up the stairs to find a bed to lie down in, utterly exhausted, they asked where I had been.

‘We’ve been out looking for you,’ Mum pleaded, begging for information.

‘And all night,’ Dad chimed in. ‘We even called the police. What have you to say for yourself, son? It’s freezing outside.’

I hated myself. I knew they were trying to be there for me but I just wanted to be on my own. I had lived a solitary and sorry life for so long that love only suffocated me. In many respects my family felt like strangers. How does one describe the feelings of a person who has been through something like we had, something no one could ever have envisaged? They could never comprehend the depths of man’s inhumanity to man or the awfulness of an existence that consisted of surviving one day at a time.

I flopped down on my old bed in the room that I had helped build with my father all those years ago and slept all day and the next night. The recurring nightmares of the railway came again, leaving me afraid to lie down.

When I went downstairs the next day I ate a quick and light breakfast before promptly disappearing again. For the next few months my daily routine consisted of long and pointless walks. After a while I started looking at people’s faces trying to spot anybody I knew from before the war but I never did. Not in the whole town. But I did purposely avoid my old haunts, especially the plumbers’ merchants, Duthie Park and the dance halls.

I created mayhem at home, where I was morose, rude and short on patience. My sister Rhoda, God bless her, was so supportive and in many ways eased the situation, although I cannot ever remember thanking her, such was the state of my mind. I was irrational and unable to control my actions. I wanted only to be on my own, outside the four walls, wandering aimlessly in and around the streets of Aberdeen.

After a few weeks pounding the strange streets of my home town my body began to fall apart. I started to suffer with pains from beriberi, which attacked my legs, back and arms, and the cold winter air did not help. When my bowels started