Character study

Will Lyons, a delightful companion, is not only a friend of mine. He has one of the finest palates in these islands, and has already been immortalised by Alexander McCall Smith in the 44 Scotland Street series. Those books feature another character, an appalling man called Bruce Anderson, who in no way resembles this columnist. For one thing, he is less than half my age. He also spends much of his time breaking girls’ hearts throughout the New Town. Chance would be a fine thing.

Anyway, Sandy McCall Smith’s fictional Bruce Anderson decides at one stage that he might like to become a wine merchant, so consults the real Will Lyons, who remains as courteous as ever — almost implausibly so — while the no-resemblance Anderson makes a complete pillock of himself. Will Lyons did join the wine trade, although ‘trade’ might not seem an appropriate way to describe Berry Bros & Rudd, who recruited him. You have to be formidable to play for that team. He is. Yet again, Berry’s proved that as they approach middle life after more than 300 years in the business, longevity has bred cunning.

Knowledgeable though he be, Will is anything but a monoglot oenophile. He reminds me of an admirable fellow called Roger Holloway, alas now departed. Roger was a wine merchant, a successful businessman in Hong Kong and the father of a Tory MP, Adam, whose awkward-squad integrity has thus far come between him and preferment. Roger was also a clergyman. Will too is drawn to God. He enjoys climbing in the Scottish uplands, sometimes with his father-in-law, Martin Wemyss, a retired rear admiral. Walking round Iona, or on high places overlooking sea lochs with long vistas of distant islands, longer still of the Atlantic’s vastness, Will says that he has felt the presence of the Holy Spirit, which persists after the holiday gives way to the train journey south and there are no longer any hills summoning him to lift his eyes.