I attended a boarding school in Edinburgh while my family lived in Kenya, so, when it came to my student days, living with my parents was something of a novelty.

I studied law at The University of Edinburgh. Coinciding with starting there, my parents returned from Africa to live in Linlithgow.

My father was a Church of Scotland minister. He went on to become a moderator. The family move to Linlithgow was to the Old Manse there, which used to be surrounded by fields, but now by housing estates.

I lived in Linlithgow throughout my time at university. I commuted into Edinburgh daily, in an old Morris Eight car. I was often accused of treating the manse like a B&B; I spent most of my time at the university. There, of course, I was heavily into politics, being active in the Liberal Club.

Then I graduated and got married, whereupon, I moved out of the manse and into a rented cottage on the outskirts of Edinburgh.

The Linlithgow house was a typical Church of Scotland manse — it was very large, very rambling and very cold. There was no central heating in those days; we had a coal stove in the hallway, which singularly failed to heat the bedroom I shared with Michael, my brother, in the attic space.

We were two among five children, so the size of the house suited us fine.

It was ideal for a big family as it had about five bedrooms. I do remember it having only one bathroom, which, as you can imagine, created a mad scramble in the mornings.

Michael and I were encouraged to decorate our rooms as we wished, because the Church had no money to do up the top half of the house. So, my room was a combination of red, yellow and blue walls — quite unbelievably awful.

Over 40 years on, that garish colour combination is still there. I know that because I had occasion to visit the house a year ago. I bumped into the owners at an event and they invited me to come and take a look.

The manse had its own outbuildings for horses and coaches. In time, those outbuildings were sold to form an entirely separate house, but back then it was the outbuildings that I kept the car in. It even had its own pit, which was handy, because the car constantly needed patching up. I did a lot of car maintenance.

There was also a glebe, which ran to three or four acres, where I could take the family dog — a Shetland sheepdog — for walks. It was a great place to live.

On a student grant, I had to do my own car maintenance. I always had a holiday job during the summer to keep the car going. For two summers, I took people around The Binns in West Lothian, a National Trust for Scotland house, and home to Tam Dalyell . He was a young teacher at the time. For another two summers, I took tourists around The Trossachs in a minibus.

My parents became very keen I should drive a car rather than ride a motorbike after my brother collided with a car on his and broke his leg. We both moved on to old cars. My Morris Eight cost me £75, which was a hefty expense. Michael was a student at Edinburgh too, studying medicine. He is about two years younger than me.

I still have the table where I revised for my university exams. And an armchair which an aunt gave me. The view from the attic window looked out on to fields. The house, in general, was furnished with old, large furniture, much of which came out of the Lyon & Turnbull salerooms in Edinburgh.

The main family room was probably the loveliest part of the house; it had huge french windows that opened on to the garden at the back. The dining room was awkwardly positioned as it was across the hallway from the kitchen.

Towards the end of my father’s ministry, he oversaw the building of a new manse down by the church — St Michael’s. It is by the loch and was a much more sensible arrangement.

I was never the most regular attendee at lectures, because of my political activity. I became president of the Liberal Club and then of the Student Representative Council — which these days merits taking a sabbatical, but not back then. During that time, I got to know Jo Grimond very well. He was the rector at the university. He got me into politics, big time.

On one occasion, he came to have dinner with us in Linlithgow. I was less nervous than my mother, who bought a new dinner set in his honour.

Lord David Steel will be appearing at the Wigtown Book Festival today

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