I had a happy childhood. I was born on 10 November 1933 at 6 a.m. in Haynesville, Louisiana, but we moved five months later to Shreveport. We lived in a middle-class neighbourhood. My mother and father entertained a lot – they had a modest little house. It wasn’t anything big but it was always overflowing with people. My mother loved to be surrounded by people, she loved people. My father liked to drink. But I have always remembered one of the things he said to me:
‘When you do something nice for someone, forget it immediately. When someone does something nice for you, never forget it’.
Extract from Jim Haynes’ memoir Thanks for Coming! Encore!, published by Polwarth Publishing, Edinburgh 2014