Robert Whitford is a retired civil servant who spent most of his career working on overseas health projects on behalf of the Northern Ireland government. In the course of this work, many interesting and amusing situations arose and these are recorded in his first book, Born in the USSR, published in 2018. In the late 1980s, just before embarking on this international career, he took the decision to invest in a holiday property in Castelnaud-de-Gratecambe in South West France. It was a good decision as the apartment was an ideal place in which to chill out between difficult and challenging overseas missions. It has also been the location for many eventful holidays over the intervening years. Lighter moments from those years are captured in the author’s second book, That’s your Lot (& Garonne), published in February 2020.Both books have been re-published on Amazon in 2021 along with the author’s third book, The Days of our Lives, which tells the full story of his life.Throughout his career, Robert Whitford has had many and varied contacts with the institutions of the European Union. These have included: a short secondment to UKREP in Brussels, negotiations in the committees of the European Council leading to a special EU agricultural support programme for the Less Favoured Areas in Northern Ireland and the implementation of a number of international health development programmes under contracts with the European Commission. As a result of these contacts, the author has developed an understanding and appreciation of the European Union and the positive impact its institutions have had on many aspects of life at home and abroad.Consequently, in common with most of his fellow-countrymen in Northern Ireland, he has been deeply affected by the outcome of the 2016 referendum and the resultant departure of the UK from the European Union. Developments since the referendum have provoked a line of thought that has resulted in the story of The Flight of the Gaels.