Think for a moment of the question "Why did the chicken cross the road?" There were two men who witnessed the event. One man on each side of the road.

Now on the side the chicken left from the pavement (kerb)dipped down a little to a garden hedge. The man on that side stated emphatically "the chicken crossed the road to escape from a cat that was coming through the hedge."

On the other side of the street a farmer had been carrying a sack of grain with a small hole in it had stopped for a while to talk to a friend. The witness on this side of the road stated equally emphatically. "The chicken crossed the road to eat the grain.

Each statement may have contained an element of the truth, while a third person may have been able to say that the hen house was on the side with the grain.

Nigel Tranter (writer of many novels based on historical characters) once told my brother when looking at history always read accounts from at least three views,the truth will lie somewhere in the middle.