User defined function

I need to write a function to return the first of december of the year
previous to the current year. Part of my problem is I'm not sure how
to escape quotes in function definitions. I am looking at something
along the lines of

CREATE FUNCTION startofregyear(date) RETURNS date AS '
SELECT text_datetime('01/12/' ¦¦ float8_text(datepart('year',$1)-1))
AS answer;
' LANGUAGE 'SQL';

but clearly this won't work because of the large number of single
quotes. I've tried escaping the quotes in the SELECT line with
backslashes, but that doesn't seem to do it.

Can anyone tell me if this function should work, once I sort out the
escaping?

Thanks,
Moray

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Moray(dot)McConnachie(at)computing-services(dot)oxford(dot)ac(dot)uk