Unsurprisingly as an only child, in a family with only one other child, who was seriously disabled, I was completely obsessed with becoming an adult. The power balance was completely out of whack in my extended family and life experience. Childrens T.V or radio was projected at children by more adults and nursery education did not exist. I was five before I met any more than a handful of children.

I don’t think any of this was particularly negative, I was just fascinated by the adults around me, who lived lives that seemed vivid beyond the boundaries of my small existence. After 5 there was a  realisation that real life was not as I had always known it.

Most people remember their first day at school. Mine was memorable because for the first time in my life there were more children than adults in the room.

Now my childish obsession seems rather tame. Just becoming an adult would have happened naturally.