…and that was most things. Whether it was a gang of girls who played by a harbour inspired by the places we visited whilst on a family sailing trip on my dad’s yacht, or a school in my grandmother’s flat, or on holiday at Pontins, I always had to make up a story about it, especially after I started reading comics, which gave me further inspiration for plot.

I attended a junior school that had been opened in the 1860s, and after being told a few facts about it, I imagined a child being late to school on the day it opened.

Dolls played an important role in my stories. My siblings did join in from time to time, but it was the dolls that helped me to act out my fantasies. After all, they are cooperative, and they don’t argue.

However, few of these ideas developed into pieces of work during adulthood. In fact, there is just one, a novel developed from a story I made up after reading “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

Maybe others might develop in the future – who knows? I have a lot of new ideas.