When I was about sixteen or seventeen months old, my parents took me on a week-long school trip with them. As my dad was a teacher when I was very young, he often took me into school with him on occasions such as sports days, Christmas and various other celebratory events. I have one memory of being half carried, half dragged along a racetrack during one sports day as all the children tried to help me along.

This particular trip, however, did not go so well. My mum was also there, having brought all my stuff and me in the car, while my dad went on the coach with the children and other members of staff. On the morning we were due to go home, my mum and another teacher had had to take one of the children to the hospital for some reason – a bee sting or something. Anyway, dad had left me with the hotel owner while he sorted out the children and got everything packed and organised.

As the bus started driving away down the road, the hotel owner, in something strongly resembling panic, appeared running along behind them, holding me aloft and shouting,

“Don’t you want her? Take this with you!”

I like to imagine this as similar to the scene out of Disney’s The Lion King, where Rafiki, the Mandrill (a type of monkey), holds the newborn Simba up in the air for all the other animals to have a good look at. In reality, however, I’m sure it was nothing like that moment – panic on the hotel owner’s behalf that he might be lumbered with a rather grumpy toddler and my dad hoping that my mum did not find out. She did, of course, but did not seem that bothered. She later told me that all she’d said was,

“Oh well… maybe the excitement will send her to sleep.”