Here I have learnt your views on politics, religion.

I know how and when you lost your virginity (and why you thought that they might laugh)

I know your doubts and fears, your favourite food.

I know when you are asleep and when here, reading too.

I’ve seen your face, shared a meal and certainly a hug.

But I have no idea of your capacity for human kindness.

Does the air vibrate in a different way so as to alert a child to events not for their eyes, conversations not for their ears?

My mother swears it did not happen – she would have prevented it, protected me – but I know I stood in the doorway of a room, yellow light from a lamp beyond a bed which was taller than me, which… Continue

Six years old, going for a walk with my father.

A field of cows to cross.

I hung back, afraid.

“These won’t hurt you” he said.

“They are all cows, not bulls – these are black and white.”

“Only if they were all black would they’d be bulls.”

Apprehensive, because the summons had had undertones she could not fathom, she sat facing her mother and the next door neighbour, side by side in well-rehearsed collusion: “We were worried you’d thought your father wasn’t your father.”



Her mind see-sawed and swung ... what on EARTH were they on about ... or about to tell her?



“We thought that because he was always strict, you’d thought he didn’t love you and you weren’t really his daughter”



At eight years old… Continue