I remember I didn’t like getting told off by teachers. Or being left by my mum in any way, shape or form. I was four when mum took me to Derby High School Kindergarten. I lasted a day. There was a small wooden climbing frame in the middle of the room, water and sand trays around the sides. Everything was fine when mum was there.

I loved playing in the home corner, using the pans to cook on the stove, putting the washing on (how stereotypical). I used to love the advert for the A la Carte kitchen toy (Cue kitchness - I thought it was pronounced Anna Kart and that girl was Anna 😃). She made real beans for her dad. I never understood how she could do that - like get the beans into that plastic saucepan. Where did they come from? I never got real beans, mine were just imaginary. I’m sure I wasn’t the only child to think like this. I never got the kitchen, it was only ever a beautiful fantasy.

In the nursery I needed a wee. Mum came with me and waited outside. She told me she’d wait. I recall my horror and fear at coming out of the cubicle to Mrs Morley’s huge frame staring down at me. My mum had gone. Mrs Morley had told her to go, that I’d be fine. I cried. She gruffly told me not to be a baby. I was mortified that mum had just gone and left me. It was traumatic. A part of me had disappeared.

I can’t remember the rest of the session. Maybe I even had a good time, but to my dear little four year old’s mind, freedom and familiarity came the moment I got out of that classroom and back into my mum’s arms. I didn’t go back to that school until I was twelve and that’s a story for another time.