While school was fun, home was even more so. By this time my house was full of animals. Four cats and three dogs after our original dog and cat got pregnant at the same time. I don’t know what mum was thinking. What a challenge for her. I loved the kittens and played endlessly with them. I found my soul sister in a little Siamese cat called Amy. We were best friends for her relatively short life. I could often be found skipping and singing round the house holding a long piece of string with a possé of cats and dogs chasing after me. They were good times. I was lucky to have so many animals siblings. It was wonderful.

I had human friends too. Angela was my best friend. We played out together though her mum let her stay up later than mine. Once she did a poo in the garden because she was locked out the house and her dog ate it. I was astounded and repulsed in equal measure. We laughed a lot about it and thought her dog was weird. I shouldn’t have been so surprised as my dogs liked eating cat poos from the litter tray and were always getting told off about it.

There were the two boys who lived next door. Paul and Richard. We’d play Lurkey (hide and see but where we’d run back to base to be in) ‘Lurkey Lurkey 1, 2, 3, Holly in!’ I’d call. British Bulldog, a dodging game and we loved a good water fight. It would be girls vs boys and we’d have the advantage of having Angela’s hose pipe. The boys didn’t mind getting wet. They’d stand in the hose getting drenched and we’d cackle with delight.