For the first five years of my life I was brought up by someone my mother happened to meet on the beach.  “I’m going back to rejoin my husband,” she mentioned to this woman, “but I’ve got a baby of six months  and I don’t know what to do with her.”

“I’ll look after her for you,” said the woman, whose name was Joan Priestley.

And so it came about that my sister Badger, aged five, and I went to live at Airlie House, Grand Avenue, in Hove.  Joan’s mother and her little boy Bretton, who was also five, lived there as well.  I was a bit confused about who my mother was, as I saw so little of her in my first five years:  she became my Blue Mummy (I think she wore a lot of navy), Joan was my Red Mummy, and I also had a Green Mummy and a White Mummy, who were probably friends of Joan’s who happened to visit.

Joan’s mother was Mrs Edwards, and she was a wonderful cook.  She made delicious  potato pie which had layers of cream between the potato, and lemon cake which had thick dark chocolate icing on top.  I called her Granny Hove.  I must have been a rather disagreeable baby as there are numerous photographs of me sitting in a pram with a mass of blonde curls, looking furious, and there is a nursery rhyme that was frequently quoted – “There was a little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good she was very very good but when she was bad she was horrid!”

My very first memory is of sitting in a high chair and spitting out a prune.  It landed on the green carpet that ran all over the maisonette and was much cherished both by Auntie Joan  and Granny Hove, as was the polished antique furniture.

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