Well, I was small, though I was long for my age and I was a boy. In my day, babies did not have a choice as to whether they would grow up as a boy or as a girl. Quite frankly, I think that it is a daft idea to give children a choice as to what gender to grow up into. I think that we should play the hand that we have been dealt and be sensitive to those who have been dealt a confusing hand. My grand children can ask their mums to explain all that!

Otherwise, I think that I was a perfect child. There are few pictures of me as a small child. This is the only one I have that is scanned at the moment…

This is me with my father, Bernard, outside the flat in Hornsey

You cannot see it from this picture, but for the first five years of my life, I had blonde hair.