Wormhole

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According to the weekend’s Argus newspaper, a concerned member of the public made a report to Brighton and Hove City Council after seeing a wormhole to another dimension in the middle of a residential street. Yes, you read that right: A wormhole. To another dimension. Whoa.

The anonymous person made an online report in which they stated: “I was recently walking my affenpinscher (a toy breed of dog) around the Hanover area of Brighton when I noticed that a wormhole or vortex has opened up on Montreal Road.

“On closer inspection it seems to be some kind of portal to other times, places and dimensions.

“I would have investigated further but I was concerned my little dog would be sucked into it.

“Is this meant to be there? At first I believed it might be part of the Brighton Festival but I believe it could be a hazard to the general public. I look forward to your response.”

It’s hard to say which bit of this report I like the best. Perhaps the bit where the mystery reporter sees fit to explain his/her breed of dog – given that a portal to another realm had just revealed itself to them, you’d think such specifics were irrelevant. Or maybe the bit where they thought it was part of the Brighton Festival – if the organisers could summon up a wormhole as part of the entertainment my guess is they’d have more important things to be getting on with than organising exhibitions.

But the adventure didn’t end there, oh no. Despite the potential risk to both (wo)man and dog, the mystery reporter bravely ventured back to the scene of the aforementioned wormhole and filed a further report claiming: “It seems to have got worse – it is now emitting an unsettling yellow light and a large snake appears to be emerging from the wall.

“I am concerned this is a passage to another time or dimension, and if this snake is anything to go by, I’m worried what else may emerge from the wormhole. Can anyone suggest a course of action to take?”

To clarify, a giant snake emerges from a wormhole in a residential street in the south of England, and the only witness present decides that, rather than call the emergency services, they will write a letter to the Council for advice?

Imagine if they’d done that in Ghostbusters when Zool, the Gatekeeper and the Keymaster were running around causing havoc. Something tells me things would have turned out very differently.

…I hope they’d contain creatures like this one, spotted in Trafalgar Square on Queens Day a couple of years ago.

Fresh start

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The alarm went off at six, but before it could even reach its shrill crescendo Graham was in the shower, singing loudly as he soaped himself. Brenda reached a hand out of the depths of her warm cocoon and smacked the clock hard to make the noise stop. In doing so she managed to hit her hand on the bedside table, which caused her to swear. She was still swearing when Graham returned from the shower, his face flushed from the heat of the water, or excitement, or a combination of both.

“Morning my flower,” Graham grinned as he towel-dried his thinning grey hair. Brenda looked her husband up and down, noticing with faint disgust the wedge of fat that sat atop the towel around his waist. His belly button and its immediate vicinity were so thick with hair one might, Brenda thought, fairly assert they bore more resemblance to a wild animal than a human. No wonder he enjoyed camping so much, she thought crossly.

“Hmph,” was all Brenda could manage as she extricated herself from the covers, throwing them off and braving the exterior climate – which was several degrees cooler due to Graham’s borderline obsessive dislike of central heating. Despite being a bank holiday weekend in May, the weather was stubbornly – and perhaps predictably – refusing to play ball. Gale force winds had hit during the night, and if the weather reports were to be believed there was yet worse to come.

“Are you excited about our trip, my flower?” Graham asked as Brenda circumnavigated her way around his bulbous form, grasping for a towel on the hook on the back of the door whilst simultaneously trying to avoid physical contact with her slimy-skinned spouse.

“Ecstatic,” Brenda replied, slipping out of the door and padding grumpily down the hallway to the bathroom.

Thirty minutes later and they were on the open road, camping paraphernalia packed into the boot along with Sadie, their pet golden retriever. It was raining so hard that the windscreen wipers were rendered ineffective, not that Graham seemed to have noticed. With every swoosh of the wipers Brenda’s fury increased, yet Graham merely hummed along to his Van Morrison tape and shovelled handfuls of boiled sweets into his cavernous mouth.

They reached the campsite by late morning, and whilst the rain had fortunately stopped by then, the field was more liquid than solid. Brenda, white-knuckled with ill-concealed rage, pulled on her wellington boots and dutifully assisted with the carrying of multiple loads of she-knew-not-what to the location Graham had identified as being the best for their stay. It had not escaped her attention there were no other campers to be seen.

As the winds buffeted them this way and that, Graham stoically erected the tent with minimal assistance from his frigid wife, who had taken to retreating to the car every twenty minutes or so for the comfort of a few blasts of hot air. Eventually the tent was up, and Graham moved onto blowing up the mattress. He’d even thought to bring pillows this time, he informed his wife with glee, seeming not to register the look of incredulity on her face that spoke of wanting to be anywhere but exactly where they were in that moment.

Brenda sat in one of their decrepit camping chairs and watched, arms folded stiffly across her chest. In spite of herself she had to admire her husband’s sheer belligerence in the face of such adverse weather conditions. Less hardy souls would have beaten a hasty retreat by now. Not so Graham, for defeat was not a word in his vocabulary. Once, Brenda supposed, she would have found such qualities endearing, but as she sat knee-deep in mud in this wet field she was at a loss to work out how she’d ended up here.

For dinner they ate sausages, cooked to a cinder atop a rickety gas fire. The weather gods at least gave them some peace for the duration of their meal, but not long after the heavens opened and rain lashed down upon them once more. There was nothing for it; they would have to go inside the tent.

“Shall we play cards my flower?” asked Graham in his usual stiflingly optimistic tone. “It’ll be like old times, do you remember? When we used to play rummy by candlelight after the kids went up to bed.” Brenda did remember, and for a fleeting moment felt her heart soften towards this silly old fool whom she had married. She consented to a game before bed, for old times’ sake like he said.

After what seemed like an interminably long day it was time for bed. Brenda and Graham clumsily took off their outer clothes and climbed onto the mattress in their long johns, pulling the sleeping bag on top of them. “Well hasn’t this been nice?” Graham said as he flicked off the torch.

“Nice?” came his wife’s voice from the darkness beside him.

“Yes, my flower, don’t you think?”

There was a brief scuffle as Brenda fumbled for the torch and the light blinked back into life. She glared at her husband and raised herself up on one elbow. “Do you really want to know what I think?”

“Of-of course, my flower” Graham stuttered.

“Okay, then I’ll tell you. In twenty years of marriage I have never liked camping. Not even for a second. I humoured you at first, because I was in love, and because I wanted to please you. And then, when the boys were born I did it to please them. But there is nothing about sleeping in such cloyingly close proximity to you without a single luxury in sight that appeals to me. Nothing – got it?”

Graham nodded, his mouth hanging open in bewilderment. “But I thought…”

“You thought what, Graham? That I enjoyed it? What have I ever said or done to give you that impression?”

“You never said you didn’t.”

Brenda stopped mid-flow to consider this point, and for a moment they stared at one another in quiet contemplation. “You mean, if I’d said I didn’t like it you’d have stopped – just like that?”

“Of course, my flower.”

Brenda opened her mouth to chastise her husband further, but the words dried up in her throat. “Oh,” was all she could manage. “I see.” She flicked the torch back off and lay down on her back, feeling the counter balance of her husband’s pose beside her. Was it she who all along had been the fool not to say how she really felt? Could all those years of bitterness have been avoided if she’d simply admitted that Graham’s choice of holiday wasn’t her cup of tea? This was a revelation that both frightened and excited her.

As they lay in the darkness with their private thoughts a tiny hissing noise started up. Soon the noise was louder, more urgent. Within moments the air bed had deflated, and as her bottom touched the floor Brenda laughed. She laughed so hard her sides hurt, and soon her husband’s laugh had joined her own. When they eventually recovered themselves Graham flicked on the light and grinned.

“There was a B&B a couple of miles back. Shall we spend the night there?”

Brenda grinned back. “Yes please.”

“Fresh start?” Graham asked as he pulled his wife to her feet.

“Fresh start,” she agreed. “Oh, and if we’re having a fresh start can I ask one more thing?”

“Of course, my flower,” said Graham.

“Don’t call me your flower. If there’s one thing I’ve hated even more than camping all of these years it’s that.” She laughed again and took his hand, guiding him out of the tent into the night.

Fancy Dresser

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After years of staunch opposition I’ve not only succumbed but actively begun to embrace fancy dress. And if yesterday’s rugby sevens tournament at Twickenham is anything to go by, I’m not alone. It seems the older people get the more inclined they are to behave like they’re young, even though ironically when they were young they probably thought fancy dress was deeply uncool just as I did.

But why shouldn’t adults be silly from time to time? It’s true that with age comes responsibility, but all responsibility and no play makes for a very dull existence. Sometimes it’s just great to just step off the treadmill, put responsibilities to one side and remember the simple pleasure of dressing up and pretending to be someone – or something – entirely different, even if it’s just for one day.

So if you’ve ever harboured dreams of being Superman, or wondered what it would be like to be a monkey, why not seize the day and get a costume, throw a party and indulge your inner child? Because it’s only in throwing off the shackles of adulthood once in a while that we can truly stay young at heart – and staying young at heart is the key to a long and happy life.

The introduction

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Ruby threw her roll up onto the ground and exhaled. She looked down at the piece of paper in her hand, upon which was scrawled in wiry black writing an address. Having verified that this was indeed the address on the paper she pushed the rusty iron gate open and stepped into the garden, which was more like a jungle with its giant sprays of weeds and knee-high grass. No sunlight penetrated the thick canopy of trees above her head; the garden was in virtual darkness despite it being mid-afternoon.  She reached the front step and looked up at the façade of the house. It was three storeys high and Victorian, or so Ruby guessed. The windows were lined with lead and painted in green, though the paint had long since seen better days, and was splitting and peeling off.

It took several rings of the buzzer to rouse movement from within. A light came on in the hallway, and the stained glass in the front door cast a murky red and blue hue onto the step in front. A figure appeared and spent several moments grappling with the various dead bolts before the heavy door swung open.

“Hiya,” said Ruby, “I’ve come about the room?”

Before her stood a girl about her own age, with thick brown hair which tumbled down in messy curls over her narrow shoulders. She was attractive, in a burlesque-dancer sort of way, her hourglass figure accentuated by the silk dressing gown that clung to her curves. Her full lips bore the stains of last night’s lipstick and red wine and her glassy brown eyes betrayed her tiredness. Her pretty face wrinkled into a frown.

“The room?”

Ruby held up the piece of paper in her hand. “Yeah, the room that’s being rented – this is number sixty five, right?”

The girl gave a nonchalant shrug, yawned and arched her back like a cat. She stepped back from the door to allow Ruby to enter, gesturing vaguely towards the kitchen at the back of the hall. Then, without saying another word, she disappeared back up the stairs.

Ruby stood in the kitchen, surveying the piles of dirty plates and washing and noting the cat bowl in the corner, overflowing with food. Through the double doors at the back of the room she could make out a garden, smaller than the front one but marginally less overgrown. With a bit of love and attention, she thought, this place could scrub up nicely.

A cough alerted her to the presence of another. Turning, she found herself face to face with a half-naked man. She let out an involuntary gasp, feeling suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she said, “it’s just…”

“Max,” the man said simply, extending a hand, which Ruby took. He yawned loudly and ran his fingers through his thick brown hair. Uninhibited by her presence he padded across the kitchen to the kettle and flicked its switch. Ruby watched his every move. He wore grey tracksuit bottoms and nothing else, his muscular shoulders and sculpted chest on proud display. “Coffee?” he said.

Ruby shook her head. “No, thanks…I just…I came about the room.”

“Yeah, I got that you weren’t just standing in my kitchen for no reason.” He turned around to face her. “So,” he said, a half-smile playing on his lips, teasing her, or so she felt. “When can you move in?”

I took this on a recent weekend trip to a village in Hampshire – quite the opposite of the garden described in this story!

The awakening

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Wrote this as a way of getting to know Michael, one of the protagonists in my new story. This scene is from his childhood:

At nursery school Michael had been too young to understand why he was different. But today was his first day at big school, and his small world was about to change in ways he could not have imagined.

“Was that your grandma?” asked a small boy in blue dungarees and glasses.

Michael turned to the boy and frowned. “No,” he said. “She’s my mum.”

Now it was the other boy’s turn to frown. “But she’s so….old.”

Both boys turned to watch as Michael’s mother walked out of the school gates. Was his mother old? Michael had never really thought about it. Why would he? She was his mum, and that was all there was to it.

“Aren’t all mums the same age?” Michael said.

The other boy regarded him with a cool stare, and Michael felt suddenly like he was being tested, and, worse still, that he wasn’t doing very well. “No,” said the boy, his eyes rolling in their fat little sockets, “of course they’re not. Well, not exactly the same age, anyway.”

“Oh, right.”

“As in,” the boy continued, “they can’t all be born on the exact same day. That would be impossible. But-” – and here he paused for dramatic effect – “mums normally look the same age – even if they’re not. Only your mum looks more like a grandma than a mum. She’s even got grey hair.”

Michael felt a knot of something horrid form in the pit of his stomach. Before he had a chance to work out why the teacher began to round them up and lead them towards the hall for first assembly. As they walked through the heavy swing doors into the school, Michael cast one last mournful look over his shoulder. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he had the distinct feeling nothing would ever be quite the same again.

I took this photo in Cambodia in 2007 and have just stumbled across it for the first time in ages. I love the look on the little boy’s face – less so his dirty clothes and the packet of cigarettes tucked into his pocket 😦

John Doe

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John Doe woke to the sound of rowing neighbours and the view of his alarm clock’s blinking red light. In two minutes the alarm would sound, a siren call demanding he rise and actively participate in life. He reached out to flick the switch that would silence it before it began, a fleeting flicker of satisfaction rippling across the otherwise flat vista of his personal horizon.

He washed and dressed, then carelessly threw some cat food in the bowl as he exited the kitchen. As he stepped out into the street he paused to look up at the sky. He sighed. It was another grey day after a succession of equally grey predecessors. As he walked towards the train station it began to rain. He had no umbrella.

The train platform was crowded, five deep in sleep-deprived commuters, not one of them wanting to be where they were. John Doe positioned himself just back from where he knew the doors would be. Fat rain drops splashed onto his cheeks. Next to him a fat woman jostled for space for her obscenely large breasts. A man coughed in his face.

The train pulled up and in the ensuing scramble someone stumbled, cried out. But, intent on catching their trains, not one person helped their fallen comrade. She was a businesswoman, early thirties, or so John Doe suspected. As the doors closed inches from her face she pulled her skirt down to cover her modesty and slowly rose to her feet, cursing as the blank expressions of those who had safely boarded the train began to move.

John Doe moved into the space that had been created by the evacuation of the other commuters from the platform. The businesswoman, having recovered herself, stood beside him, a scowl plastered on her otherwise pretty face. A tidal wave of people rose up from the depths of the tunnel at the end of the platform, spilling over the lip of the top step and thronging all around them.

A disembodied voice announced the next train would be five minutes late, and a collective sigh breathed through the impatient crowd. Behind him John Doe heard a woman with a high pitched voice screech into her phone that she was about to miss a meeting.

After five minutes the train had still not arrived, and frustrations were at fever pitch. There were now so many people on the platform that John Doe could feel a pressure against his back as they forged ever forward. A woman – perhaps the businesswoman, though John Doe could no longer be sure – shouted, begged for people to stop pushing. But still they pushed.

As the train finally pulled into the platform there was a blood curdling scream. The commuter mob swayed uncertainly. Another scream, more prolonged this time, followed by a man’s voice: “For Christ’s sake, move back!” Eventually the message filtered through and the swarm retreated, parting ways enough for everyone to see the twisted form of John Doe splayed across the track.

Rather different from the ones in central London…

You are what you eat

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Whilst waiting for the special ‘feminist edition’ of Bookslam, featuring Hadley Freeman and Caitlin Moran, I read this article in the Standard about Mimi Spencer, author of the 5:2 fasting diet – and also, it’s worth noting, the Standard’s fashion editor – about how her diet’s revolutionised her life. Not only has she dropped two dress sizes from a perfectly healthy size 12 to a skinny size 8 as a result of radically cutting down her eating two days out of seven, she’s also clearly rolling in cash, as her recent holiday to Madagascar is held up to prove.

The timing of my reading the article was ironic, given that both Hadley and Caitlin would soon after read passages from their new books that were chosen specifically to demonstrate that women shouldn’t feel they have to look, feel or act a certain way in order to be a success. Both women would talk about the objectification and suppression of women not only by men but also by the ever-burgeoning women’s magazine market and even their own bodies (Caitlin sharing some particularly graphic details of her first menstruation, and commenting that it was no wonder women struggled to wave the feminist flag before the advent of sanitary products when they were forced to spend vast swathes of their time washing blood-soaked knickers – a fair point).

Whilst many converts of the 5:2 diet will no doubt jump to Mimi Spencer’s defence, it’s hard (for me at least, and I speak as a woman whose love of food cannot be overstated) to imagine really being bothered enough to change your entire lifestyle for the sake of dropping a couple of dress sizes. Take going out for dinner as an example. Does being on the 5:2 diet make it necessary to rearrange every social occasion to fit in with which days you’re starving yourself and which you’re not? Or do you just sip water as your friends devour delicious morsels of tapas washed down with red wine?

But it’s not the 5:2 diet specifically I wish to criticise in this post, it’s more the point that Hadley and Caitlin were getting at; that women should be able to be who they are, without feeling the constant pressure to be thinner, prettier, better in every way. Why shouldn’t we eat what we want, when we want, as long as we appreciate the fundamentals of a balanced diet and a balanced life? Why should we starve ourselves two days each week because the women’s magazines tell us it will make us happier? How can cake deprivation make anyone happier, EVER?

My opinion, for what little it’s worth, is that life’s too short for fad diets. Of course we should eat healthily, but there are limits, and starving for two days a week must surely be one of them? I know proponents of the 5:2 will wax lyrical at this stage about the many health benefits of the diet (concentration allegedly being one of them – now I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure I’d be able to concentrate all that well after eating half a carrot and a dry Ryvita for my lunch), but in case they hadn’t noticed there are also rather a lot of health benefits to the ‘everything in moderation’ approach – not least to our mental wellbeing.

I’ll close with an apt quote from G.K Chesterton, who had some sage words on health:

“The trouble with always trying to preserve the health of the body is that it is so difficult to do without destroying the health of the mind.”

Quite – now pass the Dairy Milk.

Slightly hypocritical of me to post an article slagging off fad diets whilst commencing a wheat and gluten free period, but my dear friend Sian (who attended Bookslam with me last night) assures me it will revolutionise my life. And, er, make me look better…Oh.

One last excuse

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I’ll admit (and yes, I know I’m using the word ‘I’ – argh) that things have gone rather awry this past few days where posting on this blog’s been concerned. In large part this has been due to poor advance planning of the bank holiday weekend, two consecutive afternoon rooftop parties (get me with my busy social life) on Saturday and Sunday having left virtually no time for writing. However, it’s fair to say I also experienced some not insignificant technical issues (wifi being down, computers crashing etc) that meant having to upload to the blog via smartphone – which apparently didn’t work very well.

So anyway, we are where we are, no point crying over spilt milk etc. The main fact is I did still find a way to post, even if the posts themselves were substandard in quality and not always accompanied by pictures. As recompense I’d planned to wow you with a stunning comeback blog today, but time has run away with me yet again, and as I’m now about to run out of the door to tonight’s Bookslam (featuring the great Caitlin Moran and Hadley Freeman, no less) this somewhat cobbled together piss-poor excuse for a blog post will once again have to do.

I’m better than this. And I’m sorry.

Normal service will resume tomorrow.

No more excuses.

This was where I was on Saturday afternoon when I should have been writing. You’ve got to admit it’s appealing…

Past Post: Story Time (re-posted from yesterday due to technical issues!)

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It’s almost seven when I pull the front door closed behind me and hear its reassuring click. If it could speak it would be telling me I’m safe, nothing can harm me now. Let’s pretend, it would continue, that the outside world never even existed. Just for tonight, let’s pretend.

My brown Italian leather bag slides off my shoulder and lands in a crumpled but delicate heap on the floor. I kick off my shoes and walk down the hall into the kitchen, sniffing the lemon-scented air. The sheets are hung, the draining rack emptied. The cleaner has been.

I cook on autopilot, chopping peppers and chilis, throwing them into a frying pan and watching as the yellow flame laps hungrily at its base. I leave it unattended as I go to run a bath, catch sight of my reflection in the bathroom mirror and wince. The day is etched on my face with alarming clarity.

This is my fourth consecutive stir fry, I realise as I swallow the last overcooked morsel of Quorn, flick off the banal television programme I was barely even watching and take my bowl into the kitchen to wash up. I run the water for too long, watch as the soapy suds spill over the bowl and into the pan beneath. I refill the draining rack, dry my hands. As I walk past the fridge I stop, consider a glass of wine, then think again.

My mind is racing as I sink beneath the surface of the water. I lie there motionless, like a hippo in a watering hole, watching as the steam rises up and curls around and back in on itself.

I know it’s time, and yet I hardly dare entertain the thought of doing what I’m about to do.

I drain the bath, pat my hair dry with a towel and slip into my fluffy robe and slippers, padding softly down the hall into my bedroom. For a fleeting moment I entertain the thought of putting on mascara, lipstick, perhaps even a touch of blusher, but then dismiss the idea as ridiculous. What would be the point?

The bedroom door scratches across carpet, then clicks into place like the last piece of a jigsaw. I turn the key softly in the lock, dim the light. I pick up the box of matches on the bedside table, strike one and light the candles. The room is filled with dancing shadows and the cloying scent of vanilla. It tickles my throat and makes me nauseous. Or is it the fear that makes me nauseous?

I bury the fear in the pit of my stomach and kneel down, reaching underneath the bed for the box and stroking its walnut veneer as I pull it out. Questions rise up within me like a volcanic eruption. I suppress all but one. What if?

My hand is shaking as I turn the ancient key in the lock. It opens with a serpent’s hiss and I swallow hard. I know what’s coming. It’s judgement day.

I lift the lid and suddenly the air is flooded with a heady combination of dust and profanity.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re playing at?”

“We could have died in there!”

“Cooped up like that all this time – it’s worse than prison!”

A bubble of relief rises up inside me and I laugh.

“Well that’s just brilliant! Now look at her – she’s laughing at us!”

 I look down at dishy doctor Dan, standing proud in his starched white coat, arms folded across his chest as he glowers at me with all the square jawed impudence he can muster. From behind him Tess steps into view, her blonde hair tumbling down over her shoulders like a waterfall. She echoes her husband’s defiant pose.

“Look,” I begin with a shrug, searching their tiny faces for some glimmer of forgiveness but finding none, “I’m sorry, okay?”

“Well maybe sorry isn’t enough this time,” comes a shrill voice from the far side of the box. I search out its owner, unsure after all this time of to whom it belongs. My eyes, adjusted to the candle light, alight upon a slender figure clad in a silk kimono cocktail dress.

“Jacqueline, my favourite villain,” I say, my smile filled with genuine warmth.

“Don’t favourite villain me,” she sniffs, keeping her steely gaze on mine. “Where were you?”

I lower my hand into the box. She regards it with the cool conviction of the criminal mastermind that I know her to be, then steps up onto it. I lift her up until she is level with my eyes.

“I am sorry,” I say again, conscious that my words are scant consolation after what I have put her through – what I have put them all through. “Really, I am. It’s just that, well, life got in the way.”

I scan the sea of tiny faces, feeling the warm familiar glow of recognition as each one comes into focus. Lithe-limbed Amelia, purple-haired Clarice, kind-hearted Albert. How could I have left them for so long? What was I thinking?

“Well come along then,” Jacqueline snaps suddenly, wrenching me from my reverie. I look at her, my eyes unfocused, and blink uncomprehendingly. “Put me down,” she hisses. I do as she says.

“Right,” says Albert, stepping forward from the assembly line, his walking stick tapping on the bottom of the box as a wide grin spreads over his weathered old face. “I think it’s about time you picked up where you left off, don’t you?”

I smile back, and a cheer erupts from the tiny crowd beneath me. My crowd. My characters. It’s story time.

The Disney Princesses were my first literary loves, so they had to feature in this post..

Give young people a chance

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Yesterday afternoon I popped into the office to meet some of the members of our Youth Led Consultancy Board (YLCB for short). We’ve been grappling with what the charity’s strapline should be for a few weeks and all felt it was important to get input from the young people – who have themselves all completed the Teens and Toddlers programme – because without it we’d be hypocritical to call ourselves a truly youth-led charity.

Within minutes of starting the brainstorm they’d come up with a better suggestion for the strap line than any of the ones we devised in the staff brainstorm meeting last week. It was so inspiring to meet them and find out what they’re all doing now-mostly about to finish college exams and waiting for results to find out if they’ve got university places. They’re living proof our programme really does work at helping disadvantaged young people get into further education and employment, and it was a joy to see how bright, motivated and enthusiastic they all are.

Working with the young people is teaching me so much about the dangers of preconceptions and stereotypes. So many people write off vast swathes of today’s youth as being wasters who refuse to do the necessary work to succeed, but for most that’s categorically not true. They want to achieve, they just need extra help to believe that they can.

This one was taken in 2007 when I made a banoffee pie and brought it into the orphanage for the kids to try – they couldn’t get enough of it!