What do I know about my parents’ early life, in the years before I was born? In truth, very little. I have no idea how and where they met, what kind of an education they had or even where they went to school. Their childhood, their teenage years, their first experiences of the world in which they lived, all these are a mystery to me. This book, therefore, is principally for my son, Sam, so that he will know more about who I was in the years before he was born, and the events in my life that were sometimes funny and sometimes sad.