I was raised in Lancashire, England, during the 1970s and at that time, my mum would often look after the little girl next door as well as me. Lucy’s father had died in an industrial accident when she was a baby, so her mum went out to work to support them both while my mother looked after her child (for absolutely nothing, I found out later – heart of gold, my mum).
I didn’t have much to do with Lucy when she stayed with us – I was almost 11 by then and she was only four, so I tended to ‘do my own thing’ in my bedroom while the little girl was playing downstairs under my mum’s careful eye.