One of the more notable things about my childhood was that my best friend Mark and I shared the same surname. It wasn’t that remarkable, I guess, as it was a fairly common one – Roberts – but it did get us in big trouble one time in year four of primary school in England, when we were both eight.
Mark and I usually sat on a double desk together, and he fancied himself as something of a ‘class clown’. I can’t remember what exactly as said now but one morning he pushed the boundaries of our teacher, Miss Litherland, and ‘answered back’ to her reprimand. A flush of anger passed over her face and she said: “Well, Mark, I think you’d better see Mrs Williams for the slipper at lunchtime.”