L had a Humpty Dumpty stuffed toy, with a sad face on one side and happy on the other. Perhaps it was some kind of binary mechanism for our parents to understand her – a simplification of something too complex.

Punching the unhappy, passive resistant worn cloth. Holding tight to the smiley side that perhaps didn’t ring true, but comforted.

The musty, damp smell of old houses before the onset of a generation of excessive, synthesised, globalised, advertised household cleaning products. Simplicity. It’s a bit old, a bit damp, healthily neglected. You do not need to kill every bacterium individually. This is not a war on bugs.

At primary school, I used to suck my tie. I forget, but I think they were striped green and yellow. By half way through the morning, it would be a heavily-swinging, soggy tongue lolloping across my chest. This went well until I accidentally took a friend’s tie after gym, and induced much displeasure. The taste of wet cloth, and the indignant voice berating me.

There was a guy in high school who walked almost in a caper. I think we all found it strange, but I had no notion then of “special needs”. He was just a strange guy with an odd walk.