I was born in the early hours of the morning at QEQM Hospital in Margate, an odd baby with a shock of ginger hair and a tiny mole on the knuckle of my left index finger. I was a bit of a miracle birth as my mother had been told she couldn’t have children (although this might have been spot on as I’ve never been officially classified as human). The date was 25th January 1978: I do know that.

My dad was the foreman for a local building contractor. He’d originated from Ireland but spent a lot of time in Thanet for his work. He was tall, dark and charismatic if not actually handsome. The comedian Dave Allen once said ‘The Irish are good at populating other countries, in more ways than one...so for all you know you might be laughing at your brother.’ In my dad’s case, this was almost literally true, as it soon emerged that he had a wife and three children in Portsmouth, the place he’d lived when he’d
first arrived in the UK. My mum quickly decided that he wouldn’t be a good influence and sensibly made the decision to sever ties with him....so I grew up as the only child of a one-parent family on the Westcliffof Ramsgate before we moved across town to live with my nan.