Cuddles the Caterpillar

While on holiday at the Barend Holiday Village near Dumfries in Scotland - with my parents' friends Kath and Alan, and their daughter Helen - we became obsessed with a furry caterpillar named Cuddles, who we'd found crawling on heather during a walk on the moors.

Cuddles soon went everywhere with the three of us, although ultimately he was Helen's pet. Our parents found this a little disgusting, but were presumably happy for us to have a hobby. Alas, Cuddles came to a tragic end when Helen decided it was bath time, and the poor creature was drowned in the kitchen sink. Inspired by the new Robin of Sherwood tv-series (played by Michael Praed, of whom we had a poster in our attic room, from Smash Hits), we went out onto the balcony at the top of the house and threw the corpse of Cuddles in the air. Wherever he landed, was where he would be buried.

It transpired, when we went to bury him, that we would have been better off taking our inspiraton from the Jesus story, as Cuddles had been restored to life and was desperately making a break for it. We did not seem much saddened by his drowning-and-high-impact treatment, as Helen kept him and took him home at the end of the holiday.

We had a strange relationship with animals on these holidays to Barend. Another time we filled the wastepaper bin with water and rocks and captured ten or twenty toads from the loch and kept them in the bin out on our balcony - an idea that backfired when they started jumping around and laying toad-spawn everywhere. One such toad had a graze on his forehead so we named him Little Gash and took him everywhere with us, although Aunt Kath refused our appeal to put some savlon and a plaster on him.

We also captured buckets full of tiny little prawns from what was - on reflection - a pool at the end of a waste water draininge pipe on the beach, and then took them home and made Uncle Alan cook them for us (although we could not bring ourselves to eat them, Alan made short work of the plate).

[Time: Summer of 1984 or 1985]

Earliest memory

I had for a long time believed that my earliest memory was of drowning in the sea at Newquay. On holiday there with my parents, my Dad had taken me down to the beach to let me trot around on the sand, and for some reason lost focus and let me gallop down to the sea.

Every seventh wave is a big one at Newquay, or so family lore has it. I remember none of this, as my earliest memory was of being swept up by a giant wave, and dragged out to sea face down. All I remember is salt, sand, seaweed and plenty of panic.

The family account is that I had stood at the edge of the sea, was caught in a giant wave and washed out like a log. My dad waded in and pulled me back out, and a group of teenagers pointed and laughed. The pay-off is that the next wave was even bigger, swamped the teens and dragged all of their clothes out to sea. I have no memory of any of this.

My mum reports that she had been back home at the caravan, and the first she knew about it was when my Dad appeared back at the caravan, holding me dripping wet at arms length, and she was like, Oh FFS.

I say I thought this was my earliest memory, but my Mum recently reported that this whole escapade was particularly annoying for her as I'd just had stitches put in the back of my head after splitting my head open, and I wasn't supposed to get the stitches wet. I remember this injury very clearly - my brother was teaching me a game where you jump off a dry stone wall and into the rusting brown wheel barrow. Instead I learned that dry stone walls are very unstable, wheelbarrows are very hard and that a great deal of blood can pump out of the back of your head.

I remember this memory very well as I have to tell if every month, when I get my hair cut and the barber sees the scars on the back of my head.

[Estimated time: Summer 1979]