The four of us were sitting comfortably round our kitchen table last week, empty plates in front of us, reminiscing about our former family home in the Midlands, where we lived when our two girls were small. Suddenly my daughter Beth, who’s now 20, said: “It was lovely – but you wouldn’t know, you were never there.”
I looked at her, astonished. “What on earth do you mean? Of course, I was there!”
“Hardly,” she said, witheringly.
Our 15-year-old daughter Charlotte looked over at her, then back at me. “It’s true, Mum, you were hardly ever there. We were always with our nanny. Do you remember, I used to draw pictures and put her name at the top?”
A shiver ran down my spine. Yes, I did remember.
