For The Sunday Times:
All childhoods are normal to the children who live them. Back in the 1980s, my siblings and I would arrive at places en masse and not understand the bemused expressions of onlookers as we continued to get out of a trusty old wagon for several minutes longer than seemed reasonable.
Of course, we were aware that ours was a large clan. I am the eldest. After me came Hugs, Bebs, Widge, Chubb and Goose — and, later, Hec. We had…