I was asked to talk to some schoolchildren recently (Can’t imagine what they must have done that I was presented as an alternative to a thrashing) and I related a story from my childhood, the harshness of which would have had it cut from ‘Angela’s Ashes’.

My numerous sisters and I had waist length hair which was washed weekly, probably in a character forming combination of cold water and carbolic soap and combed through without the benefit of either conditioner or compassion.  Any sign of protest was met with the traditional swift, sharp shock – usually a thwack with the back of a hairbrush and a reminder that one must suffer to be beautiful.

the amount of suffering that we collectively endured to that end makes it a national scandal that at least one of us didn’t go on to be crowned Miss World.

My older and very lovely sister had clearly taken this message to heart which she demonstrated during her teenage years by wearing plastic bags inside a pair of blonde, thigh-length suede boots so that they would not be stained by the blood from the blisters that they caused.  Beat that, Opus Dei.

Leaving A for agony brings me to b for burka and thence to the c-word, an expletive which never crossed my mother’s lips – C for comfort.  And for Childline to which, had it existed in those far off days, we would doubtless have been whining when we walked a mile barefoot across field every morning because she sincerely believed that it improved the complexion, especially if you didn’t die young of pneumonia.

The upside of the burkha  is that it enables you to drive your children to school wearing your pyjamas underneath without attracting the attention of the traffic police who seem to find nightwear behind the wheel hugely amusing when they stop you but that dear readers is a story for another time.

C is also for cruel, as was the remark that my son addressed to me the other day.  I later sent him a text informing him that I had gone to live in Syria where women were treated more kindly, even by Isis.  And he was C for contrite when I collected him from the station that night swathed in my makeshift burkha.

Next week