Born to be Wild

Those were the days, when children were allowed to play freely without over-protective parents getting in the way.

This was wild Wales and that's me with my first boyfriend Paul Smith. I think we were about to take off for a day on the beach. The buckets and spades were probably tied to the back somewhere.

If we got bored playing in the shed with dad's lathe or hunting for elusive rarebits among the scrub and bracken of the mountainside, we'd grab the keys and go for a spin.

It was a joy to get on a bike in a pair of dungarees and a T shirt instead of having to kit up in claustrophobic leathers and superhero helmets. Without even being aware of it, we were adopting the style of Steve McQueen, a man whose dungaree habit was strictly private.

Paul's looking distracted. His bladder control needed fine-tuning if I recall, whereas I was dry at six months according to my mother.

Only having reached Series II Book 1 of Janet and John, I wasn't the best at maps and signs so the destination was always a surprise, but one of the nice things about Wales is that as long as you head south, you'll hit the coast sooner or later.

We could go anywhere we liked as long as we were back for a cup of warm milk and our afternoon nap at 4pm.

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