Friendships only lasted two years in my childhood. My dad was an army helicopter pilot so we moved every two years: Hong Kong, Cyprus, Germany, Yorkshire, Hampshire. We’d arrive and my mother would push me out and tell me to knock on doors looking for other kids.
The recorder is a terrible instrument. My mother made me take it up when I could barely walk. Then at four she started me on the violin. I’d learn with other children, dancing round a hot cross bun. On reflection, it might well have been Satanic. It was the 1970s, I suppose.
