My first dependant was a duck called Mr Kite. As a cream-faced four-year-old, it was my job at the nursery to turn the eggs in the incubator every day: one side noughts, the other side crosses, so we could tell them apart. In years since, this ovum-flipping responsibility has been interpreted as early evidence of a maternal instinct. That may be overegging it a bit.
We lived in a small, inner-city terrace house in east Oxford at the time. We had a long, thin garden. Both my parents worked. And yet, as a gentle-hearted vet’s daughter, my mum couldn’t resist adopting these fowl. I named them Buttercup, Mr Kite and Drakey. “I felt as if I’d become a grandmother,” says Mum of the day I brought my brood to live in the fenced-off bottom of the garden.
