On my father’s side of the family I come from Quaker stock. One of my father’s relatives ran a boarding house for theatricals in Manchester or maybe Ashton-under-lyne which Charlie Chaplin once stayed in. I think she may have been the same woman who had an affair with the canal keeper and had three children by different men which at the turn of the century was quite something.

My father’s sister would not tell me this story until I reached the grand old age of 21. She considered it so scandalous.