...aged five (here's one I missed) in tell me a story about when you were...

Yes, it’s all embarrassing again but doesn’t involve poo this time…

When I was at primary school we did PE (physical education) in pants (underpants) and vests (undershirts). This all works incredibly well until the day that you finally get to own the beautiful blue and white, flowery cotton dress that you have adored from afar, the one your older (and far more sophisticated) sister had previously owned. I was so enthralled by this dress that I forgot a rather important item of clothing. My pants.

I was at school, probably visiting those dark, Victorian built toilets again, when I realised I was pantsless and wearing a thin, floaty cotton dress.

What should I have done? Told the teacher. What was I too mortified to do? Tell the teacher!

It was a short while later that Mrs Perry announced that we were going to be doing PE today. PE with no pants… There was only one thing for it, take a deep breath and have a quiet word with Mrs Perry. “I’ve forgotten my vest,” I told her. “Can I do PE in my dress?”

Because it’s less embarrassing to admit that I’ve forgotten my vest than my pants, right?!

She sighed and then agreed, perhaps she saw the look of desperation in my eyes…

We went to the infants hall at which point Mrs Perry announced that we would be learning to do handstands…

Yep, let’s that sink in for a second. Handstands, floaty dress, no pants....

So, despite the fact that I was pretty adept at the old handstand I feigned an utter inability, I pretended I couldn’t get my legs up at all.

The lesson finished, the day finished, the school year finished and it was never mentioned. I had got away with it.

• • *

Fast forward fourteen years. I had moved away from home, to another town about sixty miles away and was living in a shared student house. One of the girls was also from my home town although we had gone to different schools but… She lived next door to the six billion dollar man and his brother. Steve Austin was in my year at school, his brother, Paul, was in my brother’s year.

Fourteen years earlier, Paul had been walking past the infant hall when my class had been learning to do handstands. He spotted just why I had been so bad at them and, having kept it quiet throughout school, he happily told my housemate all about it, by the end of the week I had a new nickname at college. No knickers Kate!