In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.'

As a young child, I suffered from poor health. My parents encouraged me to swim, which really improved my condition.

As a young child, I was never a crier. I never cried to get my way, or even when I was in pain.

As a young child, I suffered all sorts of digestive problems and was constantly under the weather.

But it was my parents I longed for mostly. I wanted to be a little girl again and cuddle into them, wriggling in between them like I'd done in their bed when I was three or four, snug and warm in the safest place in the world.

Instead I had Hell.

Even as a young child, I was a lover of books and of the spaces in which, as indeed in a sacred temple, books might safely reside.