I started nursery on the morning of Tuesday, 2nd September 1980. That day forms one of my early memories from my formative years. I threw all my clothes off when I got home from nursery that day. In fact, I used to come home from the nursery and early school and throw all my clothes off because I didn't like the feel of them. They were often wool and I hated the label rubbing against my neck. My parents used to tell me that Sheep were running around in the field shorn of wool so I could wear it. I replied that I didn't ask to wear wool or want to. Even now I cannot wear wool at all, it makes me feel uncomfortable. I also cannot wear boxer shorts, and I still remove tags from items of clothing for the simple reason that I don't like the feel of them rubbing against my neck.

Whereas I can remember my first day at nursery, I can't remember my first day at Infant School a year later and I don't remember my first day at Junior School either. In fact I don't even remember my first day at Secondary School.

The day after starting nursery, I climbed under the wire crossed fence and tried to run off to my Grandmother's house who lived, and still does live about a quarter of a mile away. I ran up the footpath towards St Helen's Church, crossed Laithes Lane, and was near the Post Office there when I was spotted. Eliza, my Grandmother's friend, started talking to me and the staff there asked Eliza who I was. She told them and the school were phoned and some came back to fetch me.

There will be appreciably more traffic on Laithes Lane today than in September 1980, but it still would have been busy even then. How I had the road sense or ability to cross a busy road like that two weeks after my fourth birthday I have no idea. I don't even remember doing this.

Later that week, or it might have been that day, I have a vague recollection of being in my Aunt and Uncle's car, and they asked me where I wanted to go. I must have seriously pissed them off, because I know I would have been if it was me. I said "Nannan's". When they went near there, I said "Home", then near there, I said somewhere else, and so on.

Two weeks later, I ran off again, but a Teacher saw me and brought me back into school, and told my mum about it. If no-one had noticed that I had escaped, I may have been run over and therefore not been here to write about this event. The dinner ladies and Teachers kept an eye on me so I wouldn't do this again, but they couldn't have looked that heard, because two weeks later, I did it again, but didn't get as far this time. Then, two weeks after that, at the very end of September, I tried to escape a third time by climbing under the wire fence and again set off in that direction.

During the first year at Richard Newman, in Nursery, I started an habit which remains with me to this very day. It is that of chewing on the end of pens and pencils.

I remember being at nursery and seeing the teacher draw a number 6 to show what one looked like. For months afterwards, I kept drawing numbers and writing in thin air. This helped me visualise what a number 6 looked like but I can't understand why none of the Teachers picked up on this as being anything different.

I took part in a nativity play at Christmas 1980, the first Christmas I have any memory of, and it is only a flash bulb memory. I can't remember the play at all, which apparently was a depiction of Jesus's birth and I was picked to play one of the Shepherd's. I originally took a lamb on wheels but it was taken away from me because I was running the lamb backwards and forwards repeatedly. They gave me a Teddy Bear instead. During the play, I said loudly on stage "WHAT'S A SHEPHERD?". Then I had a tug of war with someone else because I wouldn't let go of the bear which I had. Apparently I had to hand it over. Then I wouldn't leave the stage when I had to.