1. Grandma French’s beautiful, kind old face.

2. The taste and size of Wagon Wheels at playtime.

3. Completely lying on top of Grandad’s dog, Carlo the Alsatian.

4. My baby daughter’s eyes looking up at me during a 3 a.m. feed.

5. My baby daughter’s face when I let her suck on a Mars Bar for the first time …

6. The smell of newspaper ink and paperboys in the early morning at my grandparents’ newsagent shop.

7. The excitement of Christmas Eve when I was seven years old.

8. The smell of my mum’s chest.

9. My dad’s haunted face the last time I saw him.

10. Magnified sunlit skin pores on my hand through snorkel-goggles underwater in Cyprus, 1964.

11. The terror of seeing The Exorcist.

12. The rows of dolls in national dress in Grandma’s loft.

13. Choosing an engagement ring in Tiffany's on Fifth Avenue in New York aged nineteen.

14. The way five-year-old kids like to cling on to your neck if you are their teacher and you’re telling a story.

15. My daughter’s voice when she sang a cappella at our wedding.

16. Doing a radio interview in a small studio alongside an unknown Gregory Porter … who then sang. Two foot from my head. Realizing some people’s gift is sacred.

Now, things you will always remember:

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