It's A Funny Old World

‘Who are you?’ I asked politely. It was our fourth child

- Anne Atkins

You know what children are like. Give them enough sea, sun and granny’s cooking for the summer hols and they grow several inches, their skin tans, their hair bleaches and their own mother wouldn’t know them.

When our sprogs were small, I sometimes stayed on in London to work on my latest novel, before my husband Shaun and I joined the rest of the family on holiday. Thus it was that I approached my parents’ seaside house after an absence of 10 days or so, and saw five indistinguishable blond boys playing together in the garden.

My sister’s four were virtually identical from the moment they left the womb. I puckered my brow and managed to disentangle my oldest and youngest nephews. Of the other two, I wasn’t sure which was which, but I knew they were the middle ones.

Which left one over. A visitor, presumably. I’d never seen him before.

‘Who are you?’ I asked politely.