Pre 1974 the British never said this, the Go for it bit. In fact, and I remember well, there was none of that wild nonsense. In fact there was far more Don’t you dare go for it, for girls anyway. And It was never going to change. Breaking out was a big risk. Many did and I admire them. But I am not talking about historicalness, more about cooking and about the way I cooked for all those years without a clue. I had musical talent, I knew that. I was a creative, I knew that. I had one recipe book. I knew that too. It was the birthing of 1980 on an island in the wilds of wilderness with shitfaced gales and striated rocks upholding the peripheries and intense freezing cold and no fricking fires in the homestead, or none that would stay alight without bellows and a load of swearing. About floors so cold it was impossible to walk without boots on, about ice in the threadbare spouts of carpet. I remember them. Going up to bed, a mile of stairway, I saw those ice spouts glint in the moonlight. They did smile me even though they solved not one of my problems.

I remember the mile long stairway.

There were times I walked up and times I walked down. On each journey, mostly, I conversationed myself. I knew steps to be an opportunity for change. I hate this, I am cold way beyond my bones, I want out. I am ready, I can do this, How many pack lunches today, how many dinner guests, how many knocks on the door to say Here’s a lamb. That’s the only one that angered me.

Positioned before the big blue aga, I found inventions. Each evening from April to October, we worked together. She was testy, up and down with the blow of the switchy winds, puffing out and pulling in, but we got to know each other. She helped me produce a load of made up recipes, the go for it green light strong in me as I pulled back from a book recipe thinking no, not enough lemon, garlic, whatever. Guests were happy, effusive, booked for next year. I cooked intuitively, and as I grew more confident and less doubting, I became courageous and a good cook. However, it wasn’t just in cooking that my intuition served me well. When the next disaster arrived I trusted my quick decision making and took action. Oh, I am not saying I didn’t doubt myself because I always did, and nor am I saying that I was always right because I absolutely was not, but it seemed to me to be the only way I could operate. Unlike many who spend a long time thinking things through, something I wish I could do even occasionally, I jumped in the deep end immediately as if I was the only one who could save the day. This is obviously ridiculous. There are many things which do require a lot of thinking through and those things were undoubtedly startled at being brought firmly to a conclusion they had neither expected, nor needed, but I would have missed their startlement completely. Where did this not-thinking-through gene come from, I wonder? When I do force myself to think for more than a few seconds about a problem, my mind wanders off in any number of irrelevant directions. I try to pull it back but this wild horse is determined to bolt. Perhaps my brain was inserted upside down.

Now that old bones tell me just how old they are and that Time is also slower on the move, I consider all of the above and it wonders me, the way we are made, the influences of our childhood, the genes we inherit, the talents we learn in order to be Somebody among millions. I suspect we will never be able to unpick the fabric of ourselves, will never understand everything, or anything much about how we are who we are. The most important thing, I do know this, is to value and be thankful for all the things we have achieved in our life and not just to focus on the failures which I do, a lot. I blame school reports. ‘She has too much imagination.’ She has considerable difficulty in sitting still.’ She is disruptive in class, too cocky, too badly behaved.’ and so on. These told me, of course they did, that I was someone undeserving of all the glowing congratulations bestowed on those who would never have disrupted anything and who could sit still for days if required. I was bright and intelligent, funny and mischievous, witty and daring, but none of that came home with me at the end of term, so it’s understandable that I misremember myself, even as an old woman. I sincerely hope that my generation is the last, or almost last of subjugation and the disinterest in individuality, for there is brilliance out there in our children and their children and we need them to grow into themselves, ready to risk, to Go for It, whatever ‘It’ is for them.