In 1943 my mother had a deep depression; partly menopause (she was 43), partly the death of my adopted sister aged 8, of diphtheria shortly before Christmas 1942, partly the death of her mother (Emily Jane Raybould) earlier in that year; and partly the wartime permanent blackout of the room her piano was in (blue paper drawing-pinned to the window-frames – couldn’t afford special blackout curtains for that room). She would sit catatonic on the edge of her bed, having been in hospital for something.

At the age of 14, during the school summer holidays of 1943, I had to take her frequently – weekly, I suppose, maybe more often – on a bus, changing to a tram – to a clinic somewhere in Birmingham, where she was given the then fairly new electro-convulsive treatment to her head, causing violent body convulsions, and shepherd her back home. She was quite dazed and disoriented. I had to sit waiting in a porch while she was taken away, through dull brown doors with obscuring glass panes, and I remember reading “Memoirs of a Fox-hunting Man” by Siegfried Sassoon, a book for the next school year. (When I got back to school they put me in a different class, back a year. A wasted read; all I remember is the title, but I remember a lot about my Mom). She scarcely knew what was happening, and could – or chose – to tell me almost nothing about it. She did improve, after what seemed a long time, almost back to her old self.

I learned a lot from her, before this regression. She had been lively, and interested in everything; she wrote poetry (I still have some, and later I typed some out for her). She encouraged me with word games, such as: I remember her at the kitchen sink, her back to me; she would turn and say something like, “O, U and a B, D, L and an E, put them together and spell it for me.” On the old wooden mantelpiece in the kitchen I would invent a common word or phrase and chalk it up, on the spur of the moment – but using symbols instead of letters, like squares, circles, or triangles. My Mum took a look, thought a bit, and got it in one. We used to play “Lexicon”, a card game using playing cards with letters instead of suits, spelling and altering words.

Oh, that rhyming anagram? (She always made them rhyme). DOUBLE. I’d be – what – 11? 12? Before that brain episode, I’m sure.

I can still sort out anagrams, and my friends can’t believe my luck at Scrabble.