I dyed my hair dark grey for KM’s parents’ golden wedding anniversary party. From a distance it looked like my head was armoured in a heavy steel helmet. Regretting my mistake, I couldn’t decide whether I should wait for this horrendous hairstyle to grow out, or have it all cut back to my natural colour and wear it skinhead-style in the interim.

After the party we set off for Paris. I travelled in the first car, with my father at the wheel. Soon we reached the French immigration booth in Dover. There I remembered that TPR was carrying my documents in one of the other cars, now miles behind us. Other than wait for him, the only way to get over the border would be to wave some random paper at the immigration officer and/or chat him up. We applied both strategies. I impressed everyone (including myself) with the fluency of my French. Our carful of charm did the trick, and soon we were on our way again.

I’d never crossed the channel by car before. Now I understood why everyone had warned us that it would be very dangerous. Most frightening were the tankers that seemed to disregard the shipping lanes. One accidental nudge and we’d all sink to a watery death.