When responding to the question as to how I had met my boyfriend, my first job was to correct the enquirer. We were simply friends from University who had first met at a bus stop on the Bristol Road South in Northfield, Birmingham. I then turned to the audience to explain the development of social networks amongst undergraduates on language degree programmes, and the difference in friendship patterns for those studying more than one language. Nobody was interested.

Later I went blind because I lost the muscle strength in my eyelids. As a consequence, I couldn’t find my Dutch bonnet when it came off my head at the quayside.