I no longer remember my first day at school. Photographs prove it must have happened. At grammar school, I was not the best of pupils. Almost every year there was suspense over whether I would make it through 😉

I spent the summer holidays after my eighteenth birthday in Nigeria, as the guest of a pastor. I discovered a talent for languages, wrote a report that was published, gained confidence – and then managed to pass my Abitur too.

As a child, I was terrified of water. Nobody could teach me to swim … least of all a teacher who pushed me into the deep end. After that, I stopped going into the pool altogether and got a failing grade in PE every year.