I have fond memories of what was one of my first self catering holidays. I wasn’t exactly catering for myself – my mum was catering for me and my sister. She was catering for herself.

I was catering for the Lego man who was on a wagon containing stuff to be sold at market. I think I Iost his hat somewhere in that self catering cottage. I was gutted. Those little hats are not very common in boxes of Lego.

Aside from this slight drawback, it was a good holiday overall. The holiday cottage was in Dumfries, Scotland. The garden backed onto a corn field; as a ten year old I was hugely impressed by the ears of corn in that field. I was unused to such an arable spectacle. It would be like finding a pineapple growing in my garden today.

I’ve seen a lot of corn since then, and a lot of pineapples, as it happens.