For some totally obscure reason this afternoon I suddenly remembered travelling by ferry from Swansea to Cork in a gale. The sea was unbelievably rough – too rough for the ship to put out its stabilisers and almost everyone, including the most of the crew, was green to the gills and dashing to the toilets to throw up. I was about twenty at the time. I gathered up the random and quite scared children and spent the entire night making up stories, singing songs and doing action rhymes. Not one of them vomited, although some of the little ones fell asleep on sofas and armchairs. As we sailed into harbour, all was calm. I don't remember any pale and wobbly parents thanking me, but perhaps they did. It is just today, for no reason at all, I remembered and thought, well, absent, you did a good thing – the younger me had her heart (and, clearly her stomach) in the right place.
