My daddy was a soldier. My daddy was a spy. My daddy worked as the captain of a huge ship that sailed all over the world, delivering exotic goods to sultans and princes. My daddy was an explorer and was probably, right this second, hacking his way through dense jungle seeking ancient treasures. My daddy was brave and strong and generous and heroic. I knew he was all of these things because my mum told me.

My mum was a nurse. I knew she was a nurse because I only ever really saw her wearing her nurse’s uniform and the weary-eyed expression of someone who’s had too much coffee and too little sleep for far too long. She used to tell me stories about dad, where he was and what he was probably doing, even when she was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open.

I was nothing much. Certainly nothing worth writing home about, or writing home to, apparently.

I used to play at being my daddy. I had a plastic sword, an old bucket for a helmet and a headful of stories concocted by the overtired brain of my overworked mother. She used to watch me playing in the garden through the window, but even when she smiled she looked sad.

I thought my mum was boring. I wished my dad would come home from the war, or the jungle, or the South Pole and play with me, but he never did. Mum said he was a hero with a national duty - he couldn’t let his public down, which I supposed I understood. Sometimes I wished my mum was a hero too and we could all go on adventures and get rich and famous together.

Once I went on a mission of my own: to find the newspaper clippings of my dad’s adventures that mum said she was saving up to show me when I was older. I was intrepid, I planned it right down to the last detail: Mum was asleep on the sofa. The stool was in place and ready to go. I had my sword and bucket helmet. I clambered to the uppermost peaks of Mount Wardrobe and hauled down Mysterious Cardboard Box. I sat on the floor to peruse my treasures.

Only there were no treasures. There was just a jumble of tat: an old photo of a skinny man in rolled up sleeves with a cocky cigarette in the corner of his mouth; a black and white picture of the same man with my mum, who smiled shyly at the camera; a couple of ancient cinema tickets and a beer mat with a phone number scribbled hastily across it.

There wasn’t even a photo of the spectacular wedding mum had described so often, with the queen waving from the crowd of happy wellwishers and her magnificent dress of silver and gold.

In the living room I heard my mum get up and start to get ready for work.