My Grandma was a great fan of the bags of salted peanuts, which were served hot, smelled delicious and made your fingers greasy. One day she saved up her bag of nuts for later, and sat down to eat them at the zoo where were having a day out.

I'll never forget the woebegone expression on her face, when an ostrich put its head over the fence and grabbed the bag of nuts out of her hand.

I remember buying a winfield biro on the way to school for an history exam, getting in the exam room and the bloody thing wouldn't write. My teachers were very unsympathetic.