'Pre-baptised'

[Lalwendë]

I was set up for it by being born into my family - they like telling tales of this and that and the Boggart loomed large all the time.

As a child my favourites were Rupert the Bear (I have just retrieved all those old annuals going back to the 1940s with the lovely pictures) and his friends Algy the Pug, TigerLily, Podgy Pig and most of all that humanised bundle of firewood, Raggety! I must, as a result, be one of the only people in the whole world to enjoy Paul McCartney's Frog Chorus with accompanying Rupert video Then I loved Brer Rabbit too, and the tales of him getting stuck to the Tar Baby, and Alice In Wonderland (my book had a lurid, technicolor Alice and she was very cool indeed), which my dad refused to read to me because he thought it was "Silly" (yet talking bears in checked trousers are not?). There were also the usual fairy tales, and Richard Scarry picture books, and all manner of mad things, like my mum reading me Goblin Market.

Then of course there was TV with things like the very odd Noggin The Nog, Ivor The Engine (all them Welsh dragons), Rentaghost, Catweazle, Worzel Gummidge, etc.

The 70s were a good time to be a kid, everything was slightly crazed, psychedelic, multi-coloured and fantastical. Even toys were mad - I mean, Space Hoppers?! And what about Space Dust? Then you'd get your brother blasting out Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd from his room. And your dad thought nothing of donning a paisley cravat and wallpapering your bedroom in purple and peacock blue paisley wallpaper (this actually gave me nightmares).

After all of that, Hobbits were quite normal really.