These are my son’s legs. Like other 7-year-olds, and younger too, he’s learnt the trick of climbing up to the biscuit cupboard. He’s standing on the same red stool I used years ago, different city, different house, different time.

Weirdly this stool has become one of the strongest links I have with my childhood and mother.

It was our kitchen stool. She’d sit at the kitchen table in our old house, peeling fruit or mincing breadcrumbs (I can’t remember what for) or left-over roast for rissoles. She spent a lot of time in that kitchen; endless cooking, baking, making preserves. Or she was at the piano. Or out, doing good.

I’m glad I’ve got the red stool to remember her by.