In the memory I am standing with him to watch tanker trucks being driven on to or off of a transporter ship. The colours are vivid – yellow for the sand, blue for the sky and a darker blue strip for the sea. The ship is white and the tankers are white, green and yellow.

It is a memory not a remembered photograph or a dream. And it must have taken place no later than January 1961, because my mother flew with me home to England then in order to give birth to my sister in February. We were not abroad again till I was 6, when we went to Ghana.

I have several other snatches of memories from when I was 3, 4 and 5 but my earliest long, continuous memories date from the 9 months or so we spent in Ghana.

I agree with your thought Aleks. Another reason Nigel Slater’s autobiog resonates, I think, is that, like smells, tastes can evoke very specific and often very early memories. (Even, it would seem, when the taste itself is all in the mind and you are relying on written description.)