The earliest memory I have is of being left outside a bookies in my pushchair by my father. He parked me under the window and told me that he'd be back before I could count to a hundred, but he wasn't. As a teen, I once teased him about his abandoning me to the baby snatchers and paedophiles of Putney High Street.

He stared at me and said that girls don't go into betting shops.

In surprise, I turned the tale over to my mother.

My mother wont go into a pub by herself. She once got mild frostbite in two toes from standing for an hour and a half outside a pub in the snow, unable to check if the person she was waiting for was inside. Only a certain type of woman is ever seen in public houses on their own, she said, and she is not that kind. She also told me that once a lady is inside the pub, she should never approach the bar. She sits in the lounge area and waits for the man to bring her a drink. She drinks lager shandy, but poured into a wine glass, because it's unfeminine for a woman to hold a pint.

Girls don't go into betting shops, she said.