I obliged, so to speak, on 15 February 1901, and our address of the time inflates my ego. It was 7 Royal Crescent, but its glory was later tarnished for me by the discovery that the Crescent is built on the site of one of the plague pits of 1665. My arrival does not seem to have troubled my mother unduly, physically or in any other way. She kept an engagement book – ‘Ladies’ Year Book’, I see it is called – and I have preserved that for 1901. On Friday 15 February, I read: ‘Hairdresser 10.30. Baby arrived 2.20. Weighed 9 lb 5 oz. £ 1 11s 8d Emma’s wages.’ Emma was probably the cook. My weight is recorded weekly thereafter for a while but soon there is merely a note of who was coming to tea.