Later, I came to realise that there was a subconscious element of penance about the squalidness of my surroundings. I told myself I was free; free of exams, school uniform, the oppressive clutch of Mum’s misery, Dad’s empty armchair in the corner. But the truth was that I’d merely tried to run away from my own grief. I’d thought that by putting miles between me and my family’s vast loss, it would diminish its perspective. But in hindsight all it did was add a bucket of guilt to the already potent cocktail of suppressed negativity and unexpressed sorrow. I’d abandoned Pete and Mum when they needed me most – even though Samantha, on the rare occasions I tried to articulate this, merely shrugged and said, ‘Baby, what use would you be to them, feeling this fucked up? You’ll be much more useful once you get your head straight.’ I pretended to believe her.

I missed Pete, and Dad of course, and I hated that Pete was so angry with me for leaving him with Mum, but it was done. I had failed Dad. They were better off without me.

Apart from my guilt, the other blot on my hippie landscape was Samantha’s excessive free spiritedness. She hated being in one place for more than a few days at a time and spent increasingly lengthy periods of time at Greenham, which made me itchy with insecurity. Mostly because she never invited me to go with her – although I was secretly quite glad about this, being terrified of getting arrested again; the last thing I wanted was more police officers peering into my knickers. And Samantha was so effervescent with love and affection whenever she came back that I refused to read anything into it more than her desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons. I was utterly besotted. I’d even thought about how we could have children together and which of my fellow squatters we’d ask to be sperm donor – Marsh was the answer; he was gorgeous.

Despite the privations, I loved living in the squat. I adored the bunch of guys I lived with: mild-mannered twenty-something Goth eco-warriors to a dreadlocked man: Spike, Matty, Marsh and Webbo. Every night the five of us – six, when Samantha was there to share my mattress – sat around the brazier and smoked weed until I wove a hazy web inside my head, rolled up in my sleeping bag and drifted off into a comfortable night’s sleep. Often we would sing – Matty was a really good guitar player and Webbo brought out bongos. Those were the best nights. We wrote music together – mostly rage-filled protest songs, but they were pretty good. The boys treated me like a kid sister and were unfailingly protective, and in return I cooked and kept the squat as clean as I could while they were out busking and working odd jobs for pittances that were then pooled.