Instead, I slouched out to the back garden and set up a chair for headier recreation: peeping over the fence at plump Mrs Hardy, who sometimes opened a button too many of her blouse as she dozed in a deck-chair. My peeping procedure had strict rules to minimise the risk of detection. The chair had to stand no less than three feet six inches away from the fence and it was forbidden to stare for longer than ten seconds every four minutes. Mrs Hardy, whose first name I never knew, must have been in her mid-thirties, fair-skinned and barren; Mr Hardy, who wore a three-piece suit even at home on Sunday afternoon, was ‘something in the City’ and sat with his pipe and papers well out of the sun, twenty feet away. Neither of the Hardys was aware of my mortal existence, let alone my lascivious interest. The satisfactions I obtained were negligible, but the game killed an empty hour and freshened my eyes for the next dose of reading.

In between peeping, I composed and delivered a political oration to an imaginary mass rally. Standing on my chair, aged nine and a half, old before my time, I iterated orotund phrases from parliamentary reports in a utopian vision of social bliss. Mutely, of course, since to have uttered a sound would have betrayed my stuttering, red-faced presence to the neighbours.

‘Liberty, equality and fraternity,’ I proclaimed soundlessly, ‘are inalienable human rights to which we all pay lip-service. But these rights, like tea-leaves, need to be watered with aqua vitae . It is not enough for a government to provide health care, full employment and decent pension rights. It must give them the chance to get the most out of life. My administration will help people to fulfil their right to happiness. Millions of people of all ages who have more leisure time than ever before, but squander these precious hours in drink and drudgery, unaware of the opportunities that could enrich their lives – the chance to expand their minds, explore new interests and meet others of like mind.’