So there I was, a dark-haired three-year-old, skipping along the worn remnants of the foundations of a building built, occupied and demolished before I was born. Whatever it had been eventually got replaced in the 1970s by blocks of flats in what used to be the centre of Irvine (the townshouse, the district court, the police station, the council rent office, the doctor's surgery, the chip shops, the bus stop to Kilmarnock, the pubs) in the days before you needed a car before you could go and buy a pint of milk. The unseen danger lurking beyond the cheerful gaze of my young shining eyes was the cold remnants of a fish supper, vomited up the previous evening by some no-doubt elderly, shining-eyed, cheerful drunk.

My cute little sandal-clad feet at the end of my cute little spindly legs chose to lose their grip on the antiquated remains at the same moment as I traversed the pile of rank mush. The feeling of cold, macerated fish and chips on the back of my thighs stays with me still. I've forgiven my mother (you should always forgive your mother - they tend to return the compliment whenever you need it) for scolding me for the freakishly unforseeable coming together of the elements of the incident, and I've forgiven the drunk, but I can't forgive Irvine for giving me this as my first memory of the place.