My life had grown distant from my mother’s – but she tended my baby while I read Marx

In 1984, my mother thought I was doing a degree because I was a single mum who couldn't get a job. Cramped together in her house in Ipswich that year, I realised she was there for me

At Christmas in 1984, my baby was seven weeks old. I was in the last year of a cultural studies degree and simply saw Christmas as a time to get some work done. My mum could take the baby while I caught up with Marx, Foucault and Barthes, and worked out what my dissertation would be on. (Pleasure, as it turns out, but that's another story.)

I am aware how pretentious this all sounds, but I don't care. If you can't be pretentious at 25, when can you?