You never forget your first love - Karen Bush
My first love was - of course - the boy next door. We bonded after sharing measles and time off school convalescing: we pledged eternal love and to marry each other when we were grown ups. It didn't last - we were only five and a year later circumstances intervened to separate us, but I still remember the sharp pain of leaving without being able to say goodbye. Timmy was not my only first love; there was another which appeared on the scene at roughly the same time. Before you accuse me of being fickle, I should point out that the other object of my affection was a book. This very book, in fact: The Wonders of Life on Earth . It was a zillion times better than anything they tried to fob us off with at school - the pictures were better, for starters. What's not to love about prehistoric beasts? I remember sitting on my Dad's lap as he taught me how to read some of the simpler words, and explained what was happening in the pictures as we looked at the...