The first thing my mother said when I called her to say her first grandchild, a girl, my daughter had been born was, "Right, now you'll know what it's like to be second best all the time."

She dressed me in terrible clothes and butchered my hair on a regular basis. I saved myself from some of the ridicule by sewing my own clothes when I got to be a teen, plus sneaking jeans and shirts I bought myself out of the house to wear.