In the late seventies and early eighties, my mum was working as an editor for a national magazine. A couple of days before my seventh birthday, I must have either been on holiday or there might have been a strike at school - I don’t remember which, but either way, one afternoon I went to visit her in the busy editorial office in the middle of London.

[aside: this was at a time when it was considered completely fine for seven year old girls to catch the tube into central London on their own. Who knew?]

So there I was, sitting on the edge of a chair beside a cluttered desk in the middle of this busy office. Everywhere around me, people were handling bits of paper, looking at transparencies, pasting up layouts, hacking copy to bits with big scissors and sifting through piles of photographs. There were no computers. I was bored. Really, really bored. I kicked my legs against the desk drawers. My red wellies swung underneath me, impatiently.

[aside: I remember another time visiting that office and being bored - I think I was probably about eight or nine - it was the middle of summer and it was very hot. I had a lovely pair of pink and white striped shorts and a t-shirt with a strawberry on. I went to the loo on the fourth floor of her office building, and I found a whole pile of these cool white paper bag thingies, each with a picture of a shepherdess in a big frock on them. I stood on the loo seat and dropped one out of the open window. It fluttered pleasingly down to the ground, through the heavy summer air. I dropped another on. It see-sawed for a moment before fluttering down like a big white leaf. I dropped a couple more. And some more. I dropped the whole lot. Soon, it was raining sanitary towel disposal bags on Marylebone Road. The building porter saw what was going on outside from his vantage point in the lobby, saw my little hand at the open fourth floor window, chased up the stairs and gave me huge telling-off. My mum was livid. I had to go out onto the street and pick up every one of those bags. This was at a time when it was considered safe for eight year old girls to wander around in a busy street, collecting sanitary disposal bags. Whatever.]

So back to a few days before my seventh birthday. I was bored. Everywhere around me, the editorial staff were putting the magazine to bed. I started playing with the various bits and bobs on the desk in front of me. I made a paperclip chain. I cut up an old magazine with a huge pair of steel scissors. I even drew a picture of my house using a red marking-up grease pencil - but it wasn’t very sharp, and the lines were too thick. So then I found a tin of Cow Gum, opened the lid, extracted the pasting spatula thingy and proceeded to slap it onto my eyelashes, as if it was mascara.

[aside: Even at the age of seven I was shit at putting make-up on. This trend continued through my dodgy mid-eighties green mascara phase (what were we thinking?) all the way into my late-eighties teen Goth thing (like Robert Smith, I thought eyeliner was to be applied vaguely), and well into my terrible early-nineties dark-lipstick era (I looked as if I as constantly at the wrong end of a bottle of merlot. Not good.) Make-up and I have since reached an uneasy truce - it lets me think I’ve got the upper hang, though we still have the occasional tussle, when I find out who’s boss. Usually after a night on the tiles, though.]

My eyelashes were completely stuck together by the glue.

[aside: Do you remember Cow Gum? Does anyone? It was a strong fixative in the seventies and eighties, which came in a red and white tin, like paint. It was mostly used by photographers and editors because it fixed quickly and didn’t yellow in air. It also had the most repulsive, pungent stench. I used to think it was made out of cows. Maybe it was. I have no idea if it’s still commercially available. God help us all, if it is.]

My mum span around in her chair the moment I started yelping. Suddenly, the magazine was forgotten. Deadlines disappeared. Priorities reversed in an instant. My face was a sticky mess of glue and hair and tears - my mum was shouting at me, telling me to cry. That seemed especially harsh, because I wanted her to help, not shout at me - but in retrospect she did the right thing, because it was only my tears that stopped the glue going into my eyes and blinding me completely.

“Keep crying, keep crying,” she yelled. I kept crying. Tears came easily. I was panicky and scared and it hurt so much. She had to hold onto my fists to stop me from rubbing the glue into my eyes. My whole face stung.

We ran out of the office (or rather, my mum slung me over a shoulder and carried me out) and hailed a cab to the nearest hospital, where they irrigated my eyes for hours, applied another solvent, and gradually prised apart my sticky eyelashes. I could see again. Everything was going to be a little blurry for a day or so, but I could see. They’d given my fringe a hasty and wonky cut, and everything reeked of glue, but I could see. I’d lost half my eyelashes, but they would grow back, and I could see.

That started my mum off. “Stop crying,” I wailed at her, “don’t cry!” She hugged me in the middle of the casualty department, kissed my hair, and told me that sometimes, tears are good.

She was right.