Did you ever play hide and seek? Which did you prefer to do? I’m sure the childhood preference speaks volumes about a person’s developing personality or sexual appetite or something.

I was always a hider. I didn’t mind seeking too much, but patience in game-playing has never been my strong point (see also my ongoing exasperation with 20 questions) and so I didn’t really enjoy stalking around a house in search of people who were deliberately trying to make themselves impossible to find.

But hiding… Now that was a task I could apply myself to with relish. The house we lived in for eight years in West London was brilliant for hiding: lots of dark corners, low shelves, heavy curtains and piles of coats or dressing up clothes stacked in a big old chest.

With the right amount of bravado and athleticism, the clever hider could prise off the lid of the dressing up box, dig out half the contents and then leap in, covering themselves with gold lame jackets and fringed hippy dresses, pulling the lid back over the box until only one eye remained uncovered, silently peering around. The hider would wait in the pile of dressing up clothes, or behind the heavy curtains, or at the bottom of the wardrobe, or on the lowest shelf of the airing cupboard, shallow breathing and hot, not wanting to be found and yet heart-patteringly expectant about the possibility.

The memory of games played with my brother and sister when we were kids will forever be the smell of hot cloth and the sound of close breathing.

So hiding was really my thing: there was no space too small, no place too weird or inventive. There are two key skills in this game, for hiders: finding a good spot and not giving yourself away when you get there. Once esconsed somewhere, I was brilliant at staying put, remaining totally still and un-noticeable for ooooooh, ages.

In the summer of 1980, we were staying at my grandparents’ house in Port Erin on the Isle of Man. My brother and I decided on a game of hide and seek, and since they lived in a rural area, we first defined the perimeters of the game, so we didn’t end up hiding up a tree halfway to Bradda Glen. So the limits were the house, the garden, and everything up to the gate at the end of the drive. David turned around to count to a hundred, and I ran to hide.

I found the perfect hiding place, one that I thought Dewi would never ever find. On the sloping driveway outside the house, my grandad had parked his red car. I clicked open the boot, which was unlocked as usual, and climbed in.

My heart was thumping with pride at finding such a genius hiding place, and excitement about how hard David was going to have to look to find me. Ha! I lay down in the boot, reached for the roof and pulled it slowly towards me so as not to slam it.

The lid didn’t slam, but quietly clicked into place. I didn’t hear it - or at least didn’t realise what it meant at the time.

It was hot in the boot. I lay there for some time in the almost-dark, curled into a foetal position, breathing quietly and listening for my brother’s footsteps outside. After twenty minutes, I heard him searching in the garden. I held my breath and lay very still. The footsteps went away.

Ten more minutes passed. I stretched as much as I could (which wasn’t very much). The sun beat strongly on the metal lid of the boot, and it started to get very very hot indeed. The carpet lining the boot was scratchy - it was black and coarse and smelled of old mud and car. In the corner of the boot was a pair of hiking boots, caked with dried dirt, and a petrol can, which smelt strongly. I started to feel nauseous.

“I know,” I thought, “I’ll get out of the boot and go and hide somewhere else for a bit.”

I pushed upwards on the lid of the boot. Nothing happened. I pushed again, harder. Nothing. I suddenly felt very sick and hot. I thumped upwards on the lid. Nothing. No movement at all.

My grandad’s walking stick was in the boot with me, thick and curved at the top, with a warm rubber stopper on the end. Even at six I knew about leverage (blame academic parents) and so I tried to get it upright to jam against the roof of my hot little coffin. I couldn’t get it past diagonal, and I started to cry.

Time passed. I was hot and sticky and dirty and sick and all cried out. My voice was sore from shouting out to mum, nana, grandad, Dewi, anybody. I must have cried myself to sleep, because I woke up to the sound of the front door of the house slamming. I frantically pounded on the roof of the boot and shouted as loudly as I could in the hot darkness.

And then, suddenly, daylight, blinding as the lid was lifted and arms reached in towards me. My grandfather had been about to pop into the village in the car and heard me screaming and gulping air and crying. He hauled me out of the boot and into his arms, and didn’t let me go for hours.

I’d been locked in for an hour and a half, apparently, although no-one had even known I was missing. They just assumed I’d gone off for a wander, which was completely normal. My brother had got bored of playing hide and seek within the first twenty five minutes and had spent the rest of the time sitting at the kitchen table drinking milk, doing a jigsaw and swinging his little legs under the table.

That’s the weird thing about hide and seek. It never occurs to you that even though it’s the object of the game, you might not actually be found. That the seeker might stop looking.

You’d think that after all that, I’d be claustrophobic, or hesitant about small enclosed spaces, at the very least. The truth is, I’m not - but I find stuffy heat unbearable indoors - fine if I’m outside, but not in my room, not in the kitchen, and not in cars. Need fresh air. Need to be able to breathe.

But I can’t remember the last time I played hide and seek. Well over fifteen years ago, I think, if not more. Probably a good thing too, really, because
a) there aren’t that many places to hide in my flat these days (Under Davo’s bed, maybe? Or in the airing cupboard? Under the dining table? Behind the shower curtain? That would certainly give Luke and Davo a fright - especially if they didn’t know we were playing…)
b) I don’t think I could make my body contort into tiny spaces anymore. If I was hiding under a sofa cushion, believe me, you’d know.