Whale and I had been married just over a year, I was teaching at an Infant School (the same one I went to as a child) and we were living in the flat above my parents' shop but saving hard for a deposit on our own house.

One of ways we boosted our nestegg was to take part in the TV programme "Mr and Mrs". Unfortunately the recording coincided with a parents' evening at school so I pretended to have a migraine.

We won the jackpot but were found out by the headteacher because the school welfare officer was in the audience and recognised me.

We evntually had a bungalow built at Ashby St Mary (in Norfolk)  and the builder used my own design - but it had to be reduced in size to fit our budget. It actually cost £3400 including the land and our mortgage payment was £45 a month.

The move coincided with a new job at a Primary school on the same side of Norwich but I only stayed one year because after a second miscarriage the doctor advised me to give up fulltime teaching.

I arranged to work two days a week at my old Grammar school but was already pregnant when I started in the September and CC was born in the Spring.

When Jay was born seventeen months later I felt our family was complete and settled down to be a housewife and mother until a call from the headmaster at the village school lured me back part-time (two afternoons a week) to teach music.

My mother volunteered gladly to babysit and so I was back at work if only for a few hours.