The closet under our stairs is home to a pair of battered suitcases, a retired floor mop topped with a shrivelled toupee of sponge and at least two generations of Daddy Long Leg spiders. I quite like spiders-on-stilts as a rule, but not when they come charging three abreast from the dark recesses of my scariest cupboard. Spring cleaning can be bloodthirsty work.

With my vacuum cleaner, I sucked them into the vortex of Hurricane Hoover and continued nosing deeper and deeper into the cupboard. And that’s when I struck an unfamiliar object. It was a mouldering cardboard box. I sliced open the packing tape with a knife. Inside was an antiquated collection of Brothers Grimm fairy tale books. They’d belonged to my mother as a girl and she, in turn, had entrusted them to my childhood.

I shuffled through the box, surprised and delighted to find these yellowing relics. Here were my favourite fairy tales – Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin and Rapunzel. I teased open the fraying cloth cover of Hansel & Gretel and fell down a wormhole, hurtling back to my grandmother’s house and the bare boards of my bedroom, aged nine.