It’s already raining as we bounce down the Wroxton Road. Fine, misty stuff that makes crystal beads in the children’s hair. The tarmac gleams blackly-slick, and the chestnut on the corner of Little Lane totters beneath its weight of sodden leaves. It’s nearly eight o’clock, but feels later, darkness sneaking in on the rolling waves of a rain-grey sky.

We’re singing 1Direction ‘You don’t know you’re beautiful’ – the same line over and again -Oh, oh-oh, because none of us know the proper words. There’s me and four children, singing, screeching and twirling through Horley, party nerves sending us hyper. I’m the only one with gin in one pocket, and tonic in the other. I have a blue plastic beaker forced into the back pocket of my skinny jeans. I am wearing six earrings in my ears for the first time in fifteen years, and I feel as if I’m…