“Ten. My hair is like spun gold but my knees are scabbed from falling in the playground. We live next door to a pub and, each night from my bedroom, I hear the rattle-slam of the door open and close, open and close. Sometimes I’m sent round there to buy dimpled glass bottles of lemonade and bags of unsalted crisps. I enter through the door marked ‘Off-Sales’, into the tiniest of rooms, but I always peep across to the sepia-stained lounge. It’s there I learn that both ‘mild’ and ‘bitter’ have more than one meaning.”

I’m a big fan of the wonderful Stu McKinlay and his fine beers, so I was thrilled to be asked to contribute to the Yeastie Boys 10th Birthday Zine. You can find my piece, ‘Ten’ – alongside contributions from Adrian Tierney-Jones, Jess Mason and more – in ‘Decade’, available from Yeastie Boys’ anniversary events.