When I was five, my parents had this enormous carved wooden picture of a Viking longboat on the wall. As we were getting ready to move house, it was taken down and propped against the sofa.

I was obsessed with it. It was bigger than I was, and I was convinced that one day I’d climb into it and sail across the ocean. I’d sit for hours just staring, seeing myself on that ship.

So when it was lying there within reach, I made a decision: I would sail it across the lounge.

I dragged it out from the chairs and began pushing it across the shag-pile carpet. It moved, at first, then it stuck. Refused to budge. But I was a stubborn little boy (no change there), and those Vikings were going to make landfall.

So I pushed harder.

And drove a splinter straight through my hand, from one side of my tiny five-year-old palm to the other.

The neighbour, a nurse, was called. She pulled it out, cleaned me up, and sent me back, chastened but alive.

What I remember is the pain, the ship, the nurse, my dad’s reaction, my mother’s worry, every detail, as clear as if it happened yesterday.

It didn’t.

It was forty-seven years ago.

But do you think I can remember why I walked into the kitchen two minutes ago?