P.E. You either loved it or hated it, looked forward to it or dreaded it, but we've all been forced to do it. Sometimes a note could get you out of it, but the following week there you'd be again, writhing on a cold and dusty gym floor in your underwear.

Skinny, timid, knock-kneed Julie Myerson was 'not a games person', according to her teachers. In this touching, funny and occasionally devastating exploration of her childhood, she now asks the question: why not?