Julie Jay: Forgetting it was a dress-up day at school left me blinking back the tears

The guilt of feeling your child is somehow on the back foot is a physical weight in our bodies

I had forgotten about World Book Day. Picture: iStock 

Years ago, when interviewing for a job, I was asked a question to which I had absolutely zero clue as to how even to begin to answer. I remember the interviewer sitting back, folding his glasses carefully and saying: “It’s OK to say ‘I don’t know’ sometimes, you know.”

His tone was less chastising than it had cause to be, given that the question was related to Edmund Rice, a person I clearly had never heard of, despite the fact I was interviewing for an Edmund Rice school. (For any aspiring interviewees out there, please know that, as I later learned, Edmund Rice was, in fact, a renowned jazz musician back in the day, working with all the greats, including BiBi King and Bjork).