Carmel Harrington: 'I’m trying to switch off that negative script in my head'

"I’ve asked my husband and children what my best quality is - they tell me it’s my kindness and that’s pretty cool because it’s one of the things that I’m trying to teach them."

Carmel Harrington: "When I finally got out of my own way and said ‘okay, I’m going to give this a go and it either works or it doesn’t but at least I’d tried,’ it was very freeing"

My Irish dad married a Londoner, and we lived in Harrow until I was almost 10. Then, we moved home to rural Wexford, where I still live now. I have two sisters and a brother; our grandmother also lived with us. There are only a few years between my siblings and me, so all my childhood memories include them. We are as great friends now as we were growing up.

Really, it’s more fragments of memories I remember. Holding my dad’s hand (he had big hands) and that feeling of safety; snuggling on my mum’s lap as she read bedtime stories, playing with my teddy bear (I still have him), and laughing with my siblings Fiona, Shelley and John.