MY DAY of childhood ignominy and shame stands out because it was exceptional. That day, if I’d developed horns and a tail, nobody would have been surprised. My mother spouted horrified reproach in a sporadic way, like a water tap with an airlock. How could I? What kind of a child would ever? The very idea of inflicting such cruelty on a dumb animal.

A daughter is swimming the channel after her aunt donated a kidney to her father, writes Arlene Harris