“In the context of the great debates about identity politics – are you gay or straight, nationalist or republican, British or English and so on.”

A society in which adults are estranged from the world of children, and often from their own childhood, tends to hear children’s speech only as a foreign language, or as a lie. Children have been treated. as congenital fibbers, fakers and fantasisers.

The world of sexual abuse is quintessentiall y secret. It is the perfect crime.

I would ask, “Do you ride a bike?” I love everything about the machine – the sensation of the tyres on the road, the mobility – and I love the fact that you have this intimate relationship with the elements, and the landscape.

Be prepared to be enlightened, enraged, amused, engaged, and above all provoked.

Children’s bodies aren’t like automobiles with the assailant’s fingerprints lingering on the wheel.