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I've always thought that to start an autobiography with the phrase My earliest recollections are of' was a very trite thing to do, sort of like the proverbial dark and stormy nights of literary legend. However, when that recollection involves coming within a cat's whisker of setting the family home ablaze and possibly wiping out the entire French dynasty in one mischievous strokewhat choice do I have?

It was the first of many houses that I remember living in. My dad bought the house, he owned it outright. It was the end house in Shand Street, right next to the docks at Garston in south Liverpool. Shand Street was the last street which ran off King Street, right at the dock entrance. It was about as far Under The Bridge' as you could get without getting your feet wet in the River Mersey. We had running water, which ran from a huge brass tap into a massive Belfast sink which boasted a wonderful pattern of cracks over every square inch of it, inside and out. We had gas too, which fed the wall lights in the back living room' and later on, the stove which was parked in the lean-to at the back of the house.

In the living room we had a coal fire, and this is where I almost ended everything before it had really had a chance to get going. My siblings were all of the opposite sex, one older and two younger than me. (This is the main reason for my habit of securely locking the bathroom door on every visit even now, much to my wife Anita's annoyance.) We were in the living room one winter morning having crept down the stairs while our mum slept in her room. Dad had gone out to work. He worked six days a week. After many complaints about the freezing cold, after the novelty of melting patterns on the ice coated windows with fingertips had worn off, I decided I could light the fire just like dad. I will say right now that I was definitely cheered on and encouraged to do this daft thing by said siblings.

The best way to light a coal fire, after the paper and kindling (or later, firelighters) had been properly stacked and positioned, was to light the paper and then Draw' the fire using a draw screen. The draw screen blocks of the front opening of the fireplace and forces air up through the coals from the bottom vents. The resulting furnace-like roar of the blazing coals as they crackle and pop behind the screen is a curiously satisfying sound still.

The thing is, back then only the posh people had proper fire screens. We had to make do with the short handled shovel or the poker,

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