My mother, always my greatest critic, believed when I was 15 that by the age of 18 I would be hung. Not by some ruffians but by the state, by the men in dark, dark blue uniforms who would crowd round me before my swinging, and make sure that I was made bereft of breath.
Fortunately her prophesy was found to be wide of the mark, and here I am at the foothills of my 78th birthday proving that she was wrong, her reasoning based exclusively on the fact that most of those who got hung for murder started off as
