Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Attics are constantly on my mind these days, in the run-up to publishing my third book, The Attic Room.

Our old house had a lovely attic room – sloping wooden roof, small and spidery window, dark corners full of old boxes containing great-grandma’s crockery… It was the perfect place to keep all those things we couldn’t bring ourselves to throw away. In the early days at the house, we didn’t need the space and didn’t bother much about the attic room. Until one summer we had visitors up there.

Several hundred visitors.

It started very early one morning when the boys were five and three. I had just persuaded Son 2 that another little sleep would be a good idea, and was exiting his bedroom when I heard a splashing noise coming from the upstairs loo.

I peered round the door. The upstairs loo was a long, narrow room…