I’m not sure when I decided I wanted to be Robin Hood but I was a small child and I used to make bows and arrows out of the mock orange bushes in the garden. The twigs are springy and bent well without breaking, you could also use the straight twigs as arrows. I got quite good at firing them at little targets in the garden.

I guess it all started when I used to watch Robin Hood a programme on the TV starting Richard Green I think. I used to sing along with the theme tune. I also loved the Hollywood films with Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Junior playing Robin.

I wasn’t really interested in Maid Marion, she had to get Robin to help her escape when the Sherriff of Nottingham captured her. Or she was always doing embroidery or weaving… Boring! I didn’t want to be a boy, but my father used to encourage me to do woodwork and I loved climbing trees. I was good at sport and running when I was young, but I grew out of it and it wasn’t until I got into cycling while I was at college that I got fit again because I cycled everywhere.

So yes, I’d like to have been Robin Hood because there were no exciting female role models except for maybe Emma Peel in the Avengers… That’s another possibility…