Dear Pauline

You don’t know me, but I know you, though not, perhaps, as well as I like to think I do. How can I advise you not to make the same mistakes as I did, when I never listened to anyone’s advice when I was your age? So this letter is more for my benefit than yours – a reminder of how little I knew, at eighteen, when I thought I knew everything.

Where to begin? Well, the first obvious mistake was marrying my ‘childhood sweetheart’. We were both too young and immature to see beyond the romantic haze of the fairy-tale wedding and the excitement of setting up home together. Now, of course, the living together would have come first, but things were different over half a century ago.

We soon realised we really had nothing in common, and the marriage was doomed to failure as we grew up and grew apart. Having children in an attempt to strengthen the relationship was never going to be a long-term solution, but the immediate demands of parenthood did serve to create a temporary diversion from facing up to the inevitable ‘parting of the ways’.

Life experiences shape how we view the world, but can it be true that we learn from our mistakes? The ‘nature or nurture’ argument is an interesting one, in the context of considering whether taking, rather than ignoring, well-meant advice would alter our character, or value-judgements. Would the grown up me behave any differently if the younger me had been less impetuous and impatient, and more willing to admit errors of judgement?