I am sitting with some friends who are discussing what they wished they had been taught by their mothers. One says: “She told me nothing. When I was about 13 I went upstairs to the bathroom with three bottles of bleach to do my legs. I poured the bleach into the bath and was just about to get in when the phone rang and I went to answer it. When I came back to the bathroom I hadn’t put the plug in properly and it had all gone down the drain. Thank God. Why didn’t she ever tell me about all that stuff. Can you imagine if I had...”

Another says: “When I was really young my mum told me that whenever a man says something to you, it’s quite sophisticated to answer him, ‘I know.’ This was terrible advice. It stops every single conversation dead. It took me years to realise why no one ever talked to me for very long.”