Looking back, I could see all the signs – now that I know what they are. From a very young age, we always just referred to our daughter as ‘quirky’. Being young, inexperienced parents, and this being our first child, we had no one else to compare her to. She complained about the intensely itchy woollen tights she wore, and we would joke that she was like the young girl from the classic story The Princess and the Pea, in that she could feel anything – no matter how small or seemingly insignificant.

She would sit reciting facts she had learnt from various encyclopaedias she had read late in to the night, then kindly offer these facts to anyone who would listen, whether they liked it or not. Curiously, she appeared neither concerned nor interested in whether they were actually listening – it was more important to her to just pass on the information, as if it were her duty to inform anyone she came across that there were in fact 60 species of kangaroos.