With two single mothers, five kids and assorted lodgers and cats, our household was a commune in all but name. It made for some amazing memories

When I was a kid, my mum used to talk wistfully about living in a commune. But, looking back, there were times when there were enough of us and we were random enough – two single mothers, heaps of kids, lodgers, a guy in a caravan in the garden, more cats than had names – that it would have been a commune in anyone’s eyes. I don’t know what she was waiting for, some kind of hippy badge?

Anyway, for a while, we lived in the 80s version of a blended family, which is to say there were a lot of us – my mum, her friend, her friend’s three kids (one a bit older and twins) and me and my sister – with a world of wisdom and expertise, none of it in DIY.