I was the girl who never made it through a sleepover; I would inevitably call my parents to stage an intervention and collect me, usually around 9pm, before the horror films started.

One time, the family had just taken delivery of a kitten, and as the little feline passed from child to child to endure its tortuous welcome, it soon became clear that it was infested with fleas.

The other children, used to living amongst a menagerie of more or less domesticated creatures and variously suffering from nits, impetigo or ring worm seemed un-phased, but I was horrified. I quickly put in the call, gathered my belongings and staked-out the wait in the porch. At home, I was put in a bath of TCP vowing never to make the same mistake again.

In the first year of high school, aged 12, I did, however, once more reluctantly accept to attend a sleepover at a “friend’s” house. First, because the girl’s mother did not drive, we had to walk about 3 miles from school. A group of 10 pubescent girls, honked at all the way by men in white vans: I suspected that this wasn’t going to work out so well after all.

On arrival at the home, we were welcomed with bottles of Hooch by the girl’s mother’s boyfriend, before he drove us to the video shop so that he could rent out the selection of “18-rated” films the other girls had identified. I survived rather later at this sleepover than at others, on account of my new strategy for horror-film endurance, which involved accepting the worst viewing spot in the room, listening to Take That on my Walkman and averting my eyes for the duration. But my pride at escaping Chucky’s wrath was short-lived, when next, to my horror, the home-made Ouija board was revealed and the candles lit.

Once again, I hurried to the telephone and issued the SOS. This time I waited in the front garden, to escape the attention of any lingering spirits, or rather the inevitable coup planned for my humiliation by the birthday girl.

My sleepover career was categorically ended on the occasion when it was not me but the hostess’ mother who made the call. It was the week of Diana Princess of Wales’ funeral and the family, together with the 12 pre-teens were sobbing over news coverage of the gathering crowds. In the tradition of the Gallic Republicanism in which I had been raised, I analytically offered a running in commentary of Di’s demise as a symbol for the ultimate anachronism of monarchy, together with a terrifying display from the masses, of all that was wrong with Britain. But it seemed not every household ran by the guiding triumvirate of ‘Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, and I had caused irreparable offence.

My parents were called to remove me from the party, much to my relief: I had spotted the VHS of Candyman waiting next to the TV.