I AM beginning to wonder if those long hot days of summer that I so vividly recall from my childhood are just figments of my imagination.

Did we really have those summers or is it that I want a hot summer so much, that the longing is playing tricks with my mind?

I mean, here we are, well into July, with only a few weeks to go before we are into autumn, and I have a wardrobe of summer clothes that are yearning, longing to be worn, and it's beginning to look like their only chance of it happening, is to go abroad for a week or two, which I have really no wish to do. I wonder, if you find, as I am doing, that your memory is very selective and that it has evolved a habit of leaving out the bad bits.

My childhood was happy, very happy, and mainly I recall only the nice things. But just occasionally I remember one or two rather nasty moments which come back to me when I hear the Jimmy Savile story.

I suppose that most girls, if they are absolutely honest, have suffered some sort of unwelcome attention at one time or another.

But enough of that. I shall shudder and put that bit of memory back in its box where hopefully it will remain.

I have been having a big shoe sort out, and when I say big, I really mean it, as I take a size seven to eight shoe size.

I can't believe that I actually wore some of them. Others I look on with fond affection - such as the occasions when I wore two-inch platform soles which, of course, also had a four inch heel.

I can still feel how great it was being tall, nearly six foot, well five foot odd!

I have always envied those girls who were naturally tall and elegant.

My granddaughter Katy is tall and looks great in almost anything, whereas we less fortunate shorter individuals have to work much harder at it.