'IN 1978 I launched a tactical raid of sorts in my parents’ walk-in wardrobe. This was out of character for me – until this moment the idea that they had secrets I wished to plumb or, as I might later describe it, a private life, was not just a matter of total indifference, it was inconceivable. I was surreptitiously trying on my father’s leather jacket while he was at work and noticed that the louvred cabinet standing between the open racks of rayon sundresses and wide-lapelled suits was secured by a small brass padlock. As it happened, the cabinet proved laughably insecure; the tiny key was in a glass pin dish poking out from beneath the shoe stand. On opening the lock, I found precisely what a fourteen-year-old would wish most to find behind a moderately defended door.'
(Introduction)