When we were young we resented being treated as children, being considered naïve, immature, unformed, being always the negligible inferiors tagging along their elders like lapdogs. This sense of inferiority dogged us, throughout the unendurable years of childhood, limited our freedom and, most exasperatingly of all, barred us from the fascinating world of adults. From time to time we would gaze with our burning eyes at the stars and wish for miracles- is it possible that we’d be grownups within a few blinks of an eye? Or perhaps a mysterious someone would suddenly materialise to save us from our protracted misery? Flannery O’Connor says it best: “Anyone who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days.” In truth, whoever suggests that his childhood was as idyllic as the ones cloyingly depicted in those edifying children’s books is, more often than not, holding in his hand the broken glasses of his shattered dream. Our first awa