Growing up, innocence was bliss
LOVE Island? Surely this TV show should be known as Sex Island. I thought having sex for money was prostitution.
How glad I am that I was a shy, unworldly teenager who enjoyed a simple life at a holiday camp (pictured) with my new friends.
When I later worked for an advertising agency in London, I was charmed by the pretty red lights in the bedroom windows of Shepherd Market.
It was only when I got older that the penny dropped. I’ve worked in many dangerous places, yet my innocence often protected me.
I became friends with a young prostitute just out of Holloway prison and when she introduced me to gang bosses in Soho, she told them: ‘You leave her alone, she is not like us!’
People often looked after me in dodgy situations. I may have been innocent, but I knew how to deal with sexual harassment on the Tube.