This entry is prompt #2 of The Book of Me, Written by You project.

The prompt for week 2 is Your Birth

• Do you have any baby photos?
• Where were you born?
• Who was present at your birth?
• Dimensions?
• What day was it? Time?
• Did you have hair? Eye colours
• Are you a twin?

I have one baby photo of me … the one on the right … but I am going to dig out a few more from my mum's photo album in the next week or so, and I'll add them at the bottom.

I was born at Edgware Hospital, London. Our nearest hospital was Northwick Park and my brother was born there three years nine months and ten days later, but at the time the maternity unit was still being built, so Edgware it was for me. By all accounts it wasn't a great experience for my mum. The food was dreadful, there weren't enough clean cot sheets and she had problems breast feeding me, but rather than helping, the midwives kept telling her off because I was hungry and crying a lot and disturbing the other babies! (It turns out she didn't actually have any milk, and it's likely a hereditary problem that I have too.)

My dad was present at my birth – kind of. Apparently he was at the hospital but stayed outside the delivery room because he didnt want to watch. What a wuss! He didn't see me till it was all over and my mum was back on the maternity ward.

I was conceived a couple of weeks before my parents married but to save upsetting the somewhat conservative grandparents-to-be I was passed off as a honeymoon baby that arrived prematurely. I would imagine my parents were relieved that I was a diddy 6lb 14oz – much bigger and I would have blown their story!

I was born on a Tuesday in the Chinese Year of the Dog, at 4.45am. I had to ask my mum the time, and when she answered I was surprised because I was convinced I was born at 7-something! No idea where I got that idea from, but I can vividly remember waking up one day when I was a child and not being able to wish myself happy birthday till it was gone 7-something. Funny, that.

I was pretty much bald when I was born. When my hair did come through it was blond and curly, but I was bald till I was about 18 months, apart from a flat clump of hair on the back of my head, rather like a reverse monk's hairdo. My eyes are green now, but I would imagine they were blue at birth – aren't most babies' eyes blue?

And no, I'm not a twin! I don't think the world could cope with two of me …

This is probably the earliest photo of me, with my proud parents … My mum was made to stay in hospital for a week so I must be a week to ten days old in this picture.