THE FIRST RAT is resin bronze and 11 cm long and only limited by how many I could bear making (over a hundred). It is a favourite of mine for sentimental reasons. I am an artist by accident. I qualified as a primary school teacher, but enjoyed making things and people began to want to buy them. Someone saw a sculture I had made of my sons ferreting and suggested he could give us a space on the Ferret stand at the Game Fair where I coud sell it. I needed to make other suitable subjects. I asked the local rat catcher who had a famous Jack Russell if I could use it as a model. He came with his dog for several sessions, and I relied on a stuffed rat in the Natural History Museum for the rat. I modelled this in wax and when it was finished I showed it to him. His face fell.

What had I done wrong?

“There wouldn’t be a second without him seeing a rat and getting it,”  he complained.

“Supposing we called it “The First Rat”? I suggested. He was satisfied. This was when pounds were in paper. Every evening during the Game Fair my children would count the fat wadge in my handbag as we ate fish and chips or chinese take-away in our tent – but the son (now grandfather of 5) who had spent the day with ferrets down his shirt had to sleep in a different tent.