My parents divorced when I was about nine. It was pretty hurtful. I was on the cusp, I think if I was much younger I wouldn’t have understood and if I was older I would have rebelled against everything. As it was I just sort of went with it. I almost don’t remember how I really felt about it, the emotion that I must have felt seems as distant as that of the others around me at the time. It was all so long ago that the idea that that my Mum and Dad were once together seems intangible.

Shoot the Moon, written by Alan Parker and released in 1982, is the most harrowing divorce film I’ve seen. It’s the only one that really portrays the pain of the real thing. The pit of my stomach sympathised. I have always been aware of how my mother and, to a lesser extent, my father must have felt and this film gave me brutal insight. Thankfully my parents break up had none of Albert Finney’s violence. While his role is exaggerated, however, there’s no doubt about the connection to reality and whilst his behaviour is horrific, the emotional turmoil that creates them must be familiar to every divorcee.