My teacher said my brain was the size of a pea. He made my life miserable by singling me out in the classroom as a failure.

My teacher said my brain was the size of a pea. He made my life miserable by singling me out in the classroom as a failure.

At home, when the heating pipes made noises, I imagined a tiny person was in there skipping with a rope. The fantasy world of tiny things became my escape.

I became obsessed with making more and more tiny things. I think I was trying to find a way of compensating for my embarrassment at having learning difficulties: people had made me feel small so I wanted to show them how significant 'small' could be.