I’ve never seen myself as a potential parent. Just didn’t think I was right for the job, to be honest. You know the sort of thing: always irritated by kids running riot in the pub, kids on scooters running into complete strangers on the pavement while their parents don’t say a word, etc. Not to mention the idea of nappy-changing…

So now I’m an uncle to a soon-to-be 3-yr-old niece and a 4-month-old niece, with another on the way in September. And though I can’t get down to see the family as much as I’d like, they’ve changed my outlook so much I barely have words for it.

It’s always been important to me to work in areas that directly help people. 8 years in local authority housing, and coming up 11 years in disability support for FE and HE students – not the sort of thing that’ll ever pay enough to cover much more than the rent and bills, but enough to get by. Why? It was always theoretical before; just the idea that what we’re doing has a positive effect on people’s lives, rather than driving some company’s bottom line. Trying to make the world just a little better, even for just a few people, counted for something. (I moan a lot about being perpetually skint, of course.)

Now I’ve got these fantastic new people around me, and the future’s changed. Anything I thought was worth working for has got personal. Anything I yell about – NHS cuts, education, equality, sexism, racism, homophobia, you name it – is about them now, on top of the general principles I go on about. It’s all about the kind of world I want these kids to grow up in.

The future’s theirs. It’s our job to make it AWESOME.