Kellyanne opened the car door and crawled into my bedroom. Her face was puffy and pale and fuzzed-over. She just came in and said: “Ashmol, Pobby and Dingan are maybe-dead.” That’s how she said it.

I still say Kellyanne could do with some real-live mates,” went on my dad, as if he was talking to someone inside his beer.Mum had stomped off into the kitchen. “Maybe they are real!” she...

Now here’s Amy Pond, standing in the freezing ocean, holding the body of her imaginary friend, and shouting at the sea to make him better.Yeah. If only my therapists could see me now.

I realized at that moment – observing his form move further away without once turning back – that I’d already begun to rebuild the imaginary wall between us. I was shielding my heart with stone...

The happiest adults are those who never buried old toys or abandoned imaginary friends.