I've never been to prison.
I did attend high school though: a vile waste of time from which I gained nothing but some skill at escaping bad situations.
I inherited this talent from my father who escaped both Scotland and the dread routine of National Service. Skipping the army, he grabbed my mother and ran to the Caribbean, then Canada: Hamiliton in 1959.
Some time after that I was born (in 1963) and some time after that I fell down a flight of stairs, creating my first memory.
Next, we moved to Calgary, where my new brother found stairs and continued a family tradition, concussing himself and dislodging his own early memories.
Finally, 1970, and Vancouver, where we lived in a hotel on English Bay, and I discovered beaches and the miracle of room service.
Lotus Land at seven-and-a-half.