Before I went to medical school I had a hip alternative life. In the 1980s, as a 17 year-old schoolgirl, I wrote for the New Musical Express. My friends assume I had a great time with sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, but the truth is I was such a cautious Carla that I didn’t touch the former two at all, and I scurried off home to be in bed immediately after each gig I reviewed.
Each time they gave me a rolled up bank note and left me to snort in private, I blew
Part of the reason was because I had strict parents. My dad was a benevolent patriarch who was older than many dads and had spent his youth as a cultured Persian immigrant in London, going to classical concerts and philosophy lectures. He looked on first bewilderment and then with fury as my older sister, then me, then my younger brother, trooped off to new wave gigs and played The Clash loudly in our bedrooms.
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