My mum was 23 when I was born, 5 years younger than I am now. On January 28 1984, my dad was thousands of miles away on a second visit to the Falklands, thanks to some inconveniently inconsiderate Argentinians. The winter of 83/84 was, well, an actual proper winter and when my granddad came to collect my mum and gran from the Norfolk & Norwich Hospital they had to trudge through snow.  

I can’t imagine what it must be like to be alone with a newborn baby, your husband onboard a ship bobbing around a windswept clutch of rocks that has only just got done being a war zone. But, of course, my mum could handle it because she’s a fiendish combination of empathy, toughness and sparky intelligence. My dad didn’t see me until I was 3 months old and my mum maintains I gave him a dirty look when he did. 

I can think of at least one occasion when my dad has literally saved my life. Tottering about on common land, I didn’t see the carthorse come charging at me. The first I knew that anything untoward had happen was being picked up from the ground by dad who had leapt in front of the horse and thrown me out of the way. My dad is the kind of person you want around in a crisis. He cries at films but keeps the taps closed in real life. He’s a brilliant model of how a good man should be and I don’t think I’ll ever stop being proud of being Michael Wright the second. 

The stories that come to mind when I think about my mum aren’t as dramatic but their effect was to me. The first is about my second primary school which was ruled over by a tinpot tyrant of a headmaster who revelled in acts of collective humiliation. A stray gym plimsoll would lead to an all-school airing of grievances with everyone forced to file past him and present their pair of shoes. The owner of the errant footwear would be publicly chastised until there were tears.

The petty cruelty extended to games lessons where the classic “play in your pants and vest” rule remained active long after  its heyday at pathetic public schools of the 1950s. For some reason I ended up as a particular focus of the head’s ire and soon found myself being unfairly punished on an almost daily basis. It culminated in me spending an entire afternoon sat at the punishment post, an actual wooden beam in a drafty concrete hall, forbidden to move. 

I finally told my mum what had been going on and she immediately took action. She and my granddad, an ex-Metropolitan Police dog handler, went to the school and subjected the head to a very effective bad cop/absolutely-livid cop double act. Though my granddad is capable of delivering a cool-eyed interrogation that would leave Moriarty feeling a little unsettled, I have no doubt that my mum was the more frightening of the two. In our family, she is the undisputed boss. Soon I was at a new school where the teachers like me better even if most of the kids didn’t. 

The other tale that springs to mind is about a bowls club. While no major TV drama has yet been set at a bowls club, they are, in fact, hives of such geriatric Machiavellian manoeuvring to fill the scripts of a wrinkly West Wing. I came to be sat on the side of the indoor green at an unfamiliar club quietly reading my book and eating some crisps because my mum (a nifty bowls player having inherited the skill from my national champion grandmother) had been persuaded to play with my dad and grandparents. 

I was paying absolutely no attention to their match or any of the others taking place but a busybody had spotted me. He marched up to my mum and informed her in an imperious tone that I must be removed to the upstairs viewing area. It was as if I was a bag of soiled rags with a faced scrawled on it rather than a well behaved 8-year-old minding his own business. I glanced up from my book to see mum looking the man up and down. “If my son isn’t welcome, then we are leaving,” she said calmly, ignoring the protestations of the rest of the group. The game was left unfinished. 

Neither of those anecdotes seems like much but lots of bits of personal history seem insignificant when plucked out as individual threads. To me, they represent the toughness I admire in my mum, a quality she applies as much to her work life as she does to family. She is a leader in a business stuffed with PhDs and is just completing her first degree with the Open University. She carved out her career path with a certificate in Doing What’s Required and a diploma in Bullshit Detection. 

I didn’t have to be educated in feminism by activist types at university. Just as Radio 4 filled in the gaps in my education by a magical process of auditory osmosis, I knew how kick ass women can be because my mum has always shown me that example. My parents are a team. The person best suited to the task does it. That’s why my dad is the chef and my mum is master of the finances. 

Most people love their mums but as I’ve grown up (whatever that actually means), my connection with her has only got stronger and more interesting. She is as capable of being a wise friend as she is the voice of common sense and on the odd occasion it’s even been me offering her a different perspective on a problem. My dad rightly says you can’t choose your family but if I had the option, I’d definitely pick my mum all over again. And dad of course. You never know when a carthorse might be rampaging.