History’s most famous late bloomer was, of course, Jesus Christ. He didn’t start his ministry until the age of 32, having bummed around Galilee with sailors and prostitutes to “find himself”, like he was on a decade long gap year. He was a child star gone off the rails, talking scripture to the elders in the temple as a precocious pre-teen, and promising great things, but it took a couple of decades before he finally realised that early potential. To be fair, he packed a lot into that last year before being murdered by the government for being woke. Jesus may have been born as early as 6 B.C., meaning he was touching forty by the time he rode into town on a donkey. But it took him that time. He needed to discover what he was, who he was. The son of God, as it turned out. Those are big, scary sandals to fill, and I can understand his reluctance to press the cup to his lips. I can identify with Jesus, which will probably not come as a great surprise to anybody who knows me.

We’re not all Mozart. We’re not all composing symphonies about farting at the age of four and dead at 35 in a pauper’s grave. Some of us will have to wait for our pauper’s grave. Really earn it. What would Jesus do? He’d take his time. He’d look at his options. He’d work on his parables. He’d be relatable. Before appearing, postmortem, in white raiment and getting people to poke his wounds, which is, admittedly, less relatable. Unless you’re J.G. Ballard.

Noted underachiever, Meryl Streep, didn’t graduate from Yale School of Drama until she was 27. Danny Aiello only started acting at 40, and he was Madonna’s dad in the Papa Don’t Preach video, and it doesn’t get better than that. Similarly, Brendan Gleeson, started acting at 34, having previously been a teacher, proving that education is only the second-to-last refuge of the scoundrel. W. B. Yeats couldn’t even be bothered to grow to his full height until he was 30. Grandma Moses began her painting career in her 70s because arthritis meant her knitting was suffering. Beryl Cook didn’t start painting seriously until she was in her 40s. Mary Wesley’s first adult novel was published when she was 71, and I really love Mary Wesley for it. Thanks Mary. Oh, and Alfred Wallis, who began painting after his wife’s death, was in his 60s. Exemplary.

Culture is geared towards the young. It’s understandable. They look good. They can wear anything and think they know everything, which is helpful for getting things done. Imagining you’re a pioneer, a blazing comet, and nothing like you ever existed before, is a tremendous spur to making things happen. Ignorance of history is very freeing. To be young, good looking, brilliant and, probably, rich, must be very heaven.

I wasn’t that sort of young person. I suffered doubts. Nobody ever thought I was good at anything. I had no inspirational teacher. My parents were not cheerleaders, the way parents are now. I didn’t help. I didn’t really speak to anyone at all between the ages of 13 to 15, finally breaking my silence only to ask for contact lenses and Clearasil.

One of the most surprising and moving things about packing up the family house after my parents died was finding, in my dad’s old work briefcase, a pencil drawing I’d done of The Smiths, of all things, neatly folded away. I had no idea. Why that drawing? He wasn’t a fan of the band. Of all the things I’d ever drawn, he’d kept my rendering of the inside gatefold sleeve of The Queen is Dead? It wasn’t a bad drawing, though I’d fucked up Morrissey’s nose and he looked more like Justin Timberlake. I’d nailed the rhythm section, though.

I was deeply touched. My dad had liked something I’d done. He’d never have told me that. Perhaps he couldn’t have told me that. It wasn’t really his style. Which made it even more heartbreaking. And heartwarming.

When I was a child I endlessly wrote and drew comics. In my mid-teens somebody told me comics were not cool and I stopped. I stopped doing most things in my teens. I withdrew. I disappeared. On reflection, I think I probably had some sort of breakdown, but that wasn’t the sort of thing people noticed in those days. It was just being a teenager. I was being moody again. There are three years of my mid-teens missing. It’s a yawning gap in my memory. I went to school. I came home again. That was it. I don’t remember reading. I certainly didn’t write. I drew half bricks during art class. Maybe a pair of trainers. My still life of masonry period was my mother’s favourite. Looked just like it.

I wanted to be a writer, an artist, a musician, when I was young, but I didn’t do any of those things. I didn’t know how. I was too scared. Cowed by the thought of bad reviews, or the thought of people laughing at me. A bitter pill for a humourist. I started writing, seriously, at the age of 40, after the death of my wife, because I had nothing left, not even fear. The worst thing that could happen had happened. Rejection slips had rather lost their sting. I’d stared into the abyss and the abyss blinked first.

My first book came out when I was 53, and I was fucking ready for it. I’m less a late bloomer than a winter garden. My rich earth hard as iron.