How much of an influence was your childhood of growing up in 1950s Liverpool on your early writing? In quite a few ways it was crucial, though not so much to the early stuff as my more personal tales. My parents became estranged before I started school, but we continued to live in the same small house (40 Nook Rise in Liverpool). After a violent parental argument when I was three my mother asked if I still wanted to go out with my father, and I sided with her, which was pretty well the end of any relationship with him. He became the footsteps on the stairs, the presence on the far side of the door, the muffled voice I would hear talking to my mother, though she avoided him as much as possible. Add to this that she was an undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, who was convinced that (for instance) the neighbours were conspiring against her and that radio programmes contained messages aimed at her, and you might think my childhood was the foundation of my fiction. To some extent it has been – of some of its themes and effects, at any rate, not least that of misperception. In addition I had the experience of religious schools in the fifties – to begin with Christ the King Primary, followed by a private school when I was seven (Ryebank) and then a Catholic grammar, St Edward’s. You’ll find traces of these in some of my tales, though little direct autobiography. I wouldn’t want to suggest all this explains why I write horror, though. I’ve valued the experience of terror in fiction for pretty well as long as I can remember. Many writers struggle to find their voice and produce work that is uniquely them for several years. Was there a particular moment or piece that you realised was your voice?