To my knowledge no one has ever described me as a princess.

In fact, as my family continually remind me the doctor told Marian I was to be a boy and upon my birth she demanded I be returned.

Not exactly an auspicious start, but one that saw me playing with the boys or stones rather than dolling myself up in dresses and high heels.

A flick through childhood pics and you’ll see that my mother’s solution to some of the nappiest hair about was a buzz cut that rendered me less Belle and more Boy Scout.

Not much has changed, and despite my sister buying me a square foot of land in the arse end of Scotland, which included the title of Lady Cathy of Glencairn, I am no closer to being a princess.

Which apparently is what all little girls dream of becoming.

I did come close once.

Six years ago today in fact.

In a moment reminiscent of Cinderella herself, I stumbled onto the quad in front of Durham Cathedral ready to face what should have been a momentous and proud moment in my life.

My graduation.

But alas, as with all of my greatest moments they are tinged with calamity.

This time it was my shoes.

Or shoe to be more precise.

Late already, hungover to hell and looking less like a successful Durham grad and more like I should be on the side of a milk carton, my pain was further compounded by the fact that somewhere between waking up late, demanding a lift from my ever-patient friend Dicky and the 4 minute drive to the Cathedral I had managed to lose a shoe.

Cinderella I was not.

The shoe in question was less manolo more mangled mess, but it was all I could find in the 10 minutes I had to get ready. And now it was gone.

Poof like the carriage at midnight.

But with the added fear that Bill Bryson would stand agog and my family would cringe in horror at the sight of me hopscotching over gravestones.

And while my hair might have grown, and I was wearing a skirt, my lack of princess credentials shone through.

Not one to play the damsel in distress, and wait for my prince to save me, I managed to nurse my hungover body through the cobbled streets of Durham. Hopping – literally – from shop to shop in search of shoes to fit my unladylike size 9s.

There was no prince to help me place my new purchases on my feet, and all I could do was curse every step that brought me back to the Cathedral.

Cursing not the loss of my shoe, or the cost of the replacement but because I had chosen to study in a university whose motto should have warned me against walking bare foot.

Fundamenta eius super montibus sanctis – or “Her foundations are upon the holy and very, very painful hills.”