JUST before we start, I’d like to ask your advice: would you write ‘adviser’ or advisor’? Both are correct.

I’m going to go ahead with ‘adviser’ because it’s traditional. The American form ‘advisor’ is creeping in and I’d prefer to bat it away for as long as possible.

Advisor still looks to me like something you’d clip to the front of your motorcycle helmet.

My first encounter with an official adviser was the careers adviser at school who turned up one day and interviewed members of the lower sixth in the dining room.

She asked what I was studying.

I was going through something of an indecisive patch educationally and had opted for something I loved – art – and something I was good at, having come from a severely Nonconformist background – religion.

I was also studying English which she dismissed instantly with a wave of the hand. “We’re all English, dear. That’s like studying breathing.”

Art, then?

“There’s no future in being an artist unless you’re really, really good,” the adviser advised. “You’ll freeze to death in a Parisian garret, ha ha.”

At the time, I believed careers advisers knew everything I didn’t. I believed in authority. I believed, in short, pretty much everything adults told me.

So that was the end of my artistic ambitions. What next?

“I know my Bible,” I said helpfully.

“You could become a vicar.”

“No I couldn’t,’’ I replied. “I’m a Baptist.”

And besides, I already knew that ministers didn’t even get wages. They got stipends which sounded more like a disease than a pay packet and was not for me.

“I can write,’’ I said. “I love writing stories.”

There’s no future in being a writer unless you’re really, really good,” said the careers adviser.

Best not be a writer, I thought. I wonder where writers freeze to death? Presumably in the caring arms of a careers adviser.

My options were shrinking. “I love Nature,” I said desperately. “I once collected 57 different types of wild flower at Flamborough Head.”

“I’ve got the very thing for you,” said the adviser gleefully. “A job with the Forestry Commission.”

I digested this one in silence for a moment. I could just about see where she was going. If I love wild flowers, I must love trees. And if I love trees, I must want to chop them down.