I'd been helping my wife in the garden. She's the gardener, I'm the hired hand doing as I'm told, since an episode in the early '80s where I weeded out some of her best plants. My excuse that they all looked the same to me has resulted in my permanent demotion, and I was wearing shorts with sandals and socks.

Then I decided to get the tea ready so I put my tartan pinny on over
the shorts and sock/sandal combo. To a visitor, I would have looked like a chap with nothing on except a tartan pinny and footwear, an erotic vision second only to Jane Russell lolling in the straw in The Outlaw.

My wife saw it differently. "You look like you're wearing a frock," she
said, as I twirled in front of her, and I began to realise that things could have been so different. What if I'd not been Ian McMillan but was, in fact, Rosemary McMillan, 52-year-old mother-of-three and grandmother of one?

It's a strange thought. Would I have been writing this column? Would I have been doing the job I'm doing? Where would I have been living? Would I have been wearing these ancient slippers or would I have
had those blue ones with fur round the edge like my mother used
to wear?

When I was young, there weren't the job opportunities for girls that there are these days. I remember Mr Owen at Low Valley Juniors
telling the girls that they could end up as air hostesses if they worked hard.

The fact that we were taught by a formidable phalanx of West Riding women seemed to have escaped him, unless Mrs Robinson and Mrs Hudson and Mrs Roche and the rest were merely cabin crew filling in until the next internal flight from Leeds.

As a lad, I always wanted to be a writer and my fantasy was indulged by family and teachers, but if I'd been a girl would they have been so keen or would they have packed me off to the toy factory? That's a factory that made toys in Darfield, by the way, not a very small factory built of Lego.

If I'd been a clever girl, I'd have gone to the grammar school and then I'd have gone to teacher training college. I'd have had posters of David Essex on the wall and I'd have worried about my nails.

Or am I being sexist because I'm a man? Would I have had posters of Deep Purple on my wall and been a member of the womens' football team?

Would I have been writing the tortured sub-adolescent poetry that I was writing as a young man?

Would Rosemary have felt as confident about sending her work off to magazines with stamped addressed envelopes for return as Ian did?

I reckon if I'd have been a girl I'd have got a career. A sensible career. I'd have become a teacher in a junior school. I'd have worn sensible clothes and had a sensible hobby like knitting. Or would I? Would I have been the female equivalent of me, working in a couple of manual jobs and then becoming a freelance writer?

Well, in the early '80s, the answer is probably "no". When I was first
starting out as a writer, I knew lots of lads who became writers or musicians or artists, but not many girls.

Strange how, even 20 years ago, the idea that girls could be high achievers still hadn't completely percolated through everybody's
brain. And maybe it still hasn't, in some cases.

So, If I'd been Rosemary and not Ian, where would I be now? I might be in Surrey with my husband Jim, the successful stockbroker. I might be on the Isle of Lewis with my husband Hector, the successful farmer. I might be living alone, settling down with my knitting and my cats and a big glass of gin. I might be, as I hinted at the start, a mother-of-three and a grandmother-of-one. Who knows? Who cares, you might ask, but I reckon it'salways worth speculating on who
you might have been, because it helps you to work out who you
might still become.

You don't even have to change sex: what if I'd been tall? Am I the chap I am because I'm short? What if I'd had great eyesight ? Am I the chap I am because I wear glasses?

It's a mystery, I think you'll agree. And yes, perhaps I ought to get
some new slippers.