In my first term I had a silver puffa jacket and everyone called me Michelin man so I stopped wearing it: they’re quite snobby in the law department.I do genuinely appreciate people who really don’t care what people think about how they look, and I find they look more beautiful because it’s their choice and it reflects their personality. I remember in the first year at college everyone turned up in their favourite outfits to begin with – someone had a biker jacket, someone had their favourite red leggings on – but after a term they were all in loafers and Levi’s because of the pressure to conform. I can just say, “OK, stop, nobody gives a damn whether you’ve got matching shoes on, let’s just go.” I have two kinds of wardrobe now, the things I wear at home around Leyton where I still live with my mum, and the things I wear for college where I’m studying law. It used to be much worse: some days I just couldn’t leave the house because I felt too ugly. I’d look in the mirror and think, “Oh my god!” Now I think I’m more able to put it in perspective. I couldn’t wear a lot of Lycra or spandex – showing the outline of your body was anathema to her. But for some reason I could wear short skirts, and she didn’t mind bright colours.
I’ve always had a problem with low self-esteem, although outwardly I think I appear quite confident.

A white girl can’t understand what it’s like to get your hair straightened for the first time: that’s a landmark for a black girl And the fashions were different. If I was wearing new footless tights, the girls at my school would be a bit sniffy and say, “Oh, they’re very you.” But if I showed them to my cousin, she would say, “Where did you get those footless tights from, they’re so nice.” My mum was quite conservative generally. I remember in the first year one girl asking me if I was rich or just well off and I said, “Oh, we’re poor, we’re very poor.” And she said, “No you’re not, you don’t look it, you must be just well off.”

I missed having black friends as a teenager. When I went there I was 11 and my mother explained to me beforehand that we had no money and the other girls would have a lot of money.

But the camaraderie between the characters, that was more of a fantasy because I didn’t have those black friends. I went to a private school in Harley Street, where I had a scholarship There were three black girls in my year. It was very upper middle class: one of my best friends from then is still Imogen Lloyd-Webber, Andrew’s daughter. When you’re 15, 16, you think everybody will notice if you have a hair out of place or if you haven’t got the cool stuff on. And the ranger was right – as the sun started to set, the beavers appeared in the lake.. I’ve always been paranoid about my appearance.

The amount of time the girls spend getting ready to go out partying in Rude Girls, well that was me back then when I wrote it, living in Leyton. I had hardly left the parking lot before I spotted a small, hut-like structure – it looked similar in shape and size to a tent, but it was made of branches and reeds. It appeared I need not have worried about being unable to recognise a beaver’s nest – for this was undoubtedly what it was. The National Park Service encourages visitors to fill in observation cards when they see something particularly unusual, in an attempt to monitor the animal population within the Park.My first hike into Acadia was a walk along the carriage road around Witch Hole Pond. Acadia is a home for mammals of all kinds, and although a face-to face encounter with a black bear is rare these days, there are plenty of moose, chipmunks, skunks, snakes and many other species.

The carriage roads follow the landscape’s natural contours, and are built of rock so that they blend in with their surroundings; but some people feel that they spoil the otherwise wild character of the Park.They may be man-made, but the carriage roads are still a good viewing point for some interesting birds and animals, even though the rarer varieties may stick to the areas of more dense woodland. Cars are still banned from these roads, which has made them popular with walkers, cyclists and riders, as well as cross-country skiers in the winter months. The only point where bathing is allowed is Echo Lake, west of Somes Sound; otherwise, if you don’t mind salt water, Sand Beach on the island’s east coast is good for swimming, although it is often very crowded.One of the most distinctive features of Acadia is its network of carriage roads, so called because John D Rockefeller Jr, who funded their building, wanted to be able to drive around in his horse-drawn carriage undisturbed by motor vehicles. But don’t imagine that you can have a dip in any of the lakes marked on the map.