“I have a present for you,” says Nick.

Nick and I were a walking, talking, “Dangerous Book for Boys” before it was ever written. We pestered our science teachers at break time for advice on how to cross pollinate and breed new varieties of plant. We were origami wizards and we made our own paperback combat instruction manuals from stapled together scraps of paper.

Nick pulls out a little blue elastic-band-powered spud gun that I have coveted for the last week. He checks the integrity of the band and squints down the barrel before handing it over to me saying, “consider it a a pre-midsummer night’s present.”

When you are a thirteen year old boy, one single day like Christmas day or your birthday can loom so large that it glows in your mind forever. I might say it was a family tradition that we used to celebrate midsummers night with a grand picnic, but we probably did it twice – again the smallness and newness of a young boy’s world adds the glint of “tradition” to any repeated event.

On this particular midsummer’s night picnic I was allowed to bring my two finest friends along. Johnny, who was gangly and specialised in making up new words and noises and Nick, who was chubby and never seemed to lack for interesting toys and gadgets. The tradition for midsummer’s night was to bundle picnic and dogs and people into a sturdy skiff and row to a small island in the Thames, at a point where the river broadened out into its widest non-tidal section, threaded with little eyots. Preparations for the expedition included producing detailed maps of the island, sharpening sticks to roast marshmallows on and assembling an assortment of weapons for all eventualities. That is where the spud gun comes in … I now have my weapon of choice.

At the end of the week, the longest day dawns at last. After school my friends come home with me and we spend some time looking over the maps and deciding who will sit at the front of the boat and who will row. It is 6pm and the sun is still high in the sky when we set off to get the boat ready and bring it round to the landing stage where my parents, my sister and her friends will meet us with the dogs and the food.

Going down to the little backwater where we keep the boat, untying it and pushing off onto the still water with just enough power to carry it out under the bridge and onto the river is the most magical moment. I always feel as if I am quietly drifting into a Chinese painting, through willows and past pagodas. I hitch an oar over the back of the boat and scull up to the landing stage. For a moment the three of us are absolutely silent in a perfect lapping contentment that every one of us would happily freeze for eternity. There is a gentle bump as we fetch up against the hard. Johnny, who is more of a water rat than Nick, hops out of the bow and ties the boat up with a knot he proudly invented. The tranquility of the landscape settles back over us and we sit down in the skiff – Three Men In A Boat, waiting with all the time in the world, our lives stretching before us like an endless midsummer’s evening.