One of my earliest memories is of making Nelson Mandela a birthday card. Under the instruction of my mother I remember being aware that this was a person who was loved and important but without really understanding why. I must have been about five years old at the time.
At that age I also remember being aware of the view that Margaret Thatcher was someone who wasn't very nice, and who wasn't to be trusted. I remember being acutely aware that my mum was angry with her specifically because Thatcher was the lady who had deprived small children including my two elder brothers of their school milk. Being a child, and one whose favourite drink was milk (mainly because my Dad had persuaded me to drink it by informing me he would phone Mr T from the A-Team and tell him if I didn't) this resonated strongly with my own sense of priorities.
As I got older I came to understand who both these figures were, what they meant to other people and why.
That is why, for me the last week has been somewhat surreal. The tributes to Thatcher don't fit the image I grew up with. They must all be talking about someone else.
The fact that Thatcher and the Tories supported apartheid in South Africa and described Nelson Mandela as a terrorist, irrespective of domestic politics, is itself enough to make a mockery of any claims that she was some sort of champion of freedom.
That's why over the last few days, having watched various so-called liberals from both the media and the political world line up to offer sanctimonious platitudes on the contribution Thatcher made to society, I find myself reaching for the bucket; with a few exceptions it all feels fake and contrived. I don't believe that many who have cried crocodile tears for Thatcher really believed what they were espousing. For most people I know Thatcher is about as much a figure of female empowerment as Lady Gaga is.
The depth of the misery and deprivation felt around the country, directly caused by Thatcher's policies is forever embedded into our collective consciousness, so much so that even those born years after her time in office have an instinctive understanding of what Thatcher came to symbolise- which won't be remembered as divisive-but as simply destructive.
There isn't a politician alive in Britain today, who could summon the same kind of spontaneous energy for a campaign, which was evident in the celebrations that erupted following the news of Thatcher's death.
The people throwing street parties shouldn't be condemned, they should be listened to.
Is it any wonder, at a time when we are being told we need to tighten our belts that during Thatcher's funeral which will be funded by the state, many people are planning to turn up and protest? The dismantling of the welfare state and the NHS at present is the Conservative party's continuation of Thatcher's ideology of yesterday.
And the hypocrisy of such politicians then and now, and of many in the media who conveniently forget the aspects of Thatcher's tenure which are embarrassing to them, underscores what is fast becoming a media circus and a political charade; The Tories are desperate to use Thatcher's funeral as some sort of cathartic nationalistic parade framing it as a symbol of our collective Britishness, with David Cameron hoping he will get a bounce in the polls. The media will be generally compliant, towing the state media line. All of those demonstrating at Thatcher's funeral will end up being demonised.
Thatcher was a war monger who suppressed freedoms here and abroad. We know what she stood for and it doesn't need reiterating here.
But the fact that many in the media who applauded Thatcher over the last few days, are the same ones who denounced Hugo Chavez immediately after he died should tell us something.
They are the same individuals who will call for humanitarian intervention in Syria but won't ever mention Saudi Arabia or Bahrain.
The company Thatcher kept and the regimes she supported, remind us that in 2013 we still have a political system whereby governments denounces terrorism when it suits them, but support the most tyrannical regimes elsewhere to preserve the current World order.
Elements of the media singing along to this tune merely reflect the depths to which journalism has plummeted, along with the moral compasses of double-dealing politicians.
The media and politicians can wax lyrical all they want, but their views however eloquently expressed are simply a million miles away from how most ordinary people feel about the free market unbridled capitalism that Thatcher and her ilk symbolised.
No self- respecting socialist would ever praise Thatcher-not unless they were receiving bad advice and were completely out of touch with their core constituency.
I suspect that next week during Thatcher's funeral, the numbers of people turning out to demonstrate and protest, will tell the world a very different story about how the British people really feel toward the former PM-it's a story that the liberal media and champagne socialists are not telling at the moment.