Nick Moran: My family values

I went back recently to my old council estate in South Oxhey, where all these poky tin houses are identical, and you start seeing your childhood through your parents' eyes because you realise what it must have been like for them to bring up a family in that environment. There are lot of good people there but those estates are purpose-built and there's no interaction between that estate and any of the very nice surrounding areas. There's one road on and one road off and the school was built within the estate, so that the kids don't infect the surrounding areas.

There was a lot of frustration in our family growing up but, generally speaking, we were happy. My mum had a son from her first marriage and lost custody of him so I didn't see much of him growing up. But I see him now and he's a great guy. There was Mum, Dad, me and my two brothers – Simon, who is three years younger than me and Richard, who is eight years younger.

As my mum still candidly says, I was the runt of the litter. My brothers are both 6ft 5in and if you have younger brothers who are bigger than you then you have to learn the ancient martial art of sarcasm. You still have to generate that authority but without throwing your weight around. Because of the age gap it was easy at first but as they started getting bigger and I didn't, it became a little bit trickier, but the family dynamic has remained the same. You're the oldest so you're doing the ground-breaking, interesting stuff. The middle one's struggling to keep up with you and the youngest, he's the cute one.

My mother and father met when they were working in a very cool 60s members club called The Scotch at St James. He was one of the wine waiters and my mother was the receptionist and she would endlessly regale us with stories of the Rolling Stones or Peter Sellers. My mum wanted to be an actress and auditioned when she was very young for various bits and pieces. She was on the fringes of things but became a hairdresser. She had her own shop and her mother made her run the shop rather than pursue acting. So, I think maybe there's an element of me doing things vicariously for them.

My dad's very clever and I got my caustic sense of humour from him. He didn't get to go to university because he was forced to do a job as soon as he left grammar school. He's very pragmatic. He fixes things. He's one of those dads. Even now I still go back to my old man and go, "Can you fix this?" We've always had that.

It must have been tough for my mum living with four very blokey blokes – a husband sawing a car in half, on his day off, Simon in various bands, thinking he was Kurt Cobain, and then Richard looking like something out of Boyz n the Hood. I think she got bulldozed by the boysiness of it all, and when there's that much testosterone flying around it's very difficult to assert yourself, but she was never overshadowed.

I haven't got any kids yet and it is something I need to address. I'm sure that, God willing, that'll be the next and most fabulous episode of my little life. I've run out of mates that haven't had a baby now. It does make me think of my parents having a family so young and the fact that I've been able to avoid it for so long. It does make me a feel a little bit selfish.