In honour of Sceptre's 25th Anniversary, we have asked our authors to write bite-sized pieces on the subject of 25.

First, this week, is Costa Book of the Year Award winner and author of the resplendent PURE, Andrew Miller.

At 25

I left university and married a girl I'd met at a party eight months earlier. Our first (and last) home was a small flat in Bristol. She worked as a gardener; I worked as an agency nurse looking after elderly folk in their houses at night. Some mornings, as I came back from my shift and she was heading out for her gardens, we crossed on Brunel's suspension bridge high above the muddy Avon. Then, my head full of ticking clocks and armchairs, hers with whatever she had dreamt of alone in our bed, we greeted each other almost as strangers and had, it seemed, to lean out of separate clouds to kiss.

(copyright Andrew Miller, 2011)

Andrew Miller's PURE is the Costa Book of the Year.

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