“Ashcroft’s father died, suddenly, when he was 11. The eldest child (he has two younger sisters), the loss propelled him first into his bedroom, into his thoughts, then out into the world to make something of himself. Insecurity was, and remains, his motor. He talks about this in the title track to Keys to the World (‘No one loved you, cared if you lived or you died, here we go again, in your room your idle pleasures, the sinking sand, fell through the net, no one to catch you’). He thinks about his loss with regard to his own sons – he would only have another six years with Sonny. ‘I’m not some sort of mad-head because my dad died. But it does give [you] a heightened awareness of time.’ He tries to ensure these nagging feelings don’t manifest themselves in ‘suffocating’ declarations of love to his boys. But now, when he’s driving Sonny to school across Richmond Park, and they see the deer, and he sees the buzz Sonny gets from school, he savours the moments with extra intensity.”