As a schoolgirl, Caroline Farrow relished discussing politics and current affairs around the kitchen table with her family.
Her parents, both teachers, encouraged robust debate and Caroline and her elder sister were precociously well informed.
'Freedom of speech and expression was drummed into us from an early age,' she says.
She was ten in 1984, a landmark year when George Orwell's vision of a totalitarian future was revisited and reappraised.
Catholic journalist Caroline Farrow, 44, was told by Surrey Police that she had to attend an interview under caution or face arrest after she used the wrong pronoun to describe a transgender woman
Her father explained the novel's concepts of Big Brother, Newspeak and the Thought Police, and Caroline was fascinated.
'But I remember thinking at the time that none of it could ever come true,' she says.
Now 44, and a trenchant Catholic journalist, priest's wife and occasional TV commentator, Mrs Farrow was reminded of Orwellian themes last Monday when, in the middle of preparing dinner for her husband Robin and five children, a policewoman rang her at home with a startling demand.
Mrs Farrow was told she must attend an interview under caution or face arrest because she had used the wrong pronoun to describe a transgender woman.
Suddenly the dystopia described in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four began to feel all too real. Scarcely able to absorb what she was hearing, she felt, in sharp succession, disbelief, fear and anger.
Anger because Mrs Farrow herself had been the victim of a cyber stalking campaign which, at its vile worst, made her fear for her family's safety – but which, she says, police failed to take seriously.
'It's double standards. When the complaint involves the word transgender, police leap into action,' she says. 'Something has gone terribly wrong in this country.'
In the event, the four-month Surrey Police investigation into Mrs Farrow, which prompted much controversy last week when made public, was hastily dropped as it hurtled towards full-blown fiasco.
Following a TV debate with Susie Green, the head of trans rights charity Mermaids, Mrs Farrow later called Ms Green's daughter Jackie (pictured) 'him' instead of 'her' on Twitter and said Mermaids promoted child abuse
Critics called the probe a waste of time and money at a time when officers are struggling with high levels of knife crime.
The roots of the sorry affair appear to lie in a TV debate. Mrs Farrow, known for her deeply held religious views, and Susie Green, the head of trans rights charity Mermaids, clashed on ITV's Good Morning Britain about Girl Guides allowing children who have changed gender to join the organisation.
Mrs Farrow later called Ms Green's daughter Jackie 'him' instead of 'her' on Twitter and said Mermaids promoted child abuse.
Five weeks later, Ms Green complained to police.
One of Mrs Farrow's tweets read: 'What she did to her own son [the youngest person in the world to undergo transgender surgery] is illegal.
She mutilated him by having him castrated and rendered sterile while still a child.'
Many might consider Mrs Farrow's choice of words unpleasant but she is unapologetic.
She says: 'I deliberately used the words castration and mutilation to shock because what happens is shocking. I was trying to bring home the harsh reality of what she [Ms Green] did.'
Jackie Green, who was born male and was once known as Jack, began taking puberty-blockers at 12, and went to Thailand aged 16 for reassignment surgery, which is now illegal for under-18s.
Whatever one feels about the tweet's tone, Mrs Farrow is convinced most right-minded people would agree it wasn't criminal.
As anger surfaced, Mrs Farrow was left facing a tirade of abuse on social media which made her fear for her family's safety
'Yes, it was strong language but I wanted to make people sit up. I wanted to get the country talking about this. So much is changing in our society.
'The notion of what it is to be a woman or a mother is being erased and rewritten by zealots. People are too scared to question what is going on. The tweets might possibly be spiteful but they were not intended to cause alarm or distress.'
Which is why Mrs Farrow was stunned to receive the phone call from the police officer on Monday as she juggled preparing a meal of gammon, roast potatoes and vegetables for her children – aged between four and 14 – with overseeing homework and music practice.
The message left on her voicemail said: 'Hello there, I'm calling from Guildford police station… I need to have a chat with you about some tweets that have been sent.'
Mrs Farrow says: 'My husband said, 'You know it's bound to be the trans stuff, you have been talking about this a lot lately and you know the lobbyists are looking to get you.' '
She spoke to the officer later that night. 'I pointed out that 'misgendering' wasn't a crime and that as a Catholic I believed that sex could not be changed.
I explained that the country is in the middle of an ongoing national conversation about sex and gender, what it means to be male and female, and I was contributing to that in a professional capacity.'
The officer reiterated that the CPS had 'authorised us to bring you in for a taped interview'.
That night, managing only an hour's sleep, Mrs Farrow tried to make sense of what was happening. Naturally she feared the worst. Who would look after the children if she went to jail? She would be destroyed. Her husband would lose his job.
The following morning, Mrs Farrow instructed a solicitor. She says: 'My lawyer said it seemed politically motivated but thought the case would be thrown out.
'He warned that I was likely to face a tough interview. What was happening felt so unjust, especially as over the past few months I have endured an unimaginable campaign of harassment, targeting not only me,
