I was born in 1981, the same year a tomboyish girl with blonde pigtails and a Scotch Collie first appeared on television screens. Her name was Sandybell.

In my house, she wasn’t just a character; she was a nickname. My parents saw her in me or perhaps they created her in me. They styled my blonde hair into those iconic pigtails, and “Sandybell” became the name that echoed through the hallways of my childhood.

As a child, I didn’t just watch her. I mirrored her. I adopted her “scripts” for how to navigate a world that wasn’t always kind.

Now, at 44, I’ve been watching the series again. It’s a strange, surreal experience, like looking at an old blueprint of my own soul.

I realised something startling: I didn’t just grow up; I became her.

Like her, I became a journalist. An editor. A writer. London remains the city my heart longs for. Still passionate about helping others with my openness about my own stories.

I move through the world with a journal and a pen, always seeking, always inquisitive. While my writing has moved toward the complexities of the universe, neuroscience, and human behavior, the ritual of the work is the same. The “tools of the trade” that Sandybell carried became my own professional and personal armour.

Tracing the lines in my own reflection

But the connection goes deeper than a job title. It’s in the “Internal Working Model” of my personality.

There is a specific moment in the series that hit me with the force of a revelation.

After her friend Mark leaves and her father falls ill, Sandybell hits a wall of sadness. But then, she stops. She reflects. She tells herself, “I’ll just snap back to my old personality, my happy personality, and start over.”

That is me.

In psychology, they might call it cognitive reframing or high-level resilience. To me, it’s just the way I breathe. It’s that “MacGyver” energy, the absolute, unshakable belief that I can fix anything. That I am the leader of my own story.

I wonder about the neuroscience of it all. Did those mirror neurons in my 5-year-old brain “download” her optimism while I sat cross-legged in front of the TV? Did the social mirroring of my parents’ nickname prime me to seek the truth, just as she did?

I didn’t just watch Sandybell. I rehearsed her.

Today, as I sit with my notebook and my coloured pens, I realise that the girl from 1981 never really left. She just traded the Scottish highlands for the complexities of the human soul, still snapping back, still curious, and still finding her way home.