Fair dos, I suppose. As a child, I never went to the cinema, it was one of the (many) things my mother decided we couldn't afford. So I never saw any of the films as a child. In my first Film Studies class at University, we were all asked what the first film we saw in a cinema was - amid the list of Disney films, mine stood out - Thunderbirds Are Go! (1966) -the show was a family favourite and Dad, for once, put his foot down, so we went (Mum, predictably, sulked for the whole day and dished out double batterings to me when Dad went back to work on Monday).

After that, the next film I saw at a cinema was 2001: A Space Odyssey, probably a second or third run as I was 14 at the time so it must have been around 1972-3.

So I didn't encounter Disney until my own offspring started watching them on VHS in the '80s-'90s. To this day, I've never seen Bambi.

Part at least of it was that both my parents, having grown up during The War (you could always hear the capitals when they mentioned it, as adults constantly did back then), had a healthy contempt for all things American, and that included Disney. Add to that Mums' refusal to let my Dad spend money on my brother and I that he could have spent on her, and you get the scenario.

But Mum never cared what I read because reading meant I was still and quiet and other people bought the books. So by the time I saw stuff like Snow White and Cinderella, I was already familiar with the original, written versions of the tales. I was able to respect the technical achievements of the animation, but in general found enough sugar content therein to give a person diabetes! Not to mention, of course, the rabid American Cultural Imperialism that blasts out of every frame.

Encountering Doc, Sleepy, Dopey et al 20 years after having met Gimli son of Gloin in his noble, learned, axe-wielding literary incarnation will alter your perspective, I suppose. And no wicked stepmother or witch could ever be scary to the only kid in the street who didn't hide behind the sofa when the Daleks came on!