Sooner or later your child will ask you, 'Is Santa Claus really true?'

Your answer will depend on whether you believe in truth or dreams. When this happened to me I looked my son square in the eye and said, 'Sure, I've seen him'.

I wasn't referring to the jolly citizens dressed in hired red suits who seem to appear on every street corner from November onwards. I mean the real, honest-to-goodness Santa Claus.

It was Christmas 1959 and I was six years old. I had been tucked up in bed a long time but excitement woke me momentarily many times during that long night. Would I get the glove puppet I so dearly wanted? And a whole bar of chocolate, just to myself? I'd written to Santa, so he knew exactly what was expected of him, but had I been good enough to deserve these goodies?

When I awoke, it was still dark, only the merest glimmer of light came through the curtain so although I knew it wasn't really morning, I simply couldn't contain my curiosity to see if Santa had come.

Just one quick peek round my bedroom door to see if the stocking I'd hung on the handle contained anything. And it did!

Poking from the top was the rabbit glove puppet I'd so set my heart on and in a flash I'd flung back the door, pulled out the furry bundle and hugged the puppet to my heart….which nearly stopped when I looked beyond and saw, tiptoeing down the curve of the staircase a figure I knew so well from a hundred Christmas cards.

The light was dim but I was in no doubt who owned that red suit, the shiny black belt and boots.

In shock I rushed across the corridor to my parent's room and shook my Mother, 'I've seen Santa Claus! I've seen Santa Claus!'

My father, not known for his enjoyment of being stirred from his sleep, certainly not by a noisy and imaginative child who wasn't usually allowed in the room, ordered me, in a voice thick with sleep, to get back to bed at once.

Mother said sleepily, 'We'll talk about it in the morning.' But when we did, they dismissed it as a dream.

In the forty-seven years which have passed I've realized with certainty that neither of my parents were involved in any way, they simply were not the type to dress up. In any case they could not have gotten back to their room without passing me.

The adult conversations we've had about this night explain nothing. I know I was not asleep - but to this day, I can see in my mind's eye, exactly what I saw that night - and I have no explanation for it either, but I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I saw Santa Claus.