My parents were very, very reserved. Not uncaring but that’s just the way they were. My dad ran a small business and my mum brought up three kids. I guess it was a very practical family. My dad spent most weekends tinkering with the car. My mother would bake. My siblings were older than me so they weren’t there for my teenage years. It felt more like being an only child. I didn’t like that so much. I would have liked more noise and hubbub and the feeling that something was going on. It was a quiet house.

I’d like to go back and tell my teenage self to relax, you’re okay. I was always a terrible worrier, I bit my fingernails to the bone. There’s a family story that when I was very little I left a tap on in the house and we went out and the house was in a bad state when we got back. That has always stayed with me, that worry that I’ve done something I didn’t mean to and there will be consequences.

I think I was quite driven at 16. I wanted to do well at school. I wanted to be a rebel and a troublemaker but I also wanted to get good qualifications. It was quite a strict school so I deliberately broke the rules, going off at lunchtimes in my much older boyfriend’s car. My father was utterly frustrated by my decision to study English at university. He wanted me to learn German and do something practical. But I didn’t worry, or even think much, about jobs, security, that kind of thing. That seemed to be a dreary thought. For me, life was for the living, and about devouring experience through books.

If you told the teenage Caroline she’d go into politics she’d think that was extraordinary – how on earth did that happen? She wasn’t political at all. The idea of standing up for something you believe in, though, if I’d thought about that properly I’d have thought it was a wonderful thing to do.

I suppose now I think about it, that thing I had about rebelling but still getting my homework done – you could make a connection between that and something like getting arrested for protesting against fracking [for which she was charged but found not guilty in court last year]. But by then it wasn’t just about the rebelling, it was about being able to make a convincing case about why fracking was wrong, and making a speech about that in parliament. I felt it was incredibly important to be able to do that, not just be someone who had broken the law but couldn’t give a good account of why.

I think the younger me would be impressed that I’d tried to do things differently in politics, tried to show you don’t need to be a white man in a grey suit. Even something as small as wearing a ‘No More Page Three’ T-shirt in the House of Commons [for which she was officially reprimanded two years ago]. You can see a link there with who I was before. This institution with these ridiculous rules – pictures of page three are perfectly acceptable to be shown in the parliamentary estate but wearing a T-shirt saying ‘No More Page Three’ is unacceptable.

If I could go back to any time I’d go to when my youngest son was very tiny and say no to a big job I took. I was working at Oxfam and I was offered this secondment to the department of International Development. It meant a lot of travelling to London and I regret taking it now. I wish I’d realised how quickly that time when your kids are very young goes. It’s so precious. There will be plenty of chances to do those other things that seem so important. But having that incredibly special time with your kids – that will never come again.

I get incredibly nervous before I do Question Time. I find it a terrifying experience and literally wake up for days before thinking about the most terrible question that I don’t know how to answer. You torture yourself with these things. I think Question Time is in a category of its own when it comes to the horrors it holds. But when you are standing in parliament and you know what you’re talking about and people are listening, that is a great feeling. 

It was never just about the environment for me. I was very involved in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, the women’s movement and environmental issues. I felt like I was being pulled three ways. Then in 1986 I read Jonathon Porritt’s book Seeing Green and he put all of those issues together into one coherent whole. It was a lightbulb moment. The Green Party isn’t just about the environment, it’s about the crucial link between environmental justice and social justice. It’s lazy journalism and making leaps based entirely on our name that puts us in a much narrower box.

If someone had told me when I joined the party in 1986 we’d still only have one MP by 2015 I’d be pretty surprised. I really felt once we got the message out it would spark imaginations all over the country and our rise would be much faster. I’ve often felt frustrated by how hard it’s been to get access to the media. I don’t think we were in doubt that David Cameron’s recent sudden championing of our right to be included in the TV political debates suited his narrative very well but it did help us get a foot in the door.

If I could go back and relive any day, it would be my wedding. I spent too much of it worrying that it would all go to plan. It was an extraordinarily wonderful summer’s day, with an African band playing music that everyone from the smallest child to the oldest granny was up dancing to. I love dancing, and this was the happiest music you can think of. It was such a happy day, idyllic actually, with everyone I wanted to be there. I’d love to go back and take it all in without the worry and distraction.

In 1976, the year Caroline Lucas turns 16… Apple is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne... The UK and Iceland end the Cod Wars... Fidel Castro becomes president of Cuba... Taxi Driver, starring Robert De Niro, is released in cinemas...

Interview conducted by @Janeannie - originally appeared in the Big Issue on April 16th 2015.