I have never been someone who gets the ick from insects. As a child I would collect ladybirds, millipedes and beetles in an old ice cream tub, spending hours gently examining them, marvelling in wonder at their tiny thoraxes, wings and wriggling legs.

Granted, not everyone is a fan. When I used to flat-share in my early twenties, I lost count of the number of times that I was woken from my slumber by a blood-curdling scream as a spider or moth was discovered lurking in the bathroom shower curtain.

For the most part, I’ve had a live-and-let-live attitude. Yet, this summer something has shifted. Is it just me - or has it felt increasingly like we’re all starring in an unsettling, Hitchcock-style thriller about an uprising of creepy crawlies hell-bent on revenge?

The weather hasn’t helped matters. According to Met Office data, this spring was one of the wettest and warmest on record, a........

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