Accessing cookies in required files

Hi, Can anyone help with this problem? I have a file called "settings.inc" which I include in all files on my site like this: require("settings.inc"); Up until now this has worked fine. But now I have a function in the settings.inc file that tries to read the value of a cookie called "testcookie". My problem is that the settings.inc file doesn't seem to be able to access the cookie at all. But if I try to access it direct from a page rather than the required file it works fine. Does anybody know why I can't access my cookie in my required file? They are all on the same directory level etc. Thanks for any help.