If you’re a mother, you are embarrassing. Is that not just the way?

My first holy communion, where my trousers were too big for me and fell down, a circumstance which earned me both the instant contempt of the girls and the heightened interest of the priests. That’s just how it was in 1975.

When I concentrate, I put my thumb in my mouth. I once did it during a really important meeting when asked a question I didn’t know the answer to. When I left the meeting my friend said: “What did you put your thumb in your mouth for?” I didn’t know I’d done it.

There have been frequent occasions when I have woken up on the tube to find people taking pictures of me.

With a wistful smile.

I don’t even voice them. Perhaps the books are my outlet here.

I worked a janitorial job, cleaning university dormitories after students had gone home for the summer. You can’t imagine the condition some of those rooms were in. They could have doubled as sets for a slasher film.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes, but if I could go back and fix the mistake, I wouldn’t be here.

We are too often advised to live life to the fullest. That’s too much pressure. The key is to find joy and poignancy in the quiet and mundane. Life is lived between the so-called big moments.

A white-hot explosion that turns into a comforting warmth.