When I was about two, I accidentally knocked a boiled kettle on myself. I am scarred, in many ways, from that.

A blood clot in my artery when I was 23.

When I was little, I took a bunch of pills out of the cabinet because I was bored, when I was supposed to be taking a nap. I had to have my stomach pumped.

But in a flash there came across me a great project. The chine which the bridge spanned was full of young fir trees. Their slender tops reached to the level of the footway. 'Would it not' I asked myself 'be possible to leap on to one of them and slip down the pole-like stem, breaking off each tier of branches as one descended, until the fall was broken?' I looked at it. I computed it. I meditated. Meanwhile I climbed over the balustrade. My young pursuers stood wonder-struck at either end of the bridge. To plunge or not to plunge, that was the question! In a second I had plunged, throwing out my arms to embrace the summit of the fir tree. The argument was correct; the data were absolutely wrong. It was three days before I regained consciousness and more than three months before I crawled from my bed. The measured fall was 29 feet on to hard ground. But no doubt the branches helped.

Treating a flock of sheep for foot rot when I was a farm labourer.

Never working again.

Comforting, uplifting, all consuming.

Frequently, especially now with what’s happening in the Middle East.

To still be working.

My rational brain doing battle with my emotional brain.