When I think of the fate of poor old women, so many of whom have no one to look after them and nothing to live on at the end of their lives, I am glad to have had a hand in all that structure of pensions and insurance which no other country can rival and which is especially a help to them.

One does have to point to the fact that we did achieve an agreement, that we had that agreement endorsed by a majority of the people of Northern Ireland; that despite very considerable political difficulties since then, we have actually managed to implement the greater part of the political agenda of that agreement, and we have restored local parliamentary institutions in Northern Ireland, that we have a local administration in place which is working, maybe not working ideally, but is still actually there. Those are the significant political developments that one’s had a hand in and obviously, one would point to that as being the things that one looks back at with most satisfaction, but I realize that it’s still work in progress.

Well, I’m proud of all of them. I think the one that’s most personal to me is the lil’ Coat of Many Colors, because it talks about my mom, my parents, and kind of gives you an insight. It also covers bullying, acceptance and all that.

It will continue and it is due to something which I am very proud to say I invented. ... In 1975 I was asked to become a member of CERN’s scientific policy committee, that committee advises the council of CERN as to what they should do in the future concerning physics. ... we cannot go all the times through the traumatising experience of fighting for a new accelerator, making it and then fall back and so on, so I came to the concept of a constant budget.