And actually now having had the advantage of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and being able to look at some of the records of what the apartheid government was doing, the thing that is surprising to me is why so many of us survived. I mean, how is it that they did not assassinate more of us?

When I was an idiot high school student, as opposed to being an idiot adult, I used to drive very fast.

About 40 years ago I drove off an embankment and tumbled down a huge hill. I was standing in the field with my car smashed like a can, saying, “Am I dead?” because I had seen myself dead in the car. Then someone said, “Are you OK?” and I didn’t have a scratch. I believe it was an angel experience.

I have more than once in my time woken up feeling like death. But nothing prepared me for the early morning last June when I came to consciousness feeling as if I were actually shackled to my own corpse. The whole cave of my chest and thorax seemed to have been hollowed out and then refilled with slow-drying cement. I could faintly hear myself breathe but could not manage to inflate my lungs. My heart was beating either much too much or much too little. Any movement, however slight, required forethought and planning.

Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder: it would leave everyone feeling good.

A Feurich piano: one of the first things I bought when I could afford it.

Stevie Wonder: he’s brought so much joy to the world for so many years.

I always wanted to be a singer, but I also wanted to be a doctor. I almost got there: I did four years and got my neuroscience BSc.

I would instil confidence in my younger self.

I was a perfume girl at a department store in Aberdeen. I was so bad at it, I didn’t make it to the end of the day.