Father Christmas at a department store. The plaintive sadness of the children’s unrealistic requests was almost unbearable.

I worked on a kibbutz in Israel and had to clean out the chicken run. It was like an oven. Inside were rows and rows of chickens that had been shitting for months – the whole floor was six inches deep in chicken shit.

Working in a furniture factory in Warrington when I was 17. It was a summer job, and I had to cover the studs in the back of Chesterfield sofas with leather.

Selling double glazing.

It’s usually a slight feeling that, having got through the day, I didn’t get any time to do any writing or something creative – it was a lot of admin, exhaustion from that and rumination.

Putting chocolate mousse in my agent’s face. Somebody had done it to me – that thing where they go, “Smell this, it smells funny”, and then they put it in your nose. A year later I was in this French restaurant with a very 1980s-style dessert trolley and, before I knew it, I had a bowl of chocolate mousse in front of me. And my agent went, “What’s that smell?”, and it felt impossible not to … I immediately felt awful and tried to apologise. He, of course, said that he found it funny. But I knew he didn’t.

A running accident when I was 14 or 15. I fainted but I was a bit of a jester and they thought I was taking the piss, so I was left for a bit. I woke up in hospital.

Steady, reaching, bewildered.

Having regrets and not knowing what to do about them.

I’ve not always been great friend material. I’ve tried to get better at that, so to be remembered as reliable by a few would be great.