Now that I’m at this end of my career, I’m gobsmacked that I’ve managed to cling on for as long as I have.

If you think that you have one, then you’re a bit of a prat, aren’t you?

I feel lucky to have been in this business for as long as I have. When I think of the intake that I was with at Rada, only one other person is still an actor, an old fellow called Bill Gaunt.

One moment, Nelson Mandela is in jail, and the next moment, he is walking, a free man. One moment, we are shackled as the oppressed of apartheid; the next, we are voting for the very first time. I was 63 when I voted for the first time in my life in the country of my birth. Nelson Mandela was 76 years of age. But it happened, it happened. It happened partly because the international community supported us. People prayed for us. People demonstrated on our behalf, especially young people. Students at universities and college campuses used to sit out in the baking sunshine to force their institutions to divest and the miracle happened. We became free because we were helped and we want to say a big “thank you” to the world. And, you can become free nonviolently.

Working in a soap factory in Huddersfield. I was in my late teens, so I was basically hungover every day.

A tumble dryer.

Getting my tongue pierced aged 15, when I had train-track braces on both my top and bottom teeth. Huge error.