My PE With Joe work, over the last weeks.

As health minister, I brought in breast and cervical cancer screening. And in 1994 I called the first debate on gay rights for a quarter-century and we got the age of consent down to 18. There are pubs in Brighton where I still can’t pay for a drink.

That I’ve never killed anyone – and I’ve been tempted numerous times. My other achievement is that I went to Australia, which meant I was on a plane without smoking for almost 24 hours, and I didn’t kill anyone on that flight.

Being dad to my kids and having a family.

In my 30s, I was staring at a pair of expensive boots in a shop window when the photographer Gordon Parks came up behind me. He instantly understood, because he grew up even poorer than me; he made me buy them on my credit card.

I’m walking down a street in New York, the sun is shining, I’m on my way to see friends who are chosen family—and I’ve just written a couple of pages that I like.

Being a salesgirl in a baby shop where the others said things like, “He’s Jewish, but she’s American.” Also, after college, being a waitress in London, and trying to make change in the old money of shillings and pence.

I’ve had cancer three times, but never felt close to death except when I walked between parked cars on my street and a car sped past my nose.

Seeing the future die, from Bobby Kennedy to dear friends.

Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.