I then converted a bathroom, seldom used by the family, into a laboratory and spent hours playing with chemistry sets. With the help of an aunt, Esther Molina, who was a chemist, I continued with more challenging experiments along the lines of those carried out by freshman chemistry students in college.

I have a problem with my ears. I really have a problem. When I was living in the city, I threatened people because of some noise they were making that was bothering me. It sounds psychotic, I know. Once it was a beep from a fax that I heard in the night, very far away. I went to every floor, to every neighbor, putting my ear to the door, until I discovered where the sound was coming from. Then I would tell them, “You have a fax machine that’s making this sound and it’s driving me crazy.” “You’re four floors away from me—how can you hear that?” they said. “You’re crazy, you’re a hysterical woman.” Whatever, call me whatever you want, but I hear it, and I can’t sleep because of it.

Do keep a thesaurus, but in the shed at the back of the garden or behind the fridge, somewhere that demands travel or effort. Chances are the words that come into your head will do fine, eg “horse”, “ran”, “said”.

Occasionally there would be something I didn’t recognise and I’d record it with a question mark or, as a joke, LGM for Little Green Men. It was easier than saying “you know that funny pulsing source at right ascension 1919, declination plus 20”. So, it became LGM.

It takes courage to feel the truth, to feel one's conscience because once you do, you must engage your fundamental purpose for being alive. You can't just expect to sit idly by and have freedom handed to you.

To be forgotten too is to die a little. It is to lose some of the links that anchor us to the rest of humanity.

Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness.

Even if we do not achieve perfect peace on earth, because perfect peace is not of this earth, common endeavours to gain peace will unite individuals and nations in trust and friendship and help to make our human community safer and kinder.

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.

It is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative.