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

I left the army and got a job with Unilever in Northern Ireland. They were very strict and you had to have a hat, and when you went into a shop you had to raise your hat to the shopkeeper and then sell your wares. I was selling margarine.

I was a terrible secretary in a publishing company (clumsy, disorganised, hid letters behind the filing cabinet because I was supposed to have done something with them and I wasn’t sure what).

When I was a kid I had a Saturday job in the stockroom of a supermarket. I remember everything in there being a little bit grubby and slightly sticky. We’d do things like play rugby with a swiss roll. I think of it every time I go shopping.

People who pretend to have perfect marriages. Perfect marriages are like orgasms – many of them are faked.

Worrying about the faux pas I made earlier that evening. I tend to suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.

Not winning any literary prizes.

Raising two children. If you can get your kids to adulthood and they’re not voting Tory, doing drugs or collecting Nazi memorabilia, then you deserve a medal.

As a writer who championed women with grit and wit.

Bumping into my male boss at a nudist beach.