Selling low-grade cookery books in west London office buildings.

I had a cafeteria job, serving food, and some people were really nasty. There was a stack of nice, cool plates, and a stack of hotter plates that had just come out of the kitchen. So, if a person was an arsehole, I’d hand them a hot plate with a smile and watch them deal with it.

Handing out leaflets for a European coach trip wearing just lederhosen, in February and March in Surrey. It was freezing, and I got fired.

A holiday job as a chambermaid at the Scratchwood Travelodge on the M1. The state some people leave their rooms in was a revelation.

At a fashion show after-party in New York in 2004, my friend dared me to push her into the pool. I did, and you’ve never heard laughter die so quickly.

People who can’t hear other points of view. Absolute certainty always scares me a little.

The summer of 1997. My husband, who is an American, gave up everything to come and live with me in Edinburgh when we were students, and we were so skint but we had so much fun.

My creative freedom. I was the creative director of a large fashion brand when I packed it all in to pursue my writing.

My mother and my brother would still be alive. So much of my life has been coping with the grief of losing them.

To my younger self. I was incredibly self-loathing and self-doubting, and I’m still undoing that damage 30 years later.