The out of work actress was a mutual friend of my cousins N and DT. Until recently she played a regular role in a Canadian television soap, but in the past couple of months her character had been written out of the script.

‘Up a ramp, darling. That’s where they have put me for the time being’, she told me when I asked whether her character had been killed off. She seemed to think that she would make a return to the small screen in the near future.

However, when the show producers suddenly rounded up a bunch of random people – myself included – to attend the actress’ retirement party, it was clear to me that the television audience had seen the last of her.

I signed my name in the party guest book, and gave my address as Stockton-on-Tees.