I burst out of the house in Birmingham and accidentally barged a drag queen out of my way. She started to follow me and we wrestled a bit until I realised just how much she looked like Gloria Grahame. After sharing this insight we became the best of friends.

There were four of us around a table and a colleague was passing me papers to collate. As I passed them on to Michael Portillo he complained that they were not in order and I was sabotaging him and I’d never liked him anyway. Angrily I challenged him. Not only was I simply passing on the un-numbered pages as I was receiving them, I LOVED his train programmes and I was very fond of him. I saw him tearing up.