When I checked the agenda at the Women in Industry event, I was horrified to see that an afternoon session had been set aside for me to marry D, a married man with a thousand children I’d crushed on for years.

It was unclear whether he knew anything about this scheduled wedding. I was already wearing a vintage wedding dress that I had last worn to a university formal in the 1980s, but I was wearing bedroom slippers. My hair was a mess, my face was ugly, and I had no friends with me. To make matters worse, delegates were expressing their anger that a wedding had been scheduled to take place in the middle of their conference programme. I tried texting D, but my phone wasn’t working. This was the most humiliating day of my life.

What saved me was the entire conference was evacuated via bus to Oxford. There we gathered in a town square while police approached two older men, dressed in black and white stripes, larking about in a fountain.

“We identify you as the Blackburn Rovers Bovver Boys, and you are arrested”.

I was then called upon to explain 1970s football hooliganism to my fellow delegates. My reputation was restored.