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  Of course, the comedy outcome to this story was that I discovered that I was not actually insured to drive the car and would have to pay for it myself. And a whacking great 600 quid is not an easy sum to lay your hands on if you’re a nurse.

  One strange side effect of so-called celebrity is the recognition thing and the fact that the press and paparazzi make the excuse that celebrities wanted to be famous so they should put up with what they get. Most people who do the job I do have absolutely no idea that what they are doing will lead to fame or celebrity of any sort, and therefore they are as surprised as anyone when it happens.

  My overriding wish had been to be a comic and it had never really occurred to me that it would lead anywhere, but in early 1988, I got a call asking me to come and audition for a show called Friday Night Live. This was a sort of comedy and music variety show presented by Ben Elton and there were slots available for new comics. I went to a rehearsal studio in Brixton and did my stuff in the middle of the day, in front of a trio of what appeared to be singularly unimpressed TV people.

  However, they decided to book me and when it hit me that I was actually going to be on telly, I wondered how appropriate it would be for me to be working in a psychiatric emergency clinic. I decided to leave my job, give it six months and if I wasn’t able to support myself after that time, I would go back to being a nurse and stop entertaining this silly ambition to make people laugh.

  It somehow seemed easier than my other unfulfilled ambitions to be prime minister, become a model, or sail the Atlantic single-handed in a picnic basket.

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