I hope to start enjoying flirting again when I'm 70, like my mother did.

When I was much younger, I sometimes felt rejected by feminists because of an image that I sold because it paid the bills. Any fool could tell my hair is dyed.

When I was little I always thought I was marked out, special, on the verge of something momentous. I used to tingle with anticipation.

Every time we moved on, I joined a different class in a different school with different girls until, aged 13, my father had taken the decision to pull me out of school altogether. Everything I needed, he reasoned, could be found within the rich language of Shakespeare's plays at which, by then, I was something of an old hand.

As we have more women in power, so the plays and the TV dramas are reflecting what's happening.

I do still get the odd fan letter about The Good Life, clearly written by somebody aged 18, who says: Will you send a photograph? And I think: Maybe it's kinder not to. I'm deeply into my 50s now.

I'm sure people in the business have said: She's too old for that part. I don't hear about it because your agent protects you from those negative things.