I don't look my age, I don't feel my age and I don't act my age. To me age is just a number.

I say, 'Use it or lose it.' I have my own fitness regime, which is centred around stretching, free-weights and fast walking. I also have a trainer half of the year, as I spend my summers in the south of France where I swim a lot.

And sometimes when I would get in the morning, when we'd go out - we'd see shrapnel and bits of stuff in the streets and bombed buildings, and - but I was evacuated a lot. Every time the blitz got heavy, my parents would take us off to the country.

I have to say that those nine years were full of turmoil and drama and trauma to me, in actual fact.

We live in a quick-fix society where we need instant gratification for everything. Too fat? Get lipo-sucked. Stringy hair? Glue on extensions. Wrinkles and lines? Head to the beauty shop for a pot of the latest miracle skin stuff. It's all a beautiful £1 billion con foisted upon insecure women by canny cosmetic conglomerates.

My mother was a domestic goddess and Mother Earth figure. She was sweet and placid - just what the perfect wife was supposed to be and I was determined not to be.

Isn't three quarters of life a guilty pleasure?