I shall never forget that glorious summer of 1959, when, on the strength of my ‘A’ levels, I was appointed shower attendant for life at Carmarthen Girls’ Grammar School. For there not a girl ages, and neither do I. Among the faucets it is forever Brigadooon.

‘How do you manage it, Rogers?’ The rolling, imperious thighs of Joan W, the hockey captain, are passing into the steam. ‘I mean, how have you kept everything going?’ Knowing my place, I answer, ‘WD-40, ma’am. And loneliness. They do wonders for the stop-cocks.’

Should you read the 600 pages of Sex and the Psyche, and especially when, as I had, you have ’flu, you will make an interesting discovery. The book, being part of the British Sexual Survey (surely the legacy the Prime Minister is seeking to leave), is based on the daydreams of 19,000 people, the equivalent of a medium-sized county town, but at the end I guarantee that you will be convinced of one thing: that your own fantasies are far more interesting than theirs.

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