Under the microscope

Broadcaster and journalist Dame Joan Bakewell, 86, answers our health quiz

CAN YOU RUN UP THE STAIRS?

NO! But I do exercise — I’ve done Pilates twice a week for 26 years and I do modest daily exercises at home: perfunctory bending and stretching.

GET YOUR FIVE A DAY?

PROBABLY, but I don’t count.

EVER DIETED?

I DO fret if I put on weight, and then I diet for a few days, dropping cakes, bread and biscuits.

ANY VICES?

CHOCOLATE — I always have chocolate cake and chocolate in the fridge. If I go away, I take chocolate with me. The House of Lords [where she sits as a Labour peer] does a nice line in freshly baked scones.

ANY FAMILY AILMENTS?

MY FATHER, mother and sister all died of different cancers. I don’t worry about cancer as I’m going to die within the next 20 years.

WORST INJURY?

I FELL downstairs aged 85: got up, dusted myself down, and had minor injuries, scratches and a big bruise. I think doing Pilates had kept me flexible so I could take the fall.

POP ANY PILLS?

STATINS, omega-3 oils, glucosamine and vitamin D.

EVER HAVE PLASTIC SURGERY?

I ONCE considered it for drooping eyelids but I couldn’t be bothered.

COPE WELL WITH PAIN?

THE smallest twitch and I’m round at the doctor’s.

IS SEX IMPORTANT?

LESS in practice these days, but happy memories.

TRIED ALTERNATIVE REMEDIES?

NOTHING spooky — I have a Thai massage every five weeks and acupuncture as needed: I have a bit of arthritis in my knee and when this plays up I go to a practitioner just down the road who is brilliant.

EVER BEEN DEPRESSED?

BRIEFLY, for a matter of days about 20 years ago — I remember it vividly: I was at a speaking engagement and I just couldn’t get myself to engage with anybody. By 4pm I thought ‘this won’t do, you’ve got to go out and talk to those people’ and I did and that shook me out of my depression, so it obviously wasn’t any sort of pathological depression, it was just a bout of real misery. Also, the death of friends is depressing — they’re dying at a fantastic rate at the moment.

WHAT KEEPS YOU AWAKE?

IF I’M wakeful in the night I’ll turn on Twitter as the Americans go online.

ANY PHOBIAS?

SNAKES. I took a grandson to the zoo and we were allowed to handle a discarded snake skin and that helped.

LIKE TO LIVE FOR EVER?

NO. MY own generation is dying off. I don’t want to be the sole survivor.

Dame Joan appears in Celebrity Portrait artist Of The Year now showing on Sky arts.