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EVER SINCE my asthma landed me in hospital for a week, I’ve been thinking of how I would do anything to be free of it. Work for ISIS even (in a minor nonviolent way, say part-time admin). My condition is hereditary, but why had it got so bad? Brother-in-law George’s theory was that I had fungal poisoning from mould growing around my bay window and urged me to ask about this. So every day, I made sure to bring the matter up with the specialist on his ward rounds, despite a growing sense that he thought my obsession with mould was not entirely healthy.

‘Have you thought any more about – ?’ ‘It is not fungus, Miss Pitman –’ ‘But – ?’ ‘It is not fungus. It would have shown on your CT scan.’ (The CT scan revealed that I had lung damage from years of poorly managed asthma.)

My week in hospital was surprisingly enjoyable. The oxygen masks, the sleep deprivation and daily injections a small price to pay for watching the soap opera of hospital life unfold. The staff were lovely and the food unusually tasty (though the coffee was filthy). Daughter Betty visited every day, and said I looked as though I was having the time of my life: ‘You’re like those mad people pretending to be ill so you can stay in hospital.’ And I made friends with a bird-like octogenarian lady with a booming voice in the next bed called Joan (‘Hello, I’m Joan and I’m common as muck!’)

Considering the NHS is up against it, there was surprisingly little for me to grumble about, although Joan did her best to turn me against the doctors: ‘They’re useless, and I mean USELESS’ (she liked repeating words to reinforce her point). Joan and I soon formed a little gang and spent the week observing the dramas on the ward with great interest. Nothing escaped our notice: Eunice in the bed opposite mine, who spent most of her waking hours raging about everything under the sun, only to turn spookily silent mid-week (‘They’ll have put her on temazepam, you mark my words,’ said Joan).

Then there was 78-year-old Mu-