On the game

Talking of secrets, I've never been with a prostitute. Never ever. But a surprising number of men have been. Some research says one in ten. Clearly they're not put off by all the negative associations of what they're doing.

I once lived in a red-light district near Paddington Station in London. Every so often one of the women would ask me if I "wanted a good time" or "wanted to do some business." I always politely turned them down.

I've long been mystified by men's taste for prostitutes (I refuse to use the sanitised term sex worker). For many reasons I never shared their keenness. And not just because of a shortage of a cash.

I couldn't live with all the secrecy and lying. Not just to your girlfriend or wife but to other family members, friends, workmates, strangers - just about everyone. If it's something so shameful or disgusting you daren't tell anyone, why are you doing it at all?

I have no desire for sex with a complete stranger, and certainly not if it's been turned into a commercial transaction. And certainly not if the woman is doing it unwillingly and out of desperation. And certainly not if she's a victim of sexual trafficking, as many prostitutes now are.

I wouldn't want to go along with all the obvious falsity. The woman pretending she's delighted to see you, that you're a mighty handsome fella, that you're sexual dynamite, that it's dreadful your wife has lost interest etc. Some men must actually believe all this bullshit.

And yes, the shame. How do some men live with themselves, seeing women not as human beings worthy of respect and consideration but handy sexual receptacles when they're feeling randy?

As the old question goes, would you treat your own daughter like that?

Bag of nerves

When I lived in a bed-sit in Paddington, London, in the early 1970s, when I was twenty something, I encount-ered the most nervous woman I've ever met. I never did find out what was bugging her.

I can't remember how I met Tanya, but one evening she came round to my bed-sit, and from the moment she arrived she was physically trembling. I said she seemed nervous and did she want to tell me why?

She said it was too painful to talk about and she'd rather not say. I tried hard to get her to relax. I thought if she relaxed a bit, she would open up. We had a few cups of coffee, and we chatted, and she told me she was a nurse. She was still trembling, still unwilling to say why, but it was clear she wanted to go to bed with me.

I said I wouldn't feel right having sex when she was plainly very agitated about something. Maybe she thought sex would be somehow reassuring or soothing, but I wasn't happy about it. I felt I would be taking advantage of someone in a state of desperation.

I thought she might try to seduce me by kissing me or taking her clothes off, but she didn't. She accepted my reluctance and eventually said goodnight and left.

I was none the wiser about her extreme nervousness, and still am as I never saw her again. She vanished as mysteriously as we had met.

Sometimes I try to fill in the blanks. Had she been attacked? Raped? Bullied? Humiliated in some way? Deeply shocked by something? Had she witnessed a horrific car crash or a violent death? I'll never know. But something had had a very dramatic, very disturbing effect on her.

Forty years on I'm still puzzled by that lingering question mark of an evening.

Safe and sound

I really take for granted that as a British citizen, as a man, and as a white person, I can generally feel safe and unlikely to be attacked or discriminated against.

Apart from my childhood, which you've all heard about ad nauseam, I've been privileged compared to millions of people across the world who live in constant fear and insecurity, always about to be humiliated or victimised, about to lose their home or their job, or die in some incomprehensible war or religious crackdown.

I can go about my daily life with confidence and optimism, sure that on the whole I'll achieve what I want to achieve, that people will treat me fairly, that I'll be given respect and consideration.

I'm not going to be harassed and insulted by the opposite sex, I'm not going to be stopped for driving while black, I haven't been forced into the exhausting, badly-paid jobs that are reserved for immigrants. I won't be kicked around and exploited because my social status is zero.

When I stop to think about it, I count my blessings that I was born where I was, in the sex and skin that I was, into the family I was, into the neighbourhood I was, and not into totally different circumstances that would have doomed me to a hard, miserable, frantic existence.

I suppose what reminded me of all that is the way immigrants are being treated both in Britain and across the world. The desperation of all those wretched mobs at Calais. The asylum seekers treated with such contempt and cruelty by the Australian government. The torrent of refugees from the bedlam in the Middle East.

I can imagine only too well what they must be feeling, what they must be going through. It's a million miles from my own cushy experience.

I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but I was certainly dealt a good hand of cards.

Pic: The Turkish Coast Guard stops a boatload of migrants trying to reach Greece.

A shocking death

It's always extremely shocking when someone you know kills themself. Even if you're half expecting it, even if they've made a previous attempt, the actual reality of their doing something so desperate and so final is appalling. Especially if the method used was so grisly, as it was in this case.

Alice* was an old school friend of Jenny's. They were very close when they were young and had kept in touch ever since. For the last 31 years Alice had been a diagnosed schizophrenic. There seemed to be little anyone could do for her except keep her in supported housing with carers permanently on hand.

She was always pumped full of drugs, which seemed to do little for her, and any kind of talking cure or non-drug treatment had apparently been ruled out.

Her quality of life was poor and there was no sign of it ever improving significantly. Every day was a frustrating and humiliating experience of not being able to do what she wanted to do, and relying on others who did their best to make her life more worthwhile with limited means.

Many years back she had already expressed her anguish by jumping in front of a train and losing both her legs, which meant artificial legs and greatly reduced mobility. It was hard to have a sensible, coherent conversation with her as she was often scatterbrained and agitated, possibly because of the huge cocktails of drugs she was plied with. It was sometimes hard to pin down her underlying mental state - cheerful or depressed - because she would put on a chirpy front.

But we're told she had been seriously depressed for the last nine weeks and had actually been sectioned three weeks ago - we're not sure why. Twelve days ago she went off from the hospital on her own and was found later in the grounds of a primary school, having slashed her neck with a broken bottle. She died several days later.

It's heartbreaking that someone can come into this life with such high expectations, only to endure such tragic and agonising circumstances that suicide becomes the only answer.

I can't tell you how sad I feel about such a dreadful waste of life.

* not her real name