This story was told to me when I was working in geriatric care by a taxi driver who used to drive one of our clients, an elderly woman. This woman was a fascinating character. She used to dress like Margaret Rutherford, with a Tam O’ Shanter and a cape.

The driver told me that she told him she’d been a spy during the Second World War in Berlin. When her identity was discovered she’d had to leave very quickly and had caught a train and found herself an empty carriage. Once the train had left an SS officer had entered her carriage. She had thought, well, it's either him or me, and it's not going to be me!

She got her gun out, shot him and pulled the safety cord, leaving the carriage and making her way across fields in the dark, not knowing where she was going or how to get home. 

It was amazing to hear this. You can never guess at someone’s life.