It seems strange to have Patti here without her sister, Sally. Last summer the four of us had the most superb weekend – and cemented a lifelong friendship.

She’s been with me all week since we flung ourselves into each other’s arms with lots of squealing, shrieking and laughing on Sunday afternoon outside the door of the conference.

Patti is a remarkable woman in many ways but one of the most extraordinary stories of courage I have heard is her story. About eighteen months ago, Patti was on her way to see a client and found she couldn’t breathe as she went out of an airport to find a taxi.. Because of the work that we do she recognised only too well what that meant so she got herself into the taxi and found her way to the emergency unit of the nearest hospital. She was a fourteen-hour drive from her home.

The following day, she was operated on and had a triple heart bypass.

Maybe that brush with death was what made Patti so wonderful and giving (I’d never met her at the time) but I suspect not. I suspect she has always been perfect. She has just told me a story about how her therapist once asked her if she was only f*cking up her life so she had a great story to tell. Hmmmm – I suspect not even Patti saw that as a good trade-off.

Her family too are perfect and they leapt into a car and drove the fourteen hours to North Carolina where she had been expecting to be in a business meeting and instead ended up in hospital. There are families who care about one another (like hers, David’s and my own) and there are families who seem not to give a monkey’s about one another – I suspect we could all name a few of them.

She now lives a very different life from the one she had before – apart from anything else she has a strict cardio-vascular diet – that means no eggs or cheese and a careful mix of the right foods. We’re having just such a meal tonight. She also has to exercise regularly and take better care of herself. I think this world is so much a better place for her being in it that I’m glad she takes her medicine well as they say.

A year ago, I was trying to persuade DM to rub my chest!