Ann Moyal was born in 1926, so now she is heading towards her ninetieth birthday. She has already launched a work of autobiography into the world, written in her mid-sixties. But her life did not, then, ‘take a quieter turn’. On the contrary, she tells us, ‘I’d continued to spend my ageing life with passion, involvement, and intensity.’ And that has inspired her to

gather together those buoyant passages and components; my chequered engagement as a historian; the richly unfolding interconnections and tapestry of people who have influenced and shaped me; love and loss; and the experience of vastly increasing age.

‘Hurry,’ she urges, quoting the wonderful Margaret Olley, ‘Hurry last days!’