Sandra Parsons

For more than 25 years, I smoked 15 cigarettes a day. I loved smoking. It was the one thing in a busy, stressful life of work and motherhood that gave me a little 'me time'.

The Daily Mail Books department chooses their favourite fiction of the century.

The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee (Penguin £9.99): No matter how lovely your holiday destination, this book will make you yearn to be in Italy.

In this fascinating account of playing the world-famous detective, David Suchet describes how he began by reading all the Poirot stories

Frances Quinn to most of the nine million of us watching, she didn’t appear to be in the running for the Bake Off crown.

Particular fury is reserved for surgeries where GPs won’t see a patient at all, preferring to do a consultation by phone and then leaving a prescription at reception for collection.

SANDRA PARSONS: I suspect that, deep down, Christine Bicknell did know her boyfriend wasn’t a safe companion. She knew he had twice been jailed, once for dealing cocaine and once for taking a machete into a pub from which he’d been barred for violent behaviour.

One of the great tragedies for my daughter’s generation is that not a single woman in public life comes close to providing such a role model today as Margaret Thatcher did when I was a teenager, writes SANDRA PARSONS.

SANDRA PARSONS: We all know tough love can work. And Nick Crews’ email, detailing his adult children’s many failings, was very tough indeed.

A new survey suggests the Bridget Jones generation, unhappy in love and desperate to find a man, is so last century but most woman want companionship.

Our children, meanwhile, find their grandfather both a welcome ally — he’ll often take their side — and a salutary reminder of just how comfortable their own lives are.

Along with 8.6 million other viewers, I was gripped by Sunday night Call The Midwife — which made me fervently thankful I didn’t have to give birth in the Fifties.

SANDRA PARSONS: The irony is, in an era obsessed with image, many of us have lost touch with our bodies and how they work.

Our columnist has joined the likes of actress Kim Cattrall, pictured, and become an invisible woman, but she will be smiling more and looking forward to the future.

Rates of depression in women have doubled since the Seventies, according to a new study of mental health problems.

As research by Swedish scientists finds that those of us who go on to do better than our parents have healthier hearts and are less likely to suffer high blood pressure.

Growing up in the Sixties and Seventies, no one ever asked me how many children I wanted or at what age I thought I would marry.

Cheryl Cole managed to achieve her dream of becoming famous thanks to the twin requisites for female celebritydom today — an appearance on reality television and a relationship with an England footballer.

Francie, 49, is apparently the person who encouraged him when he was an unknown motoring journalist to cultivate the aggressive on-screen persona that’s made him a household name.

On the cover of the latest issue of American Vogue is a sultry shot of the pop singer Rihanna, posing in a skin-tight, transparent chiffon and lace dress.