On Monday night, still shaken from the weekend’s news, I went to a small dinner in the basement of a charming restaurant in Chancery Lane, with fellow supporters of the charity Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). The brave MSF doctors and nurses are rather like fire-watchers in their turrets, scanning the world for where they are needed next before diving into danger at a moment’s notice. No war zone is too perilous. They have been entrenched in Gaza for years and are used to functioning under the most difficult conditions. This week, they had to work out of tented operating theatres, erected between bombed-out ruins, because ambulances cannot be used because of the risk of aerial bombardment. The doctors report without fear or favour from their locations, which are often riddled with disease, short of water, in semi-darkness; they are impartial but not afraid of speaking out. I see these people as superheroes, marching unarmed straight into the black heart of battle to save lives.

In the back streets of south Lambeth, a mimosa tree is in full bloom. Walking to post a letter (which had missed the 7 a.m. collection time that day) the scent suddenly stopped me in my tracks. Mimosa was the spring smell of the south of France. Returning from a modelling trip in Cannes in 1966, I bought a huge bunch at Nice airport and carried it back to the fourth floor flat in Earl’s Court which I shared with three other girls. Back then, treasures like these could only be found in their place of origin: the sweet froth of mimosa meant you had been to Provence; rosewater, the Middle East; Mary Jane cigarettes showed you had returned from the States. In those days, you never smoked the cigarettes of your own country. So, for us British models it was Gitanes or Gauloises, for the French it was Mary Jane, and for the Americans I think Camels were the smokes of choice. For most of us, smoking was posing, using a fag to look cool. I can’t help but think that Rishi Sunak’s plan to ban smoking for future generations will backfire. Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous would simply ignore it.

My mind keeps circling round charities and medical aid and the health of our country. It is extraordinary that air ambulances must be funded by charitable giving; that vital medical equipment in children’s hospitals can only be achieved by begging for money; that gardens outside hospital wards are the exception rather than the rule. The great Asclepieion on the Greek island of Kos showed us the way thousands of years ago. With a mens sana in corpore sano approach (‘You should pray for a healthy mind in a healthy body’), this healing sanctuary started off with diagnosis, exercise and a healthy diet for the corpore sano on the ground floor. On the next beautiful tier of landscaped terracing the healthy mind was the focus, with dream chambers and psychiatry. Music, dance and the arts were considered integral to recuperation, so great theatres were built. The summit had huge views to allow the mind to drift, and, just as importantly, stood as a beacon of hope to be visible from far away. It is also said that anyone who could not be cured was spirited away into the surrounding woods to expire in secret, so the success rate of the Asclepieion was 100 per cent, five stars, does what it says on the tin.

It’s always sad to lose a beloved screen partner, and the death of David McCallum – ‘Sapphire and Steel’, me and him – has left a gap in my cache of treasured friends. The news of David’s death got me thinking about my other late oppo Gareth Hunt, from The New Avengers, who played the ex-soldier who saved the world at regular intervals from villainy and corruption. Gareth was as soft-hearted inside as he was tough-looking on the outside, incapable of keeping any money as his pockets were emptied into the hands of cleaners, drivers and occasionally beggars. He was one of the funniest men I have ever met, and we spent a lot of time laughing ourselves sick during those long filming days. I only saw him cry once and that was when he recited Kipling’s ‘Gunga Din’. My mind spins back to Médecins Sans Frontières and the ‘poor damned souls’ they comfort and save.