The last time I cried was when my mother died earlier this year. It was short and hard and for both of us. The last time I cried before that was when my father died in 2003. I remember the letting go, but never managed to find the words.

I say ‘last time I cried’, but this is not quite true. There were times in between. I broke on the word ‘love’ when speaking at my university tutor’s retirement party, but didn’t cry. Taken by surprise, it took me a full minute to get a hold. I also welled up slowly at Knee High’s Warwick production of Brief Encounter – all for an actress I didn’t know playing the part of a woman who didn’t exist. The former Labour minister Kim Howells talked about Welsh mining communities weeping through John Ford’s film How Green Was My Valley, even though they knew it was phoney.

So, weeping is (usually) a very honest