I remember my hand shaking his my mouth saying Thanks very much for not

I remember my hand shaking his, my mouth saying, “Thanks very much for not being in prison any more and stuff, then”, my brain trying to get my mouth to shut up, and Mr Mandela’s eyes turning from warmth to sad concern. I can’t help staring at him until he eventually locks eyes, and after a couple of seconds of embarrassed silence he tends to say “‘lo”. ” ‘Lo,” I reply too loudly, and shuffle past him as fast as my fat legs will carry me. I grin, giggle hysterically at their jokes, go bright red and hyperventilate. When I was 15 my great Aunt Nancy gave me a book of Alan Bennett plays, and I thought he was the bees knees. He lives round the corner from me now, and I occasionally see him in the street and start to shake.

I call these “the critical years” because if I meet a hero from this period, there is nothing I can do to stop myself reverting to my teenage self. I’ve had dinner with two Beatles and a Rolling Stone;I’ve said “hello” to Whitney Houston and shared a cab with Larry Adler. But Elvis Costello is different from all these because he was one of my heroes between the ages of 15 and 17. When you join the wonderful world of showbiz, you quickly find yourself meeting all sorts of famous people. THERE is a message on my answer machine from Elvis Costello He wants me to ring him. What yet remains to be seen is how strong the link between Labour and Europe proves when it is subjected to pressure..

Monetary union, which would take away any remaining power for Labour over monetary policy, may be tricky for Tony Blair, as for John Major. Political union – sapping the strength of Westminster – could be equally difficult So far, theparty has had an easy run on Europe. But the party’s line on some of the most important issues is still hazy, or vague, or deliberately obscure. But she adds: “I am a firm believer in the proper convergence of the economies.” And as for a referendum, “we may have to look at how the people of Britain are consulted on this”. But she will – of course – back new powers for the parliament. “The 1996 intergovernmental conference should not be about transferring new powers and competencies to the European Union, but about transferring control of decision-making to the people of Europe,” she told the London School of Economics on Friday.There is little doubt that the experiences of the past decade have helped weld Europe and the Labour movement more closely together, and Mrs Green is proof of that.

“In principle, I have no problems with a single currency,” she says. Europe means “developing the common threads that unite us all as European peoples”, she says. “The strength of Europe is in its diversity.” She is pragmatic, too, on the question of monetary union. We think that fundamentally alters the nature of the treaty.”Mrs Green, like Robin Cook and Tony Blair, phrases her European credo in terms that are far from the fundamentalist faith of some of her European colleagues.

The ending of national vetoes, for instance: “The socialist group will support retention of the national veto,” she says. The idea of an elected president of the union is “unrealistic”. The proposal that a vanguard group of states can take off on their own is also out of the question: “The socialist group does not support the idea of a hard-core Europe. There is plenty of room for embarrassment here.MRS Green has already made clear that some of Mrs Guigou’s ideas will not wash. Tory opponents of the EU draw on deep wells of suspicion in Britain, and the Labour Party, too, has its doubters.Over the next few months, Mrs Green will be responsible for welding together the group’s stance before the negotiations next year to rewrite the Maastricht treaty. Tomorrow, the party begins a two-day seminar that will examine how far the EU should go. Mrs Green will be working with Mrs Guigou, who has already set out in a 30-page document proposals for what should be the socialist line.