PENNY LANCASTER tells of her experience with the menopause as women are struck by HRT shortage 

Not long after the start of the first lockdown, I called Rod and our boys Alastair and Aiden down to the kitchen for dinner.

No one came, not even after the third call – and when they finally did arrive, they were arguing.

I lost it, throwing their dinner plates across the room and breaking down in floods of tears on the floor.

I remember Rod asking me what on earth was wrong, but the truth was that I really didn’t have a clue why I was experiencing such violent and upsetting mood swings, which meant some days I would feel completely devoid of feeling, while on other days I would be hyper.

I thought I was losing my mind and it was only months later, while appearing as a panellist on Loose Women, that my colleagues put me straight.

‘Penny, you’re perimenopausal,’ they told me. ‘It’s all…