Of course we know that Virginia Ironside became a hugely successful journalist and agony aunt but it's the moving memoir of her mother that adds the label of successful author to her name.
So what I'm asking all you agony aunts is: should I just ignore my automatic reaction and "go with the flow"?
While we don't think she should take up an agony aunt column any time soon, her advice wasn't the worst in the world.
Once again, our resident agony aunt answers your questions on those embarrassing personal problems that can only be solved by having them published in the national press.
They will tell me their problems and I am like an agony aunt.
She worked running an advice column in her local paper; she was the agony aunt for the local people.
As well as her frequent TV appearances, she writes an agony aunt column in a broadsheet newspaper.
The letters are answered by a well-known journalist who has become an agony aunt.
One thing an agony aunt often longs to say is ‘Mind your own business.’
Prudie is my favourite agony aunt at the moment.
She's currently working as an agony aunt for the Liechtenstein Mail & Herald.
Bearing steaming mugs, she returns doing a neat impersonation of an agony aunt, asking how long I've been married.
I well remember, in my first job on a magazine, regular visits from the police - they knew a miserable, missing teenager was more than likely to have sought help from our agony aunt.
He functions as an agony aunt for his readers' ethical dilemmas: as a postman, may I throw away junk mail?
Former agony aunt Claire Rayner, pictured, who is president of the Patients' Association, a national voluntary organisation which campaigns for the rights of patients and better health services, was the keynote speaker.
Hovering elsewhere is the figure of the agony aunt, Aunty Emang, a newspaper sage ‘so popular that she was viewed as something of a national institution’.
Using her experience as an agony aunt, her latest book, Love Coach, offers practical solutions on coping with turbulent times.
The former agony aunt added: ‘I find it repellent, and no patient of any sense is going to fall for it.’
Suzie Hayman is a Relate-trained counsellor, a broadcaster and author of 18 books, plus she's been a national agony aunt for 15 years.
Every newspaper agony aunt has been on double-time producing guides to surviving seasonal stress.