1. Claire Rayner occupies a practically mythical position at the top of the agony aunt, er, tree. She's like a wonderful plump Christmas fairy, a benevolent Grotbags, dispensing motherly wisdom from on high. We also love her reassuringly similar-faced son, restaurant critic Jay.
2. Denise Robertson. Or, to give her her full name, that Geordie one off of Richard and Judy who's like a kind of cross between Worzel Gummidge and a cut-price Claire Rayner in a clown wig. We do actually like her, we just go for the laughs. Don't we.
3. Anne Widdecombe was, for a while, the Guardian's Agony Aunt. How many depressed people were saved by her sage counsel? To quote Rimmer from Red Dwarf "Lemming Sunday, they called it."
4. Karen Krizanovich. Sex-crazy youth rag 'Sky' was a product of its time (the 90s), as was this laddettish sexpert. Why not add her on Linked-in?! Not too sexy for career networking now, is she?
5. Mariella Frostrup in the Observer. Ever since Dennis Pennis asked her if she was wearing 'Embassy Number Six' (and she wasn't a good sport about it) I've been suspicious of Mariella, her husky voice and her overgrown wild child ways. But it turns out she's great, as her astonishingly sensible column testifies.
Have you ever written in to an agony aunt? Did her advice change your life?
