When research work is done by commission, your current project is always the most important one. Each research project is a potential reference for a future employer.

With experience in activism as a teenager and in being politically active as a student, I seemed natural to get involved in the places where things were being decided. The old history department developed a very strong tradition of co-operation, and I was involved in various study committees, planning groups, and, when the administration was reformed in the 1990s, the departmental steering committee and the faculty council.

In all the years I’ve been working in the University, the best thing to have happened to me is the chance I’ve had to work with some top-rate scholars, and yes, strong personalities! Eino Jutikkala, Yrjö Blomstedt, Matti Vikari, Matti Klinge, Heikki Ylikangas, to name but a few. I have the deepest respect for these paragons, as well as the right to disagree - not always an easy circle to square. But what an unbeatable school for thought!

I dream of retiring. I intend to concentrate on reading those books that I simply haven’t had time to get round to. I’d like to learn to play the piano and prepare food.

• ”Puhtaan veden puute, kulkutaudit ja likaiset kotiolot tappoivat helsinkiläislapsia vielä vuonna 1889” (’Impure water, infections and filthy conditions killed Helsinki children even in 1889’), Helsingin Sanomat newspaper, 21 April, 2014

• ”Suomen romanien historiaa”(’The history of Roma in Finland’), Ajankohtainen Ykkönen (current affairs programme), Yle Radio 1…