ONE OF MY FONDEST CHILDHOOD MEMORIES was when my cousin Rob very kindly gave me his 24-inch bike—I was around eight or nine. It was my pride and joy and I really looked after it, although I fell off loads of times. I shouldn’t really still be here because I would do stupid things like going downhill with no hands and one time I ended up in hospital with a concussion.
DAD WAS AN ENGINEER FOR THE and I loved visiting him in the machine rooms in Fleet Street. Mum was a housewife for a long time, then when we kids got older she worked for Islington Area Health. They were very much post-war parents who instilled in us the idea of “you can achieve anything you want” and they were very pleased when I got into Dame
