DENISE MINA

When I was 16 I was living in London with my parents. My dad worked for North Sea oil and we moved around a lot. He got the sack a lot for being obnoxious, to be honest with you. Everywhere we went he fell out with someone, so we had to move. We ended up in Bromley in London, but before that we lived in Norway and Paris and Amsterdam and Glasgow and Invergordon – all the big lights. We always had a big family in Glasgow. The longest I’d ever lived anywhere was Paris for three years. I keep going back, but Paris in the ’70s was really special.

I was still at school but I never really went. School isn’t for everybody. There was quite a strict smoking ban at our school, that really put me off. And I and [Mikhail Bulgakov’s] with her. I started reading to escape and I realised, this is great. I love this.