f they'd been working with Alec Guinness, for instance, they wouldn't have known they were born if they'd not towed the line!

To begin with, it's true, she read with trepidation and some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had no idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time.

One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.

It's subjunctive history. You know, the subjunctive? The mood used when something may or may not have happened. When it is imagined.

Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.

Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?

We were put to Dickens as children but it never quite took. That unremitting humanity soon had me cheesed off.