What is an adventure? That depends on where you are starting from. Little girls in your country, they hide in the gap between the washing machine and the refrigerator and they make believe they are in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around them. Me and my sister, we used to hide in a gap in the jungle, with green snakes and monkeys all around us, and make believe that we had a washing machine and a refrigerator. You live in a world of machines and you dream off things with beating hearts. We dream of machines, because we see where beating hearts have left us.

My paternal grandmother drove ambulances during the regional Blitz, in Birmingham.

It was hard not to be full of hope

If I could not smile, I think my situation would be even more serious.

Courage is a muscle that develops through use. It's no use waiting for some inner fire to conveniently become apparent at the moment of crisis - that's cartoon stuff.

Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.

That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.