It was a very odd household, because the grandmothers were so different. Both of them had their own pianos. So it would be duelling pianos by grandmothers.

Wherever the wings of love take me, that is my flare path and my way.

I had a quick ear and could pick up languages.

I sort of was good at writing essays. I was never very good at mathematics, and I was never very good at algebra. I loved science, but I wasn't sure of it.

My mother felt it was time that I had some parental control, so I went off to America and went to New York.

I spoke French a bit, and I could speak a bit of this and that, and when you were taught those things by people who couldn't really do it, you can do some pretty wonderfully, imaginative horrific things to teachers.

Once, the parental bed collapsed because all the children sat on it at once.