Novels give you the matrix of emotions, give you the flavour of a time in a way formal history cannot.

It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

All one's life as a young woman one is on show, a focus of attention, people notice you. You set yourself up to being noticed and admired. And then, not expecting it, you become middle-aged and anonymous.

My father was in the First World War.

What matters most is that we learn from living.

Why were the Europeans bothered about the Soviet Union at all? It was nothing to do with us. China had nothing to do with us. Why were we not building, without reference to the Soviet Union, a good society in our own countries? But no, we were all - in one way or another - obsessed with the bloody Soviet Union, which was a disaster. What people were supporting was failure. And continually justifying it.

It's amazing what you find out about yourself when you write in the first person about someone very different from you.