I do still get the odd fan letter about The Good Life, clearly written by somebody aged 18, who says: Will you send a photograph? And I think: Maybe it's kinder not to. I'm deeply into my 50s now.

I love gentle, gorgeous classical music such as Mozart.

I don't treasure things much - just people. And pets.

As we have more women in power, so the plays and the TV dramas are reflecting what's happening.

I don't think, until you've actually lost somebody you really love, that you can go through that door that allows you to be grown-up.

Every time we moved on, I joined a different class in a different school with different girls until, aged 13, my father had taken the decision to pull me out of school altogether. Everything I needed, he reasoned, could be found within the rich language of Shakespeare's plays at which, by then, I was something of an old hand.

Every woman feels she is too old and has missed the boat.