My mother was a great bringer-up of children. My memories are of a sense of security and comfort.

My upbringing was absolutely not the archetypal writer's upbringing. Even, arguably, the opposite.

Realism; fatalism; phlegm. To live in the Fens is to receive strong doses of reality. The great flat monotony of reality; the wide empty space of reality. Melancholia and self-murder are not unknown in the Fens. Heavy drinking, madness and sudden acts of violence are not uncommon. How do you surmount reality, children? How do you acquire, in a flat country, the tonic of elevated feelings?

I respond to the sound of London being spoken - to the sound of London.

And I didn't know I loved her till I'd dreamt of her. I didn't know it was the real thing until an illusion had signalled it.

Today's news, which may be yesterday's anyway, will be eclipsed tomorrow.

London is like no other city I know in its ability to become beautiful. You can suddenly turn a corner and there are odd moments - of light, of weather.