We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.

I remember watching myself on video and being so disappointed with myself because I was constantly moving around the place and laughing. I thought, 'I must be so much louder than I think I am. From inside it feels fine.'

An English journalist called Michael Viney told me when I was 25, that I would write well if I cared a lot what I was writing about. That worked. I went home that day and wrote about parents not understanding their children as well as we teachers did, and it was published the very next week.

Of course, I should have done what doctors said and walked for miles every day and not eaten great amounts of butter. But then, life is life, and if we all did what they said we should do, it would be a different world.

My father went to work by train every day. It was half an hour's journey each way, and he would read a paperback in four journeys. After supper, we all sat down to read - it was long before TV, remember!

We have to make our own happiness, and we have to make our own decisions and play the hand that is dealt to us.

The most important thing to realize is that everyone is capable of telling a story.