I had a very good English teacher who said to me that she thought I ought to do it. She - I don't know, she saw something thank goodness because I think if it hadn't been encouraged by somebody that serious, I'm not sure what would've happened to me.

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.

People think of you differently if you've been in their homes. They think they own you because they watched you while they were eating dinner, or they can turn you up or down, or even freeze you.

Listen, I must be 110 by now. Granny is going to kick the bucket at some point.

I like being outside and working with the elements. The elemental aspects of it. The physicality of it.

Little girls, I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème. Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.

My career is chequered. Then I think I got pigeon-holed in humour; Shakespeare is not my thing.