I have deliberately left Sylvester and Julia's appearances to the reader's imagination.

A lot of people stop short. They don't actually die but they say, 'Right I'm old, and I'm going to retire,' and then they dwindle into nothing. They go off to Florida and become jolly boring.

My first husband would never make up his mind in less than five years, so I used to get him to think that whatever course of action needed to be taken was his idea. Then he'd go right ahead.

It seemed sensible to move to a market town where I could walk everywhere.

Of course risk-taking does not always pay off, but it's a lot of fun!

I remember the evacuee children from towns and cities throwing stones at the farm animals. When we explained that if you did that you wouldnt have any milk, meat or eggs, they soon learned to respect the animals.

Rebecca is an example of how not to manage men. The rules of the game never change, it requires subtlety.