When I write I try as far as possible to forget I'm writing it at all. I tell it down onto the page, as if I'm telling it to one person only, my best friend.

Perhaps it is partly that we need to love books ourselves as parents, grandparents and teachers in order to pass on that passion for stories to our children. It's not about testing and reading schemes, but about loving stories and passing on that passion to our children.

Anything that gets children reading is fine.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.

What's really good is that there are people making stories and writing them and the vast majority never see the light of day and it doesn't matter a fig.

I got married young, far too young, but it is fine. We are still married 48 years later. I got married at 19.

Like most writers, I sit in a room and scribble a story and you don't have a connection with the people who take your story, whether it be to the stage or to the screen.