There are many times when I think I would have rather died with my husband. It would have been pleasanter, simpler. But it would have been worse for the children and the family in general.

I am not a victim. I am an angry survivor.

One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.

I was cleaning out the pigsty at a farm in Wales, where my mother had rented a room, when the results of my final school exam were handed to me by the postman, along with the news that I had a state scholarship to Oxford. I had waited for this letter for so many weeks that I had abandoned hope, deciding that I had failed ignominiously.

Adults get more confused by social worker jargon. Unlike children, they are also less likely to see two sides of an argument, and they no longer think they can make the world a better place. That can make them rather boring, I suppose.

But I don't write about sex for today's teenagers. Or Doc Martens boots either. I'm more interested in exploring how exactly the world is run, which doesn't really change that much from one generation to another.

I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at things in a different way.