I am officially a doctor, and believe it or not, I can save lives and tune certain instruments and can beat peasants with a stick.

I started working myself from about 14, really, so I wasn't a burden on my family. I did a paper round and a milk round. When I was 15 or 16, I worked in a supermarket on Saturdays stacking shelves, and then every summer I temped, right through university until my working days started.

The worst moment in my life was when I was seven years old and I discovered that there was a thing such as racism. You don't know you're different until someone lets you know.

I am officially a doctor, and believe it or not, I can save lives and tune certain instruments and can beat peasants with a stick.

My mother had been an English teacher in India before she came to the U.K., and she taught me to read early on - not only in English, but in Hindi, too. My teachers didn't like the fact that I was reading more quickly than they were teaching, and as a consequence, I would sometimes get bored in class.

I sense a kind of fear of writing black or Asian characters from non-ethnic writers, who perhaps feel that they don't know the culture and therefore can't write about it. By and large, if there's an Asian character, I might get a call. But if the character is called 'Philip,' the chances are I won't.

Both my parents were migrant workers who came to the U.K. in the Fifties to better themselves. The culture I grew up in was to work hard, save hard and to look after your family.