I married two weeks after my 18th birthday, far too young, and by the time I was 23 I was a single mother of three small children, Sean, Daniel and Victoria, living in a prefab house.

Love is the only thing that keeps me sane.

Yes - I am usually overweight. I have had to be interested in diet because of being diabetic for 30 years and having kidney failure.

Barry Kent's father looks like a big ape and has got more hair on the back of his hands than my father has got on his entire head.

I never imagined when I began writing in the early 1960s I'd become professional and my life would be transformed.

I have decided to keep a full journal, in the hope that my life will perhaps seem more interesting when it is written down.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.