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.

There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of being in love and Lucozade.

Sometimes I rant, in a comical way, about how the gods give with one hand and take with the other.

Yes, I hate it when people call me a 'national treasure'. It takes away your bite and makes you feel like a harmless old golden Labrador.

8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

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