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.

My dark secrets are life threatening. Pockets of unhappiness set in aspic that build and build. I have this primitive feeling that if something good happens, it is going to be followed by something bad. There is always a price to pay.

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.

Live with all of your senses.

Every time I start a new piece of work, I spend a long while under the duvet thinking I can't do it.

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