What is the first news/historical event you can recall?
The first historical event I can recall is boarding the last ship out of Shanghai in 1942. I was four years old. We had been captured and were held hostage before being exchanged for Japanese prisoners of war. I remember the Japanese guard who brought fruit for me and my sister every day and showed us pictures of his own children.
The book you are most embarrassed you’ve never read?
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, which I’ve never got through. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never understood why the book is supposed to be a masterpiece. I feel like that about most Russian writers.
One bit of advice you’d give to your younger self?
I would advise my younger self to not drink so much. Drinking always got me into serious trouble and then I would behave very badly and have to be forcibly removed from dining rooms and dance floors.
What is your favourite saying or quotation?
“The world breaks everyone and afterward more are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway
Where do you want to be buried or have your ashes scattered?
I want to be buried with my grandson Keita Craig in Kensal Rise Cemetery. He didn’t survive his breaks and was too fragile to recover in the broken places.
If you were given £1m to spend on other people, what would you spend it on and why?
I would hire the Albert Hall and invite all the people I love and most especially all the mothers, children, staff and volunteers from my refuge to have a knees-up with lots of glorious food and wine.
The talent you wish you had?
I really wish I had a soprano voice. As it is I am a mezzo soprano and it’s a bit like being a pigeon among nightingales. In my dreams I win The X Factor and Simon Cowell assures me I have a great future.
What are the best and worst presents you’ve ever received?
My first puppy was my best ever present and my worst was having to wear my mother’s awful hand-knitted cardigans because I was too frightened of her to refuse.
What is the biggest problem of all?
We have ignored an ever-growing number of people who are considered as the “underclass.” We have failed them and their children by destroying the education system and turning a blind eye to the fact that an eye-watering number of young adults are unable to read or to write. Thousands of families are dumped in ghettoes in places like Bristol, Cardiff, Brixton and Tower Hamlets where they are unemployable. The violence within the homes brutalises the children who then move out on to the streets to join gangs and become drug dealers. Generational family violence and its consequences have been ignored.
Are things getting better or worse?
Brexit is a disaster and things will get very much worse as other European Union countries will seek to punish us for abandoning them. The referendum was a farce because thousands of people swallowed the lies of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and voted to leave. I think we are in for a very rocky period and the financially fragile will suffer the worst deprivation. I do believe that in time, things will get better but it will be very tough for five years for all, except the bankers and those with their snouts in the trough.
The last piece of music/play/novel/film that brought you to tears?
When I was in hospital suffering from a nervous breakdown, however awful I felt, I put Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor played by Jacqueline du Pré and sobbed my way through the music until I finally fell asleep.
The first historical event I can recall is boarding the last ship out of Shanghai in 1942. I was four years old. We had been captured and were held hostage before being exchanged for Japanese prisoners of war. I remember the Japanese guard who brought fruit for me and my sister every day and showed us pictures of his own children.
The book you are most embarrassed you’ve never read?
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, which I’ve never got through. I’m ashamed to say I’ve never understood why the book is supposed to be a masterpiece. I feel like that about most Russian writers.
One bit of advice you’d give to your younger self?
I would advise my younger self to not drink so much. Drinking always got me into serious trouble and then I would behave very badly and have to be forcibly removed from dining rooms and dance floors.
What is your favourite saying or quotation?
“The world breaks everyone and afterward more are strong at the broken places.” Ernest Hemingway
Where do you want to be buried or have your ashes scattered?
I want to be buried with my grandson Keita Craig in Kensal Rise Cemetery. He didn’t survive his breaks and was too fragile to recover in the broken places.
If you were given £1m to spend on other people, what would you spend it on and why?
I would hire the Albert Hall and invite all the people I love and most especially all the mothers, children, staff and volunteers from my refuge to have a knees-up with lots of glorious food and wine.
The talent you wish you had?
I really wish I had a soprano voice. As it is I am a mezzo soprano and it’s a bit like being a pigeon among nightingales. In my dreams I win The X Factor and Simon Cowell assures me I have a great future.
What are the best and worst presents you’ve ever received?
My first puppy was my best ever present and my worst was having to wear my mother’s awful hand-knitted cardigans because I was too frightened of her to refuse.
What is the biggest problem of all?
We have ignored an ever-growing number of people who are considered as the “underclass.” We have failed them and their children by destroying the education system and turning a blind eye to the fact that an eye-watering number of young adults are unable to read or to write. Thousands of families are dumped in ghettoes in places like Bristol, Cardiff, Brixton and Tower Hamlets where they are unemployable. The violence within the homes brutalises the children who then move out on to the streets to join gangs and become drug dealers. Generational family violence and its consequences have been ignored.
Are things getting better or worse?
Brexit is a disaster and things will get very much worse as other European Union countries will seek to punish us for abandoning them. The referendum was a farce because thousands of people swallowed the lies of Boris Johnson and Michael Gove and voted to leave. I think we are in for a very rocky period and the financially fragile will suffer the worst deprivation. I do believe that in time, things will get better but it will be very tough for five years for all, except the bankers and those with their snouts in the trough.
The last piece of music/play/novel/film that brought you to tears?
When I was in hospital suffering from a nervous breakdown, however awful I felt, I put Elgar’s Cello Concerto in E Minor played by Jacqueline du Pré and sobbed my way through the music until I finally fell asleep.
