We know that children living in a household with someone in work do better in school, have better educational attainment, and are more likely to have a job later in life than children growing up in a home where no one works.

I guess, as a young girl growing up in Liverpool in the '80s, when unemployment was high, my ideal job would have been to have been Minister for Employment to see, can you solve these problems? Can you get people into work?

I always thought, as I was growing up, that I'd be married with children. That hasn't happened.

When I was growing up, my parents put money into food, utility bills, and the mortgage.

I always set small goals and work towards them to achieve them.

So when I write characters and situations and relationships, I try to sort of utilize what I know about the world, limited as it is, and what I hear from my friends and see with my relatives.

Luxury is the wolf at the door and its fangs are the vanities and conceits germinated by success. When an artist learns this, he knows where the danger is.

If success had come along when I was 17 it would either have killed me or sent me completely mad.