I wasn't actually trained by my mother, she said she never taught me but she was a great singer herself and I can't remember when I didn't listen to her sing and imitate her.

Technique is the basis of every pursuit. If you're a sportsman or you're a singer or a swimmer, well that comes under sport but you have to develop a basic technique to know what you're doing at any given time.

I'm very happy to sing whatever I'm singing. I've always enjoyed any role I've been given at a certain time. They've all been favourites, they've all been wonderful pieces to play.

In England, we'd leave school at 15 and go on to a college, and I went to further education in a town called Welling Garden City. I fully immersed myself in bohemia there, which included poetry and modern art, jazz, philosophy, social radicalism.

Now, women are expected to be equal to men in so many capacities - financially, career-wise, in education - yet the one disconnect was, and is, with relationships.

My wife and I have been passionate about education being a gateway for upward mobility and equality.

I started to read at a very early age, and I just thought that books and reading were really the most wonderful thing that life had to offer. I think I wrote my very first piece of fiction at the age of 12, but then I didn't write any more for quite a long time.