Growing up, I wasn't allowed dolls, and my brothers weren't allowed guns. I inherited my brothers' clothes. I was never dressed in pink, and they were never dressed in blue; there were none of those rules that people still bizarrely subscribe to.

I don't believe in categorising a gender, as it makes for discord. People always say, 'That's what men are like' or, 'That's what women do'; I don't really feel that at all. I think that's because I have two fathers, three brothers, a husband and two sons. I'm surrounded by maleness, and I couldn't possibly summarise them into a type.

Mum left school at 15, and after a few years of modelling and dating jazz musicians, was married by 21 to my father, Mike Taylor, a journalist on the 'Daily Mirror.' They had my brother and me pretty quickly and had split up by the time I was two. I don't really have any memories of them as a couple.

My concentration span is truly that of a gnat. Some people have this ladder, and that's all there is - the ladder. I have the ladder, too, but there's a building around it with scaffolding, and lots of windows for me to peek into. Then suddenly I'll remember, 'Oh, there's the ladder. I should be concentrating on that.'

The memoirs of the Grand Duchess Olga are an entertaining record for anyone interested in the imperial family's home life during the last years of Russian autocracy.

My parents were really political. The news was very important in our home. We basically had dinner every night while watching the news, and then we'd discuss it with our parents.

I think the best thing that you can do with your kids is to talk to them like they're human beings, not like they're children and they don't know what they're doing.

Stories in families are colossally important. Every family has stories: some funny, some proud, some embarrassing, some shameful. Knowing them is proof of belonging to the family.