The best thing my mum and dad did was to send me to the local youth theatre. I loved that; I felt I'd found the thing I really wanted to do.

My family moved out of London's East End to a tiny village. The school I went to was supposed to be mixed gender, but there were hardly any boys born that year. So, yes, joining a youth theatre was a fun way to meet the opposite sex!

I find the whole ceremony of marriage a bit like going to work. Putting on a lovely dress and make-up, learning lines, someone doing your hair.

I'm a hoarder, but then, when it all gets too much, I turn into a ruthless chucker. I'm very good at clearing out and giving stuff away. But I'm equally skilled at shoving things in a cupboard, shutting the door, and calling that 'cleared up.'

I was willing to accept a bad reputation if I deserved it, but it was going to be based on my actions, not on anybody's history. I'm not running from my family - I couldn't embrace my family more. But I wanted to work in an industry where I could define myself, not be defined by my grandfather's history.

I come from a typical family.

Families can be the most detrimental things to have in your life. They are sometimes the most poisonous relationships that people have. Sometimes family is the thing that keeps you from ever achieving what you want to achieve, and yet people hold it and hold it and grab it and try to fix it and twist it and turn it.

My family wasn't terribly affluent and looked upon money very carefully as something that had to be saved, not spent. My father built the ducting that took air into the copper mines and made about 6 d a yard in the Thirties, which was good money back then.