When I was 12, I had an operation at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, and they corrected the curving in my spine. I've got two 12-inch rods and eight screws going up my back keeping me straight, and they fuse together with my spine, so now I can't really live without them.

Without the care I received at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, I wouldn't look the way I do now; my back would be hunched over.

Beatrice loves her glamorous dresses and her hair being curly or big - like Mummy's - and I hate volume. I like my hair to be sort of flat. I like just throwing on a pair of jeans and generally being more understated. She is more 'Let's do the glamour.' We're chalk and cheese.

I am definitely not as polite as Beatrice, I have to say. I tell it as it is. I am shyer at first.

Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is not.

I get a lot of joy out of covering other people's songs, and, at my best, I think I bring something a little new to a lot of them.

As a bookish child in Calcutta, I used to thrill to the adventures of bad girls whose pursuit of happiness swept them outside the bounds of social decency. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina lived large in my imagination. The naughty girls of Hollywood films flirted and knew how to drive.

I love to create clothing for the everyday woman. I get joy out of that because it's something that we need in this industry.