I was a very observant child. The boys in my books are based on boys in my neighborhood growing up.

What interests me is what children go through while growing up.

I have lovely memories of Los Angeles in the 1930s. I came down to live with my mother's cousin and they invited me to come and go to junior college for a year.

In my grammar school years back in the 1920s I used my ten-cents-a-week allowance for Saturday matinees of Douglas Fairbanks movies. All that swashbuckling and leaping about in the midst of the sails of ships!

I travel regularly and have learnt to be very methodical as far as packing is concerned. For example, I always check the weather in advance of where I'm going to ensure that I've packed the right clothes.

People have to make journeys, what we want is people to have alternatives in public transport so that they can make a choice about the sort of way in which they're going to travel.

It's the adventure, the adrenaline-flowing, risk-taking in outdoor activities that attracts me.

Join the military, there is nothing better. You get to travel a lot.