My story is the story of many postwar British families. Upward mobility. A council house and then new affluence.
My parents were the first in our family to go to grammar school. My grandparents were in service.
Sometimes I think I'd be perfectly happy to go on rewriting 'Tipping the Velvet' forever because it was so much fun.
I used to write at home, but it didn't ever occur to me to be a writer.
I do love the past but wouldn't want to live in it.
I used to hate flying. I would sit there, rigid, convinced that if I relaxed, the plane would drop out of the sky.
I've ended up feeling fonder of 'The Paying Guests' than of any of my other novels.
I never expected my books to do even as well as they have. I still feel grateful for it, every single day.
I love film and, particularly, shorts. You don't get to see them often, and they're a great little form, like a short story.
I'm interested in stories that aren't getting told it's where my interests lie.
All I can do is write about whatever grabs me.
I've never managed to get very far with Henry James.
It was a great childhood. We weren't especially wealthy or anything, but I felt I had a kind of safety and freedom.
I knew I'd always be a second-rate academic, and I thought, 'Well, I'd rather be a second-rate novelist or even a third-rate one'.
My nan was a nursery maid. Most people weren't in big houses. They were maids of all work.
