I am a Yorkshire girl. I love the sea, majestic landscapes, walking, strong tea, rain lashing against windowpanes, good home cooking, common sense, originality and wit. Around pretentious people my wit becomes hysterically delinquent. I am of indeterminate age. My son, bless him, describes me as a kid who makes grown-up decisions. Others less closely related can take a less rosy view.

I often sound as if I had just swallowed a dictionary. This is what comes of reading Marcel Proust out loud to your father when you are eight years old. Oh, is that weird? Just kidding. I know it’s weird. I used to worry a lot about being weird. Now I am just hoping I’m weird enough to do what I am here to do before I get too senile to remember what it was.

I studied at Durham and Oxford, and learned how to string sentences together by translating other people’s books, which taught me how remarkably rare it is for people to say what they really mean. But if you can say what you mean there’s a good chance you will mean what you say.