Newcastle University

What do you think books meant to you when you were younger?

I think they were probably friends. We moved around quite a lot, and thought I’m quite sociable and like other people’s company, I also like my own company and I like a book. So I think they were friends, in a way. And they were access to a world that you didn’t necessarily inhabit, so they opened up your imagination. That’s a kind of adult view of me looking back at that time – it was probably to avoid doing the washing up! It was okay to read a book, you know, if you’d been playing it would have been different! [laughs]