Why write a biography? It only pins you down. Suffice to say I was born in Africa. And already that’s seeing the world without its skin. My father was the local gynaecologist. My mother was born in Strasbourg. My grandmother lived with us. In many ways I loved my childhood but not in others. I would have been cheating myself if I hadn’t left to study English literature in Britain. Before that I was lucky enough to live in Paris on the threshold of womanhood, in the spring, on my own, and of course that stays with you forever. We ate well and cheaply and I learnt to love wine and got engaged. At Edinburgh I got a First class MA Honours and the Janet Christie Bequest to study abroad. So we drove to Florence and lived in an old farmhouse for 8 months, learning Italian, studying at the British Institute.
In the slipstream of your life you imagine you’ll be a great writer, another Virginia Woolf, have the perfect family, be the best mother. So many impossible aims. I ended up being a journalist. A mother to one daughter. A lover. As a journalist I did quite a lot of good in the beginning. Campaigning stories, saving a horribly mistreated lioness in Italy, seals in the Hebrides, premature babies at Dulwich hospital in need of incubators, endangered leatherback turtles in Tobago. I have done a lot of travel articles, restaurant and hotel reviews, and many years of exciting seat-of-the pants Showbiz stories, travelling with Freddie Mercury, Rod Steward, Spandau Ballet, interviewing Angelina Jolie, Leonardo di Caprio, Bono, Jude Law. Now I’m writing a novel set in Venice and its working title is Behind the Mirror. With a novel, which takes years to write, you’re not the same person at the end of the book as you were at the beginning. The story has changed, the characters are deeper, but you have changed with them. You fall in love with all of them. I’m nearly ready to say goodbye to them and let them stand on their own.
It sounds like a plot from a crime thriller, complete with international villains, death threats and the handover of a £380,000 watch to a mystery man at the Ritz hotel. But the story is all too real for John Hunter Maxwell, a former director-general of the Automobile Association who has fallen victim to a “cleverly … Continued
Berlin plays havoc with your emotions. The brutalities of recent history are evident everywhere. Holocaust reminders and memorials, and the subsequent terrors of Communism and the Stasi, are spread among the stones of this intelligent, thinking city. There’s nothing dumbed-down about Berlin. There is a strange mix of creative vitality and the resounding spectre of … Continued
What would the Dowager say? Maggie Smith is working 14-hour days as a tramp for a fraction of the pay she gets for Downton Abbey, the producer of her new film has revealed. Smith, 79, who plays the was pish Dowager Countess of Grantham in the ITV drama, is filming The Lady in the Van, … Continued
Reeva Steenkamp’s cousin says she will go to her grave wondering if she could have saved her. Kim Martin is haunted by her last conversation with the anxious model after asking her: “Are you happy with Oscar?” The model, who had been dating the star for a month, didn’t answer Kim but went pale and … Continued
Andrew Marr and the X Factor presenter Dermot O’Leary are among celebrities defying protests over the sale of foie gras at a butcher’s shop owned by a friend of Jamie Oliver. The television presenters are buying meat from Jack O’Shea despite protests in Primrose Hill, north London. O’Shea says he is determined to bring foie … Continued
Dame Helen Mirren is in such great shape that the body double for her new film is 39 years her junior. Super-fit 30-year-old Fleur van Eeden has been hired by movie chiefs to stand in for the evergreen Oscar winner, 69. Fleur has been carrying out the duties on war thriller Eye in the Sky. … Continued
It’s a hotel restaurant, but you feel as though you’re stepping into a Thai village, simple, cool and spacious, a refuge from the mad bustle of Bangkok. Thiptara, which means ‘heaven on water’, is set beside the Chao Praya River, and is so utterly dreamy and romantic that if you’re not with someone you love, … Continued
Madonna’s toyboy Timor Steffens has revealed he prefers older women – because they remind him of his mum. The dancer, 26, has dated the chart-topping singer, 56, since January and despite her age, he hopes they will have children. Timor said: “There is an age gap between me and Madonna but I don’t notice it. … Continued
