When I Was A Child I Wanted

A Triptych In Which The Presiding Deities Are Mother, England And Me.

And The Smell Of The Library Was Always The Same - The Musty Odour Of Old Clothes Mixed With The Keener Scent Of Unwashed Bodies, Creating What The Chief Librarian Had Once Described As 'the Steam Of The Social Soup.'

I Think Biography Can Be More Personal Than Fiction, And Certainly Can Be More Expressive.

Yet, Like The Sea And The Gallows, London Refuses Nobody.

I Detest Self-regard. If My Work Has Taught Me Anything, It Is That Self-aggrandisement Is Completely Unhistorical.