`The Winnie the Pooh books were the ones I enjoyed most as a young child. My father used to read to me a lot until I started reading myself at the age of four or five. I was a very self-centred child and I never liked to hear a story unless I was in it myself. So, he would make up a part for me: I was in the 100-acre wood or off with piglet. Occasionally, I would ask why there was no drawing of me and he would say, you are just outside the picture, or just over there behind the trees. I always loved the pigs and bears and the wise owls. They were like a comfort blanket to me.

The Winnie the Pooh books were so significant in our family that we still use some of the expression from them. For instance, we say "you are a bear of an enormous brain" when someone has a good idea or gets a good deal, like a cheap flight to New York or something. When I was 11 or 12 years of age, I was reading thrillers by Raymond Chandler and the like, which my parents wanted to take out of my hands. probably didn't really understand them but I loved the excitement of reading these books."