It’s difficult to be objective about yourself but I would say that, as a child, I was an angelic kind of force that was loved by all – but obviously other people would differ on that. I was quite difficult in lots of ways; I was very robust and loud, but then I would become very withdrawn and into myself. It was difficult for my family to understand.

I liked to do social things like play football, but then I would want to go and draw in my room, scribble in notebooks and read. It’s one of the things about being a writer, you engage with the world and take a lot from it and then you go away to process it. There was almost in my temperament an archetypal young artist, without even perceiving it that way.

I don’t think I would be amazed by anything I’ve done in my life because I always had a tremendous imagination and I never set any limits on myself; anything I’ve done I’ve already envisioned in an earlier version of myself. If anything, I never quite hit the dizzy heights I imagined for myself.