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I never got away from the war. Not because I was obsessed with it in those years, but because it was the event of my generation and I started out covering it so I stayed with it.

During the war, I saw many films that made me fall in love with the cinema.

My parents were of the generation that lived through the Second World War, but I grew up listening to my mother recounting her dad's tales about his terrible experiences during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915 and later on the Western Front.

The war, as I felt it and a lot of my compatriots felt it, was a creative act.

I grew up listening in awe to stories of their wartime adventures. My granny, Joan, was a journalist and wrote amazing letters to my grandpa when he was a prisoner of war, while my nana, Mary, was a Land Girl, then a Wren. They were so independent, resilient and glamorous.

My children and grandchildren loved the secret servicemen and women that served us. I was honoured that they thought I was important enough to protect.

I joined the army on my seventeenth birthday, full of the romance of war after having read a lot of World War I British poetry and having seen a lot of post-World War II films. I thought the romantic presentations of war influenced my joining and my presentation of war to my younger siblings.

War tore my family apart.

I carry the memories of the ghosts of a place called Vietnam - the people of Vietnam, my fellow soldiers.

I'm a big fan of historical fiction stuff. Historical battles - 'Gladiators,' 'The Patriot.'