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I grew up on a farm - it was a lovely life; we'd make tree houses all day - and my parents worked from home.

Part of my childhood was spent in Sydney and part in rural New South Wales, at Armidale.

I lived on the farm with my parents and grandparents. I had no playmates as a young child, and I was indulged. I helped my grandmother piece quilts, and we made pretty albums, an old-fashioned pastime. We cut poems and pictures out of magazines.

I grew up in a family of nine kids.

I was born and brought up near a village in Nottinghamshire and in my childhood enjoyed the freedom of the rather isolated country life. After the First World War, my father had bought a small farm, which became a marvelous playground for his five children.

We lived on a farm outside a town of about 900 people. My father was the principal of the elementary school. It was a typical Southern town - there are a lot of churches, and it's dry.

I lived a normal life for a number of years. I had kids. I lived up on a farm in Gloucestershire in rural England, and just kind of got back to reality again.

We lived on isolated farms and ranches, far from anybody, and when I was young I knew very few other kids, so I lived to a great extent in my imagination.