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My father was one tough man.

My father was very intense, passionate and over-the-top. He was my hero and my tyrant.

My father wasn't a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher - one of those Victorians, hard as iron - but my dad was tough enough.

My father was a little frightening - a huge man, six foot four - and he looked like God. He was always a visitor, as far as I was concerned, because my parents separated when I was nine. We only became friends when he was old and began to shrink. During the war, he was a BBC war correspondent and did some extraordinary broadcasts.

My dad, in the best way possible - not in an intimidating way, but with the physically intimidating qualities that every father has - can truly be scary. The only time you saw that side of him, the raw side of him, would be in a moment when you truly were the one that screwed up.

I admired my father very much... at the age of sixteen. But now I see that he was a brutal and cruel man, - but not without remorse, and that was what tortured us, his alternations.

My father was an extraordinary man.

My father was a monster. A monster! I cut with my family when I was 23 and I never see them again.

My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that was exactly what was happening all around us.