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My mother was a passionate, complicated, sometimes fierce woman.

Dad was the first man I fell in love with. He was a very funny man. He grew up in the East End of London and was very dynamic, and I understood why my mother fell in love with him.

I always loved my mother, felt loved, but she was judgmental. Her father in Ireland didn't approve of women generally, and she took on his values. She believed her own mother was foolish.

My mother was passionate. She was stubborn, the dominant one in the family. She dominated my father.

But I was very, very unhappy because my mother was very charming and generous, but to me, very dominating.

My mother was the love of my life.

My grandmother spoiled my father rotten, and he grew up expecting women to do whatever he wanted. When he married my beautiful mother, Elsa, he expected her to give up her career as a champion ballroom dancer and become a good wife and mother, which she dutifully did.

The four of us enjoyed a most wonderful family atmosphere filled with love and reciprocal devotion. Both parents were highly cultured and instilled in us their high appreciation of intellectual pursuit. It was, however, a typical Victorian style of life, all decisions being taken by the head of the family, the husband and father.

My mother is British; she's from Shrewsbury. She turned me onto 'Monty Python' very early.