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During my past career as a journalist, I relished writing obits and equally dreaded phoning relatives for the necessary facts. But to my surprise and great relief, they often wanted to talk - they wanted their recently deceased loved ones recorded in print.

I had one relative who passed away but fortunately none others. So my sort of experience of it is quite limited, thankfully.

My grandparents, like many genocide survivors, took most of their stories to their graves.

I considered that I had to write stories about the people I had met, with whom I'd worked, the history of my books - just in case I up and die.

My dad died when I was 23. His death was sudden and shocking - the result of a car crash - and I never got to say goodbye.

My mother was a reporter, and though she quit when they had kids, she still loved it. She told me about the people at the paper and the articles she wrote. She had the best memory of anyone I know, and she could really tell a tale.

There are enough stories about my family. We have all been in the public eye.

My mum was a nurse, and her passion was geriatric care. I used to love listening to the old people's stories in her nursing home and picturing myself in their place. They'd say, 'I went to school in a horse and cart,' and I'd just think 'Wow!' I'd picture myself in their place - acting was a natural progression.

I'm one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories.

When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65.