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For my birthday this year, my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like 'Blue Kentucky Girl,' by Emmylou Harris, and 'Off the Wall,' by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you can't have a music collection without Prince's 'Purple Rain' - it just can't be done!

Sometimes if I have a big enough purse I'll bring my perfume or something. Right now I really like Beaute, it's by Johan B. and it's really nice, so I like that.

My most treasured item is the brown leather bag that my mum bought me from a little Italian shop for my 21st. It's supposed to be a vanity bag, but I use it as a handbag.

One favourite find of mine has to be a 1980s black dinner jacket that I wear as a dress.

Some books I've kept because the binding is beautiful - I'm unlikely ever to read my grandmother's copy of 'The Life of Lord Nelson.' I'm addicted to secondhand bookshops.

I have a shelf of comfort books, which I read when the world closes in on me or something untoward happens.

I wish with all my heart that you may be the most lovable prince in the world, and I bestow my gift on you as much as I am able.

Throughout my career as a lawyer, teacher and labor leader, books have remained my constant companion - stuffed into a briefcase, overflowing on my bedside table, stacked on my desk at work. Books have carried me to distant worlds, opened new doors and made me feel empathy, compassion, anger, fear, joy, acceptance - and everything in between.

On one night of my debut the Prince of Wales, the Princess, and the duchess of London came to see me. They loved me for what I was and what I gave them.

My books are, in a way, a record of my life - that part of it that came to flower and fruit in my mind.