What were your favourite hobbies when you were young?

I don’t remember having any hobbies as such when I was a child. There were things I liked to do, but nothing I was passionate about, and I kind of think the word “hobby” implies passion about one particular thing.

I played the recorder – badly! I used to watch the person next to me as it took me years to be able to read music, and consequently I was always about half a note behind everyone else! Not that it mattered; the music teacher was tone deaf anyway!

I swam a lot – our school had swimming galas every year, and it was something I was actually very good at. I did get my bronze ASA award (can’t remember what it stands for), which taught you haw to life save and swim long distances. I didn’t do the silver award, as I couldn’t be arsed!

Ah, I think I’ve thought of one. I was passionate (and still am) about reading. As we didn’t have TV in Malawi when I was small, and until much later we didn’t even have TV and video (there was a local video club – people would go back to UK on holiday, tape loads of things and put the tapes in the video club) I was a voracious reader. Every time we had to have the rabies vaccines I got a new book. My mum always said I could have a new book if I managed not to cry! I always did cry, but I still got the book! And I would have finished it by the time we got home! I have always been an extremely fast reader – I don’t skim, I do read properly, but I have never met anyone who reads as fast as me.

I don’t understand people who don’t read – I’ve always felt rather sorry for them. They are missing out on a whole different world. I love to open a book, and lose myself within its pages.