It was... it was a very good education. I knew about Roman myths and legends. I knew about the Argonauts. I knew about all sorts of basic things in our cultural backgrounds. The things on which literature and art are based. And then, when I did eventually get to school, of course, I couldn’t add two and two together.

[Q]  Can you say a bit more about your mother? I mean, how did she come to know that… or believe that this was the way to bring you up? Didn’t she have to go to work or anything? I mean…

I… no, I think there was a tiny stipend from my grandmother. My father’s mother. My father went to Eton and left at the age of 16, having had some fairly conventional, but nevertheless ghastly, experiences at the hands of other boys. And I think my mother may have been influenced by that. She was educated at home. Her father was quite well off, had a house in Fitzjohns Avenue. And, like many women of her age and class, there was no question of going to school. You had… I’ve forgotten what they’re called… tutors. What’s the word?

[Q] Governess?

Governess. Or governesses. So she was educated in the conventions of the day.