I was brought up in the War. I was an adolescent in the Second World War. And I did witness in London a great deal of the Blitz.

There's no secret about my ambition, I do not want to go into the House of Commons. My only real political interest is in London and if one day I'm in a position to run for mayor, then terrific.

I was born in London, England, in 1938, a few months before the war, and spent the first years of my life there, although I was evacuated a couple of times for short periods. My schooling was very interrupted, both by frequent moves and by ill health.

The anguish in London is a vivid reminder of why we cannot relent in taking the steps necessary to defend our homeland from the present terrorist threat.

Vicars, MPS and lawyers were amont those who considered me to be the best hostess in London.

Hitler bombed London into submission but in fact it created a sense of national solidarity.

In London, love and scandal are considered the best sweeteners of tea.

When really you've gone to drama school and rep and then you've come to London and gone to auditions and you've worked, solidly, for years. But that all gets forgotten.

So Harry Potter came in and it is nice that I have kids of the right age. I took them to London and they walked around the set and met Harry Potter and that is thrilling.

During our stay in London for the first time I was able to establish personal contact with some of the organic chemists, whose work I knew and admired from the literature. I found them most gracious and helpful.

I went to London because, for me, it was the home of literature. I went there because of Dickens and Shakespeare.

Audiences in London called me the girl with the black cherry eyes.

I paid my dues at drama school and worked backstage in every Theatre in London.

Peter Hall was just organizing the Royal Shakespeare Company. It was going to be an ensemble, it was going to be in repertory, it was going to have a home in London as well as in the Midlands, and all of those things were happening at that time.

The space and light up there in Norfolk is wonderfully peaceful. I find myself doing funny things like gardening, and cooking, which I rarely do in London.