It's time that we gave our children what we owe them, which is a richer understanding of the past and of the importance of all that Germany has done for England and that England has done for Germany.

Thrumpton Hall can be thought of as a venerable old lady, ageing gracefully. But I didn't always feel this way. Children want more than anything to be very conventional and very normal, so it was excruciating and, at times, very upsetting to grow up in a house like this.

I was brought up by my father to think that the best thing in life was to be charming, to have a nice smile, always to be liked.

I've always been of the party that rubbished the idea of a definitive account of somebody's life.