I loved the energy of Dublin and the fact that it's so close to the sea, with beauty spots such as Howth so close to hand.
My father was a tyrant about reading, and that put me off books when I was little.
My health is important to me. I run with my dog, twice or three times a week.
I tried doing yoga, but I have dislocating shoulders, one of which has been pinned, so I find things such as yoga and pilates, where you have to stretch quite high up with your arms and things, quite difficult.
My dad had a small suitcase stuffed with photos, mementoes from wherever he'd traveled as a Royal Navy gunner. Not that he gunned very much, as it turned out. I'd haul it out and go through it time and time again.
All my grandparents and great aunts and uncle love 'Foyle's War.' They all lived through the war and love to see it reconstructed so authentically.
My uncle worked in emergency wards dealing with people who came in with terrible injuries. He talked about the sketch shows they would put on to lighten the atmosphere. You often find this sense of grim humor in hospitals. The injuries people are suffering are ghastly. You have to laugh at something or you'd otherwise cry.
WI played a young Helena Bonham Carter in a BBC film called 'A Dark Adapted Eye,' and I thought she was a completely spellbinding person. Totally unmoved by other people's expectations, fashions or opinions. She's probably the coolest English actress there is. Incredibly idiosyncratic.
