Donna Air

I've been a skinny girl my whole life. I just don't sit down - I'm always on the go. It must be down to the genes. We have a healthy body image in my house and great appetites. It'd be hard for you to find a food I don't love.

My dad was a mechanical engineer and a drummer. We had no money, but I never felt we had no money, and that's what I remember now, having my own child. I think, 'Oh so what?' Kids don't go around the house seeing what's wrong with it.

There may be some backward countries where the mass of the people are on a subsistence level and where, as an aftermath of wars or partial crop failures, the standard of living has to be drastically reduced, but this certainly is not the case in our prosperous nations.

The '50s in general are written off as a boring decade following the turmoil of the Second World War and its immediate aftermath - the postwar Labour government, the cold war, the arrival of the New Look in fashion, etc. But I remember it as a very exciting time - a pioneering, rule-breaking time, especially for the young.