Helen George

I've been to L.A. before, and I love the sunshine and the fact that people seem so genuinely nice and pleased to see you - which is so different from London. Maybe I'll end up so tired of smiles and helpfulness that I'll long for the rudeness and cynicism of home.

I love 'Call the Midwife'; it's an absolute gem of a programme. Filming the Christmas special and then the second series felt like going back to a boarding school that you really love and is full of friends.

Early in the 1990s, I flew alone in a dandelion-yellow, single-engine, 180-horsepower Piper Cherokee from Westchester County Airport in New York westward to the Rocky Mountains, landing and refuelling a good many times in middle-sized cities and towns along the way.