Lady-in-waiting: Kirstie aged three (left) and with her younger brother Henry

sleep in a cot. Such humiliation for a furious five-year-old!

…the best thing that happened to me was the birth of my sister

Sophie. There are nine years between us and she became my plaything. Every photo thereafter has her in my arms or being pushed by me in the pram. When she started to get her own opinions on what to wear I’d bribe her to wear the clothes I’d chosen for her.

…Sophie wasn’t impressed when my youngest sister Natasha came along five years later. But I was

thrilled and played at being Mummy all over again. All I ever wanted in life was to recreate my childhood with a happy home and babies.

…every weekend was spent helping

Dad in the garden. As a child you

don’t think, Poor Dad, he’s been working all week in London, I bet he

needs a rest. No, you think, Great, I’m on the back of a tractor! Dad’s making a bonfire! He’s got the chainsaw out! He’s building us a tree house!

…swinging on the door of the phone booth in our holiday hotel in Cornwall, begging Dad to come and

play with us. Those were the days before mobile phones—he’d go to the booth every day after breakfast to call the office and then he was all ours for the day. We’d go down to the beach, build the biggest sandcastle and wait for the sea to come in over it.

See the April issue of

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