My mother made me what I am. She gave me the greatest gift a mother can give the desire to excel（超越）. She taught me to read before I was four. She also encouraged me to write. When I was 10, I wrote a story and she sent it to a children's magazine. They accepted it and paid me some money. So I started earning money by writing at a young age.
I also learned a lot from my father. He'd say, "Stand tall, be independent and keep your eyes open. " For what, I don't know! He was quite good at telling stories, and I think I inherited my gilt for storytelling from him. But he could be pretty strict. If I went out with a boy, he had to pick me up from home so my father could question him inside out.
My father was 6 feet tall and good-looking, with great charm. He lost a leg in the war while serving in the Royal Navy, but never let it hold him back. When he was in hospital, ready to have his le g amputated, he said, not depressed, "Well, half a loaf is better than none. " After his death, I returned his artificial leg to the hospital, but walked away in tears, fit felt as if I was giving part of him away.
My parents had a son, Vivian, who died before I was born, so my mother put all her love into me. She also gave me an education I couldn't get at school. She took me to the pictures every week, to the theatre to see the Russian ballet whenever it came to Leeds, where we lived.
At 20. I moved to London to become fashion editor of Woman's Own and later a columnist on the London Evening News. The day I left home, my mother wrote in her diary that all the sunshine had gone out of her life when her daughter left home.
