Q3 - You also mention in your author’s note that the connection dissuaded you from writing for a long time. What finally made you decide to go for it?

A - This is a question which I have often puzzled over during the last three years without coming up with a really satisfactory answer. I think it's interesting that I never wrote any fiction at all before January 2000 but that I had kept a daily diary for the preceding ten years. It was as if I was unconsciously preparing myself to be a writer while at the same time maintaining a constant mantra that I couldn't write fiction. Turning forty and the millenium were important milestones, but deep down I think that I had a need to create something outside of myself and to prove just what I could do. As a barrister I would put everything I had into writing a closing speech for the jury, but after I had given it the writing went into the dustbin. A novel lasts a lot longer if you can get it published! I do also think that my grandfather's huge achievement did keep me back from writing for a long time, but eventually my inner need to create burst the flood walls that I had set up for