I cannot remember a time when I did not read. The actual sensation, whatever the content, is very important to me. To my mother’s disappointment, as soon as I learnt to read I did not want to be read aloud to – and to this day I cannot stand audio books.

I discovered The Lives of the Young Composers in my school library when I was about six and read them over and over and over. I cannot think why (see my answer on music below!). I still know the first two pages of The Young Beethoven off by heart. I graduated to all the children’s classics, and then on to teenage angst like I Capture the Castle when I was about 14. I wallowed in misery through Grahame Greene when I was at university.

I now read all the time – anything available, from the back of the cereal packet to Dostoyevsky. I am panic stricken if I am ever somewhere where there is nothing to read. For poetry, it is Gerard Manley Hopkins and George Herbert, both of whom reduce me to tears. I reread a great deal and I am always surprised when people think this is strange; I cannot see the difference between rereading a book (odd) and relistening to music (normal).

I was brought up in a very bookish, aesthetically aware but silent house and my regret now is that I have ill-informed and random musical tastes. Despite my best efforts, I have only ever really been reached emotionally by Gregorian chants and Edith Piaf. I am not proud of it. But I do like lyrics which, once heard, I retain such that I can still recall them years later.

Films: The Third Man; Schindler’s List’. Paintings: anything by Fernand Leger; Raeburn’s ‘The Skating Minister’; Chardin’s still lives; Vermeer’s interiors (especially the tiled floors); Gwen John; Winifred Nicholson. These all just came to mind; there are so many others which, once seen, linger for ever in the hinterland and subliminally change the way I see things.

The grey landscapes of Norfolk where I grew up remain in my blood. My father always said Norfolk started at Liverpool Street Station and that is true for me; I get a lump in my throat as I approach it. Bryher in the Scilly Islands where my husband and I return most years, and which truly feels as isolated as it is ever possible to be in the internet age. Of course the Temple, where I have spent my working life, with its strong feeling of history. When I turn off Fleet Street at night and the gate at the top of Middle Temple Lane closes behind me, I feel I am home in every sense of the word.

My essential for a mid-trial stayover is a small beanbag rabbit, bought for me by my husband 30 years ago and who has slept with me ever since. (The rabbit, though my husband has too.) 

Norfolk starts at Liverpool Street Station: ‘I always get a lump in my throat as I approach it.’
Wallowing in Grahame Greene through the university years.
© Hollandse Hoogte/Shutterstock
Fan of Vermeer’s interiors – especially the tiled floors. ‘The glass of wine’
A Case of Mice and Murder by Sally Smith (Raven Books: 2024) whisks readers back to 1901 and the unique world of the Inner Temple. When barrister Gabriel Ward steps out of his rooms, he is so absorbed in his latest case he almost misses the body of the Lord Chief Justice on his doorstep, a silver carving knife sticking out of his chest. As rumour and gossip fly round the chambers, an internal investigation is ordered, with a reluctant Gabriel coerced into taking charge. Paired with the eager young Constable Wright, Gabriel must draw on every bit of his legal training to solve the case – but not before he discovers that there are more surprising, and sometimes sinister, secrets hiding in the Temple than he’d ever imagined.