Margaret Thatcher was in my year, and our first-year college photograph shows us standing side by side in the back row. We were both grammar school girls on state scholarships. — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
At 11, I passed the scholarship - only just; I wasn't very good at maths - to Ilford County High for Girls. When the Second World War started we were evacuated, first of all to Ipswich, and then to Aberdare,… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
I like stirring the pot - I think it's part of my duty, to shake people up a bit - make them look at… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
All writers are liars. They twist events to suit themselves. They make use of their own tragedies to make a better story... They are… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
I met Richard Burton, an RAF cadet on a two-term course. I would have flirted more enthusiastically if it had not been for the… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
I was born in a small suburb of Ilford in a rather nasty housing estate that my mother despised. She had grown up in… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
Life isn't so complicated for children. They have more time to think about the really important things. That's why I occasionally moralise in my… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
I've never found it made the slightest difference being a woman - though there is a sort of feeling that as you get older… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
People who don't read seem to me mysterious. I don't know how they think or learn about other people. Novels are a very important… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
Adults get more confused by social worker jargon. Unlike children, they are also less likely to see two sides of an argument, and they… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
I wanted to be a war reporter - scrabbling around, exposing things. I didn't want to go to university, I wanted to get a… — Nina Bawden Copy Share Image
