I remember my mother used to go fruit picking to supplement the family income. She used to take the kids with her in the school holidays when I was about nine or 10. I just remember that as being very hard work. I got this idea from a very early age of work being something quite unpleasant, that you’ve got to do.
What was your first wage?

I remember being a farm labourer briefly. I think that was £14 a week.
Was there a time when you didn’t know how you were going to pay the bills?

Actually, it’s always been quite hard for me until very recently.

Very early on, just the idea of ever having a home seemed so out of reach. I decided that I would just live as cheaply as I could, try and find the lowest-priced places to rent, so I wasn’t spending all my money just covering housing, and I’d get some kind of surplus, to enable me to do what I wanted with my time.