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'Entertaining for an audience'

28 February 2005

'Someone once said to me: "Don't you think it unfair writing about your mother when she couldn't answer?" The answer is: absolutely not. I couldn't have written about her when she was alive as it would have hurt her terribly. I think one should respect someone like mad while they're alive and write what you like once they're dead. I don't mind what my son writes about me once I'm dead. Books should not be written to be cathartic for the author but to ring bells with and be entertaining for an audience.'

Virginia Ironside, author of Janey and Me, quoted in the Observer