"Would you like to go to New Zealand to do a commercial?" That's the sort of question an actor likes to hear from his agent in freezing mid -January.

But it was drama, high drama: fires at night, the fires that burned people's houses away; bombs fell and left exotically shaped fragments in the form of shrapnel. And we collected it and traded it. As long as we were not hurt -- and I wasn't -- life seemed wonderful.

We even copied the way the Americans walked, though Father Leonard didn't like that bit of admiration. He disapproved of rolling buttocks.

These days when I see a child in Waitrose and smile and say, "Hello, are you going to visit your Mum in her sheltered accommodation when you grow up?" it provokes glistening eyes and hollow laughter. And if you pursue it with, "Or are you going to be a drug dealer?" it may result in a snub.

The chaos of our lives suited me; I don't think I wanted it to end.

The notion that God was everywhere put paid to any possible peace of mind by the time I was six.

One tortured soul I know who suffers from amazingly premature ejaculation -- I mean so premature that he hasn't got any children after eleven years of marriage -- was told by the priest that it was probably a blessing in disguise. What a piece of advice to give to a poor sod who comes off at the sound of his wife's car in the drive.

Tom Fleming, the eldest, was said to look like King George V, and indeed, was often mistaken for His Majesty when in the vicinity of Scotland Road, Anfield Road or Lime Street. Why people would suspect that the King might be working in Tate and Lyle's sugar factory is beyond me, but there you are.

Of course, for a lot of people, death was a welcome change. Grinding poverty takes the edge off most things, including life.

The theatre couldn't match what was going on in a court of law or at football grounds. The theatre has never been able to match what goes on anywhere, that's why so few people go.