Rose, or Rosie as she was known then, grew up in London where 'food and affection were both fiercely rationed'. Her parents were distant and more interested in their own social life than encouraging Rosie and her sister, not even attending school events and performances.

Visits to her grandparents in Hampshire brought colour and joy into her life, and she gained love and encouragement from the family's Nanny, Vera. 

When Rosie was ten, her father left and built another life with a new family. Nanny Vera left too and Rosie and her sister were sent to a boarding school in Hertfordshire, a terribly spartan and forbidding place.

Even though Rosie is recognised there for her academic ability and creative talent, her mother doesn't allow her to apply to Oxford. Instead she's sent to finishing school in Switzerland. It's here that Rosie find herself. She grows in confidence and determines to follow her own path in life, enrolling against her mother's wishes at the Sorbonne. 

It's a terribly sad story, but fascinating, particularly as Rose shares how she has represented events in her life in her novels. For example, having such fond memories of Nanny Vera reading the poem 'The Land of Counterpane' from 'A Child's Garden of Verses' by Robert Louis Stevenson, has meant that every bed cover in her novels hasu a green eiderdown, just as it was on her own childhood bed. And her memory of her mother spoiling her birthday treat of a trip to the sea, was replicated as Anthony's mother in 'Trespass'. 

This is such an interesting insight to this incredible writer.