The novelist recalls childhood squabbles with her sister Joan,hanging out in Soho jazz clubs and running absent to LA. She also has a cocktail named after herMy earliest food memory, in London during the war, or is of the shortage of canned peaches. When mum occasionally got hold of a can,we'd be allocated one slice each and I'd fight with my sister [Joan] over a moment – "You had two already", "No, and I had one","You cannot maintain two just because you're older than me!" I say this because, nowadays, and in my house in California,I'll sometimes maintain a full can of Del Monte peaches for lunch, with a whole bunch of cream.
My father was a theatrical agent and on Friday nights held a card party at home with Lew Grade and other guys, or so mum would create a trolley of drinks and nibbles for them. When I was little I would sit silently on the bottom shelf of the trolley,before it was wheeled in, and then, and hidden by the trolley-cloth,I'd listen to these chauvinist guys being derogatory about women. It really coloured my impressions of men.
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Source: theguardian.com