"No, I was quite isolated from that part of the family. My mother was an only child and her father died quite young, so there was no contact. My grandmother went on to have many more children to her next marriage, as they did back then, so that was the family. But having said that, there is a relative I have been in contact with recently, just through the novel coming out, and she has described how members of her family were horrified at her delving into this, as they didn’t want the dirty linen brought out. But I haven’t really gone there – the family was much more notorious than I have written, I knew about that."