'My parents created Thunderbirds - I'm still watching re-runs of their shows today'

Mum was always the great reader in our family – she was the one who looked after the scripts, thought up the characters, devised most of the plotlines. Dad was the one who looked after the action side, the danger and the explosions.

So, it was mum who encouraged me to read, and I loved it. Today, because of all the travelling around that I do, it’s far more likely to be a Kindle or some sort of lap-top device, but I genuinely do love, and prefer, the feel and the smell, there’s no other word for it, or a proper book.

It was my mum who persuaded to pick up Dickens’ David Copperfield when I was about ten years old, and I loved it. He was – and is – an incredible writer, and if he were working today, he’d be writing for television drama, no doubt about that at all.

Because, back then, that’s how he wrote – episodically, for publications which came out weekly or monthly, and which had his readers waiting impatiently for the next twists in his stories.

These days, I do enjoy a good biography, and also autobiographies – I think that all started when, years back, David Niven’s The Moon’s a Balloon, came out, which was packed full of delicious stories about his life and career and people I knew, through my parents.

Elton John’s biography was an informative read, and, in fiction, I love the stories by Francesca Catlow – The Little Blue Door is a favourite. She’s a writer of romantic fiction, but the best in that genre, and once you are hooked into her stories, you can’t put the book down.

I’ve been listening to

It’s nearly always blues, or jazz. I could listen to the legend that is Billie Holiday forever, what a pioneering and determined woman she was, and, if you haven’t read her biography, go and seek it out.

There are two tracks of hers that I love, Don’t Explain, and – what else – Strange Fruit. Miss Holliday was a brave woman to release that one.

She demonstrated that you really can’t sing properly until you’ve had some pain in your life.

Then there’s Otis Reading, Ella Fitzgerald, and Adele – I’m one of those people who likes to hear the lyrics of a song. not a mumbled rendition where you can’t recognise a word.

On TV, I’ve been watching

Not surprisingly, a lot of Thunderbirds re-runs, so that I am fully prepared for my tour.

When my parent’s shows were on television, I never went to school and boasted about them at all, I kept very quiet because I didn’t want anyone to think that I was showing off.

When my connection to their shows finally emerged, I suddenly became the most popular girl in my year, because everyone wanted to know about the productions, what was about to happen, and they all wanted invitations to visit the studios to see how the programmes were made.

I couldn’t arrange that, of course, but now I can confess that I did indeed visit them myself, every Sunday, in fact, and it was such a privilege.

I was completely fascinated, and one of my favourite things was watching the actors doing the vocals for the puppets, giving them life, making them ‘real.’

As for television today, I’ve been hooked on all the series of Yellowstone. Great writing, and such a talented cast.

The live performance I’d recommend is

My late husband was a director, and he was the genius behind the Pink Floyd concert in Berlin, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin wall.

It was a night that I shall never ever forget, the whole of the city was buzzing, and the audience included so many famous names that my head is still buzzing when I recall them. It was such a privilege to be there.

My next boxed set or streamed series will be (or was….):

Heaven knows, but, if I find something I really enjoy, I can happily binge-watch it from the comfort of my sofa, and the rest of the world is lost to me.

I’m very much influence by the recommendations of good friends, and I trust their judgement – they are hardly ever wrong. There has to be a nice glass of gin and tonic nearby, or a white wine, and its sheer bliss.

The App I couldn’t be without is

It must be Google Maps, invaluable in getting me from A to B. And there’s also YouTube, which I use as a research tool. Funnily enough, I’ve just been looking at clips of Lady Penelope.That brought back quite a few memories…..

What is right at the top of your “To do” Bucket list?

I have never ever been to New Orleans, and I’d love to go there, and really get into the atmosphere – I admire the city’s people more than you’ll ever know, because of their amazing resilience – they experienced those terrible floods, and yet they fought back, and rebuilt, even stronger.

Growing up with the Thunderbirds, The Old Woollen, Pudsey, Sunday, June 29 at 7pm.