In 1993 I went to live in France where I took up painting fish and drinking cheap gin all night instead of attending lectures about ancient Greek sculpture. Back in England I carried on painting for the next twelve years but it never occurred to me to show my work. Then one Christmas, I made a little kinky lady card for some friends in Brighton. They liked it a lot so I made my first kinky lady painting. Then another. And another. Until I had a collection I didn’t quite know what to do with. So I put them together into a show. It went well and I’ve been exhibiting and selling ever since.

An obsessive childhood compulsion with rearranging my parents’ furniture led inevitably to a two-year course in interior design. Now I get officially to nose around in other people’s houses and benevolently boss them about until they agree to all sorts of lovely things they’d never have thought of.

So people pay me money for painting pictures, dreaming up nice interiors and writing stories. This keeps me in paint and spangly eyeliner, which is good.