The chef, 54, talks about her foodie mum, historian dad, troubled teenage years and and being appointed MBE

I was a happy kid, president of the school at 11, then went on to St Paul’s Girls’ School. I was supposed to be a barrister, because I was good at chat and liked debating. Mum was the foodie. We were always making things in the kitchen while my sister was in the garden.

I went to every outpost of the Roman Empire as a kid. My dad [Colin McEvedy] was a psychiatrist, but his love was history; he sold a million copies of his history books. Holidays were going to see a mausoleum, measuring cannonballs in a castle in Istanbul, clambering over rocks. I didn’t have a beach holiday until I was 28.