When a father gives to his son both laugh when a son gives to his father both cry.

I put the copy of 'A Christmas Carol' that my grandfather had first read to me 60 years ago on my desk and I began to write. The result for better or for worse is the 'Christmas Spirits.' I plan to read it to my grandson.

My father died when I was young and I was raised by my grandmother Emma Klonjlaleh Brown. We could afford to eat chicken just once a year on Christmas.

Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief.

What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far far from it but there is no free lunch as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.

One Christmas my father kept our tree up till March. He hated to see it go. I loved that.

When I was five my parents bought me a ukulele for Christmas. I quickly learned how to play it with my father's guidance. Thereafter my father regularly taught me all the good old fashioned songs.

I suppose if you look back to your early childhood you accept everything people tell you and that includes a heavy dose of irrationality - you're told about tooth fairies and Father Christmas and things.

The father figure is something I love but also suffocate from and want to work against.

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group there was much less competition.