50 in 50: What woman in your family do you most admire and why?

I think I quite admire my grandmother. She is eighty now and is still going strong - the way she has lived her life has clearly been good to her. She is fully healthy and has taken good care of herself. I think she has lead a very good life, and acted very wisely, in all. Not to say I don't think she made mistakes: for instance, she was quite harsh on my mother when she was young.

I've actually sort of inherited a lot of things from her, and my grandad too. For instance, me starting to ride a bike, now I think, was probably inspired by my grandparents who still cycle. The allotmenteering probably is inspired too, because she also has an allotment and does a lot of gardening.