Fifteen years after losing David, I was in Liverpool, appearing in pantomime. The city was glittering, romance was in the air, and I suddenly felt ready for the festivities
I suddenly saw that life wasn’t all that long and you should spend it with people you love. I made a private pact with myself, to stop lying. I would not marry him
I had a lot of existential questions. What is death? What if the dead wake in their coffins? And who was going to deliver my presents: Santa, God or Rabindranath Tagore?
When you are an actor, you never say no to great work. But when I finally reached Accra, and walked on its red earth, I knew I would be back there soon
I toddled round the ward giving sweets to old women and wondering why so many of them were clutching teddies. It taught me not to be scared of people with mental illness
With my mum and dad dead, there were some traditions that only I knew how to observe – like ordering a Chinese takeaway and lazing around in a tracksuit
Christmas for my family means midnight mass, It’s a Wonderful Life and a game of pass-the-orange-under-the-chin. How would our guests Mohammed and Ayman fit in?
I was 15 and desperate to escape small-town England. But all the champagne and roquefort in the world couldn’t make up for the hurt I caused the family I left behind
My son swore in front of his grandparents. I was blamed. It made my Christmas