TWINS Interviews From the Sunday Times

8/3/2019 TWINS Interviews From the Sunday Times

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From The Sunday TimesApril 18, 2004

Relative Values: Plum Sykes and her twin sister, Lucy Sykes

Plum Sykes, journalist and novelist, and her twin sister, Lucy Sykes, fashion editor

Interviews by Bridget Freer

Lucy Sykes is editor-at-large for American Marie Claire and a consultant for two

American fashion designers. She is married to Euan Rellie, a banker, and lives in New

York. They have a baby son, Heathcliff.

PLUM: Our mother is a children's fashion designer. We grew up surrounded by bolts of

fabric and wearing turn-of-the-century lace dresses. Very rarely did she dress Lucy and me

the same which I admire because, as a mother of twins, all the pressure is to make them

into this cute little double act. But we did have to go to school in insanely expensive white

piqu smock dresses with matching knickerbockers, when everyone else was in tracksuits.

And while they were allowed crisps for break, we had to eat wholemeal sandwiches. We feltlike losers from hell.

Lucy and I were very different: she wasn't interested in schoolwork; I was really swotty and

studious. I was always thinking: "How come Lucy never does any work? She just does tap-dancing and acting, ballet and discos and parties, and I'm always doing my Latin homework."

Lucy's the dominant twin; I was very shy and unconfident. She started dyeing her hair blonde

when she was 11.

I basically did what I was told until I was 17 or 18. I never smoked or took drugs or really

drank I wouldn't do anything.

When we were 11, my mum and dad didn't think: "They should go to the same school because

they're twins." They thought: "They should go wherever suits them." People assume twinshave separation anxiety, but they don't. You need to be an individual; it's awful to be a childwho's always one of a duo.

Twins constantly try to get away from each other, but they always end up together. Take us: I

went to Oxford; she went to acting school. But guess what we're now both in New York

working for fashion magazines! In my novel, I write about a glamorous New York girl and

show the world how she thinks while Lucy shoots the glamorous New York girl and shows

her what to wear. They're different expressions of the same world.

We're both very ambitious we don't want to be poor. My parents had a pretty unpleasant

divorce and lost all their money. If you grow up with a nice life and then the whole thing's

taken away, that's a really unpleasant experience. Most people Lucy and I grew up with hadtrust funds and were bought flats. But we didn't have any of that.

As much as being a double act is a nightmare, it's also very helpful for your career it's

more of a story. No one ever paid me any attention in London. None. But once I got here, itwas: "Twin girls from England arrive and get in right at the top." Of course, it wasn't true: I'd

already been working for five years at British Vogue, and Lucy had been here three yearsworking her way up. But that's the story everyone wrote.


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People invent stories all the time, like the one about Lucy's wedding. I was going to getmarried, and Alexander McQueen, who's a friend, very nicely said he'd make my wedding

dress. But then the engagement was called off. To cheer me up, he said he'd make me a party

dress instead. At first I said no, but laterI thought: "I'd love another dress from Alexander for

Lucy's wedding." So he made me this super-incredible dress: chocolate-brown metallic

chiffon, overlaid with lace. Then the newspapers said I'd taken my own wedding dress, dyed it

black and worn it to the party. I'd never do that. It was very upsetting. They wanted to

caricature Lucy as the happy, married twin and Plum as the crazy, wedding-dress-wearing

psycho-chick.

Twins always stick together in a crisis. We used to do the collections every season in Paris,

and anyone who's in the industry knows it's the biggest torture. So we decided it would bebetter for our emotional health if we got an adjoining suite in the Hotel Coste. It's really nice

to have your twin sister there so you can compare notes and moan and whine.

Our friends are very different: mine are the quiet type; hers are louder party girls. I really like

them, but we've never competed over a friend. I snogged one of her boyfriends when I was

13, but we've never clashed over boyfriends either.

Since Lucy's had a baby, she's much more calm and understanding more of a whole

woman. The baby's so adorable,I'm always going to visit him. He doesn't know it's me, butit's like having a new friend who's always pleased to see you and never has anything bad to

say because he can't talk.

Lucy and I could be on the phone three times a day, 45 minutes each time. I don't know whatwe discuss: just ideas, work, clothes or gossipy stuff. IfI buy something I'll ring her and go,

"Oh God, I've bought this new McQueen thing," and she understands it's important.

I'm a very unjealous person, but one thing I envy about Lucy is she gets so many freebies, and

they're not the crap freebies, they're the really good freebies fur-coat freebies. We're both

obsessed with clothes, but she has more than I do.

If Lucy went to a party, she'd wear a really chic black Calvin Klein thing, and I'd wear a JohnGalliano ruffled slip dress with a fur stole, pearls and silver shoes.

I do an eclectic, attic-chic thing; she has simpler, sleeker, more American tastes. But the olderyou get, the more simply you dress you can't wear frilly, froufrou, girlie-girlie things any

more. So my style's definitely getting more like hers.

LUCY: When we were 17, our parents thought it would be fun for us to be debs, and Plumand I were chosen to be in the fashion show. We were in all the newspapers and felt like

celebrities. We got a taste for what was to come.

We're not just people who work on magazines: we've become a bit more than that. It's hard to

explain, but maybe there's a little bit of mystique about us being twins. I am very, veryambitious, and just having a twin sister really elevated my career and persona. So I was very

lucky to have Plum.

When Plum's around, there's this extra bit of fairy dust that's scattered on me too. It just makesme feel special being with her. Being a twin, you laugh at the same things like we're

always laughing at stupid people, and we love how over the top New York is. We find itreally funny. And it's really fun to have someone that laughs at your jokes, who really can see

the best in you.


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Plum is a lot book-smarter than I am she reads books; I read people. She has an intellectualside; I have a different kind of intelligence. Plum is a good person to talk to about career.

That's really important for me all young women need someone who's on the same page and

understands their language. She gets the American market, which has been very helpful. She

has great resources. We help each other.

When we were youngerI was definitely the rebel, the trailblazer. Plum loved riding and pony

club and all that country stuff, which I hated. I liked smoking cigarettes, putting on make-up

and kissing boys. I was born first by half an hour. That's quite a long time. I was a bit bossy,

but Plum can be bossy too.

I always felt I'd be the first to get married, the first to have a baby. I've always done thingsfirst. Puberty hit me two or three years before her, and I've always been the one that went out

on my own before her. I've always been a little bit ahead of the curve just as I was incoming to New York and being the first one to work on a magazine.

Plum is the most organised person you'll ever meet in your life. She always did her homework

on time, always. I've never been able to. Writing a book, getting up by yourself at eight to sit

at your desk every morning, is unbelievably disciplined. I'm so proud of her. She's done

incredibly well. It's inspired me to do better. If it wasn't for Plum, I wouldn't be so successful.

Yes, it was competitive between us, but in the best way possible.

We've had our run-ins. We used to have massive arguments and just scream at each other, butwe've grown out of that. I know what will push her buttons, so I don't go there. I'm a lot more

tolerant of people than she is, and that's the only thing that sometimes annoys me. She can bevery dismissive. But I wouldn't sit there and listen to her: I'd just walk away. And I'm sure

there are things about me that annoy Plum, but we're so close you have to let it go.

We get on now because we accept those things. It's taken us a while! But the relationship I

have today with Plum, there's nothing I don't like about it. She's very respectful of me. And if

she says something I don't like, well, so what?


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From The Sunday Times

September 28,2008

Relative Values: Will Young and his twin brother, Rupert

Will Young, 29, has become one of the UKs top pop acts since winning Pop Idol in 2002.

His new album, Let It Go, is out tomorrow, and he starts a UK tour on November 16. He

lives in west London. His twin brother, Rupert, is founder of the Mood Foundation

(www.moodfoundation.com), a charity that helps those with depression, a condition hehimself has suffered from. He lives alone in west London. The brothers grew up inHungerford in Berkshire, and they have a sister, Emma, 33

RUPERT: When Will and I were at boarding school my identity was the bad one. And that

continued until I was 25. I would wind up the teachers and I was told in return that I was not a

good person. As a child I believed that and I internalised it. But outside school, William and I

had great fun. Wed play in the woods near our home. We were very good with bows and

arrows, and we played basketball every day. We found an old moped that we fixed up, and

there was a barn with hay for throwing around. William always had a way of falling into

things like ponds or streams.

But at prep school, where we were in the same class, William had a lot of Wheres your

brother? Whys he late? Hed say: Im not my brothers keeper. He had a good sense of

self. But I couldnt see the point of anything, and at 15 I was already self-harming.

You can have two people in the same environment with two different takes on whats

happening around them. Ive got more of my father in me than Will has, and theres a history

on that side of the family of drinking and depression.

After we left school my depression got worse. It was difficult for William to handle because,

like most people, he wasnt educated about it. And I was very clever at hiding things like my

drinking. Id keep the bottles under the bed. I was doing things like smashing jam jars on my

head and saying Id fallen over.

Pop Idol was a great diversion. I could watch William get through each round of the show on

Saturday nights and have a party. I was so proud, and I was constantly in a party mood. But

while everyone else sobered up and went back to work, I carried on all week. And Id turn up

at his gigs drunk and behave like a child, which was really hard for him.

But then, when we were both 20, it all got too much and I cut my wrists. I was jealous about a

girl and another guy or something ridiculous. I remember being in hospital at about five in the

morning and William turning up, impeccably dressed, ready to deal with everything. My

parents were away. I was so grateful to him for coming it was an almost childish relief. He

was more of a parent to me then. Weve only become proper brothers again since I sobered

up.

When we were about 24 I remember lying on a bed, with sheets that hadnt been changed in

months, beer cans and takeaway food around me, watching William on TV giving this

amazing performance, and the audience was applauding. Id spent the night before trying to

convince these tramps in a station to come back to my flat and carry on drinking there, but

theyd said no. I was horribly hung over but Id carried on drinking, as usual. I didnt know

what time of day it was. Later the papers had a report on celebrities and their evil twins

and there I was.


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After that I thought about the difference between us and I began to realise this situation wasjust not right. I starting thinking that maybe there was something wrong with me, but it was

William who pointed out that perhaps this condition could be treated.

I remember feeling relieved that there could be a way to get rid of these feelings of guilt and

shame. Id hurt so many people but I really believed that I could change and I have.

We see each other every day now. Hes the best friend you could possibly have its justheavenly. I turn up at his home and Ive got my own key, so Ill let myself in and just barge

into his room and wake him up. Ill sit on the sofa and read a book while hes getting ready.Ill still be there reading or working on my laptop for the Mood Foundation, the charity Ive

set up, when he gets back.

We have a huge amount in common again now, especially our sense of humour. We donthave to speak to find each other amusing its just there.

I asked him to cut my hair recently and while he was doing it I noticed his wrist had gone just

slightly limp, so I gently lifted his hand up to make it more macho. There were no words

spoken but we both fell about laughing.

Iknew people could be gay, of course, but

Ididnt think my brother could be. When we weregrowing up I just thought he was sensible; everyone I knew was having problems with

relationships and girls, but he never got upset he just seemed very relaxed with girls.

The only time Ive ever seen William struggle with his identity was when he was about 26and he was asking: What is it to become a gay man? I think he really struggled with it.

Weve talked about how sad it is that even if youre not famous you cant walk down thestreet holding your boyfriends hand. Id hate that I can do that any time with a girlfriend.

William told me once that he had walked through Shepherds Bush hand in hand with his

boyfriend, and I was so proud of him.

William is very supportive of my charity and hes incredibly supportive of my personal

journey. I listen to all his music and give him feedback. When he played the V Festival a fewweeks ago, I went with him. Four years ago, when I was drinking, that wouldnt have been

possible. But this time he sent me a text afterwards saying: Its so much fun having you on

the bus. It was amazing. Am I prepared to trade this friendship for booze now? The answer isno.

WILL: The nature of being twins is that you constantly get compared, and one twin can

suffer. I remember when we went to school there were two sets, and I was in the higher set, soit was decided that I was the clever one and Rupert was the sporty one. I think he gave up a

bit because of the comparison. But we had the same Common Entrance exam results and not

wildly dissimilar GCSEs. You just get labelled and it takes time to get away from that hes

just as clever as me and Im just as sporty as him.

Rupert was more of a tearaway than I was at school, and later he used to have these terrible

fits of temper that, looking back, were brought on by alcohol. Id get annoyed with teachers

who tried to make me responsible for him, but even when things were difficult I never wished

he was somewhere else. At prep school we used to sneak out of our dorms, which were next

to each other, to kiss each other good night.

I thinkI would have found school harder without Rupert. In our first year at Wellington we

kept to ourselves. Wed gone from being at the top of prep school to being at the very bottom.


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We were absolutely terrified of the older boys to start with. As we moved up the school,Rupert was more sociable than me. At 17 or 18 I wished I was as good at parties as he was.

Hed get on the dance floor, whereas I was very self-conscious. He was seeing lots of girls

and was very handsome and I just wasnt. Now Im the performer, which is funny.

After school it was time to move away and find our own identities. We both had a brilliant

time when we first got to London. So I couldnt believe it when I got a phone call saying that

Rupert had cut his wrists. I was used to his tempers, but this came as a total shock. When I

arrived in the hospital and saw the blood all over his clothes, it was a survival technique on

my part and also for his benefit to be very organised and calm. I knew I had to get on withthis. But it was horrific. I still find it very upsetting now.

But by the time we got to 25 Id had enough. The whole family had to distance themselves. It

was making us all so unhappy. Once, when I was going to an awards ceremony, the organiserssent a Rolls-Royce to pick me up. I was all dressed up in the back of this smart car and we

had to drive past Paddington station. I knew that Rupert was in there, drinking, and had been

all day.

It must be hard to have everyone saying to you Isnt your brother doing so well? all the

time. Id have found it impossible. He had a drunken fight once and suddenly it exploded into

the papers because of me.I

remember someone saying: Its because youre famousBut what could I do? I cant remember exactly when Rupert got his life back together, but I

do remember him going for a year without drinking, then it was two, and now three. His

charity has given him a focus. Its made me speak more openly about my own experience

with depression, too. But now I know more about it, and when it happens

I dont feel as ifIm falling into that deep, black pool; I have linchpins I can hang on to and

climb out again with. I also have to watch what I drink, because that runs in the family too.

Rupert and I are very similar now we have great conversations. Well meet someone and

afterwards Ill say, Why do you think he did that? and Rupert will say: Well, I think he

was feeling like this We both have these insights now. A friend said to me: Rupert just

sees things, doesnt he? And he does.

I think he found my being gay hard because were so similar. He said: I dont understand

were the same and yet youre gay. It made him question his own sexuality for a while.

I never used to want him to come to work with me, because Id have to look after him.Recently he asked if he could come to the V Festival. My immediate reaction was to try and

put him off, then I realised that I didnt have to do that any more, so I said: Yes, sure.

Afterwards all the band members and crew told me: Your brothers amazing. I think its

because a lot of music people tend towards melancholy and have had similar experiences. But

theyre right. Rupert is amazing. To be like that for almost 10 years and then to come back

from the abyss and hes done it all on his own. Im just so proud of him.


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From The Sunday TimesMay 16, 2004

Relative Values: Hugo Guinness and his twin sister, Julia

Hugo Guinness, artist, and his twin sister, Julia Samuel, counsellor

By Angela Neustatter

Hugo and Julia were born in 1959 into the banking side of the Guinness dynasty. Hugo

worked as an advertising copywriter and then at Guinness Mahon, where his father was

chairman. He is now a painter, potter and printmaker, showing in London and New

York. He and his wife, the painter Elliott Puckette, live in Brooklyn with their

daughters, Isabella, 5, and Violet, 3.

His twin sister, Julia born two minutes after him is a counsellor at St Mary's

hospital, London, where she works with parents whose babies have died. She is also a

founder patron of the Child Bereavement Trust. She lives in London with her husband,

Michael Samuel. They have four children: Natasha, 22, Emily, 20, Sophie, 18 and

Benjamin, 15. Hugo and Julia have twin siblings, Miranda and Sabrina, 49, and a sister

Anita, 46.

HUGO: I was the only boy in the family, so my world was dominated by women. It was a

struggle to keep up girls behave so differently! There were moments when I longed for abrother. For all that, Julia and I were very close and liked rebelling against our parents, doing

things like smoking behind the shed when we were six. Perhaps we were extra-close becausewe had another set of twins to compete with.

At nursery school I was the naughty one and Julia was well behaved, so the idea of me as the

evil one and her as such a good person took root. I still see her that way. I'm aware of her

being a virtuous person with all the charity work she's done. She's very nice to the world, but

she hates it when I say this, because she says it's not the whole picture.

When I was nearly eight I was sent away to prep school. I hated it. My mother didn't want me

to go, but still it happened. At school I felt I had to conquer my sadness at being parted fromJulia we never talked about how it felt to be separated. But it's not surprising we didn't

have a language for discussing feelings: I don't recall ever being asked by adults how I feltabout anything. I don't think anyone was interested.

At prep school, if Julia and my other sisters came to visit, I'd make them hide in the car so no

other boys would see them. They were an embarrassment! But laterI developed passions forJulia's friends and wrote them love letters.

When we were 16, Julia went to live in Paris and we drifted apart. When I was 18, I moved

from the family home. And soon after, Julia moved in with Michael, the man she married. I

found that difficult. At the time I had no real sense of who I was. I'd been told from an early

age that I'd be a banker, like my father.

I did two years out of a sense of duty, then quit. I was aware of my father's disappointment

although he'd done this work for 40 years and didn't like it, he was upset that I wouldn't stickat it. If Julia had been a less honest person, she might have tried to reassure me that he wasn't


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disappointed, but she agreed he was. It didn't feel good. I went into copywriting, then studiedceramics at Harrow art school. It made me happy but it didn't mean anything to my father.

At this time I looked to Julia to be there for me, but she seemed very grown up and sorted out,

which I didn't feel at all. I was sure ifI asked her to lunch, as I'd always done, she'd say sorry,

she was busy doing something with Michael. I felt rejected when she got married; it's a tricky

time for twins.

It seemed she was being taken away from me. She had her first child at 21. I never told her

how I felt.

I was 20 when I became overwhelmed with negative feelings about myself. I had the sense ofa void I couldn't fill. I see it as a result of having bottled up all my feelings. By the time I was

24 I had become very self-destructive with drink and drugs, but I managed to function well onthe outside. Julia saw how lost I was, and invited me to stay with her family, which I did. She

was kind, but not indulgent, and with hindsight I'm grateful for that. She tried to talk to me,

asking why I wasn't fulfilled, but I didn't want to face how I was dealing with my problems

and trashed what she said.

I wasn't forced to do anything about the state I was in. My life didn't fall to pieces. I had

friends, girlfriends,I

was seen as good fun. ThenI

moved to New York and got married to awonderful woman, Elliott, and we had two beautiful girls. But things inside me got worse. I

reached this point where it seemed the world was dark and unchanging. I began to befrightened about how little I felt for anyone, including my family.

Two years ago I went to Narcotics Anonymous. To my amazement, it really engaged me. I

liked the fact that the more vulnerable you show yourself to be, the more people respond toyou. Things changed inside me and I realised so clearly how just a bit of pot and alcohol

detaches you from reality and brings in the negative thinking. Then things changed with

Elliott and the kids. I felt I was alive with them. I've been off everything for two years and I

don't feel any need for drugs any longer.

I was very aware, while going to NA, of my being a kind of mirror to Julia, because she wasworking in counselling. But it's a good thing I did. Life feels very good. I'm painting, having

exhibitions, selling my work. Every day I feel pleasure in my family, and although I live in

America I feel close to Julia. I know she's always there for me but sometimes I feel guilty

because I take it for granted.

JULIA: Hugo is two minutes older than me but he's never pulled rank! We were brought up

in a traditional way. Being a boy and a girl, we were separated. I shared a room with my sister

and Hugo had his own room. Looking back, I thinkI'd have preferred to have been brought up

more as twins. I feel sad that we were separated so young.

My parents had different expectations for Hugo as the boy in the family, and that worked in a

contradictory way. Hugo, put under pressure, didn't perform so well. But because there wereno expectations put on me, I worked hard and was determined to do well. Things changed

when Hugo went away to school. I was aware of him toughening up and remember him

pushing me off when I was saying goodbye. And I know now how unhappy he was going

away, but there was a philosophy in our family that you just got on with things.

I've been asked ifI had a less destructive upbringing than Hugo, but that's not how I'd

describe it. Our parents loved us and I think we had as good an upbringing as we could get in

the circumstances, but we did different things with it.


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There is a special, complex bond between twins, but it's also a competitive relationship. Muchas you love your twin, the greater instinct is to survive. It can be difficult if you feel the other

is getting more attention. I coped by being the opposite of Hugo. He was labelled the naughty

one at nursery, and I was good, even though I have as much potential to be bad as he does to

be good. It is still irritating to hear Hugo say: "I'm the evil one and she's such a good person."

With two lots of twins in the family, there was an extra layer of sibling competitiveness. We

girls were dressed the same until we were six, so there was a real sense of power. I

occasionally saw Hugo during term time, but I remember once going to visit him at Eton for

some celebration. I spent weeks deciding what to wear, thinking it was a great chance to meetsome boys. Then, when I arrived, Hugo took me to his bedroom on the sixth floor and locked

me in for the whole day. He completely blew my chances.

When I went to live in Paris at 16, Hugo and I became more separate and had differentfriends. It was then I met Michael and followed my instinct that marrying him was the right

thing to do, even though I was very young. I wasn't aware how Hugo felt about this. I was

very involved in getting married, then I had my first child, Natasha. Nevertheless, I became

aware of Hugo's self-harming behaviour at this time.

He was always so funny and witty, so it was difficult to see that underlying it all were

conflicting painful feelings. And he never had destructive relationships. He always chooseswomen who are great: loving, reliable, very beautiful. I think that's what kept him going.

I did my best to yank him out of his drink and drugs. I had him over or visited him and

nagged him like a 105-year-old maiden aunt. But, because I don't drink, it was hard to talkabout the horrors of drinking. I gave up in my twenties, because alcohol has played a big part

in our family and I didn't want that. When he decided to go to Narcotics Anonymous, I went

too because I wanted a deeper understanding of what someone drinking as he was goes

through. He responded well to the group: he chose to give up the substances. It's been a big

bonus for our relationship.

We are much closer now that I feel as though he's alive, and we communicate in a way that

wasn't possible before. I wish we'd understood earlier that our learned "stiff upper lip" wasnecessary to allow us to go about our business and to function but that taking it into our

own family, as we did, built barriers and caused difficulty, where it was hard to heal by

communicating fully. Today I feel excited that Hugo and I have a chance to be real twins. It's

never too late.


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Relative Values: Amanda Foreman and her brother, Jonathan

Copyright 2008 The Times

Amanda Foreman, 40, is the author of the bestselling biography Georgiana, Duchess of

Devonshire. She is married to a banker, Jonathan Barton, and lives in New York and London.

She has five children, the oldest of whom is six. The Duchess, a film based on her book

starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes, is out now. Jonathan, 42, a former lawyer and

war correspondent, is a founder of the political magazine Standpoint. Single, he lives in westLondon. Their father was the screenwriter and film producer Carl Foreman

AMANDA: Well, my brother was born absolutely brilliant. You couldnt miss it. So the

family dynamic was: Johnny is brilliant. My father poured a great deal of his energy intohim whether Johnny wanted it or not. They would have intellectual discussions all the

time, from which I was excluded, because Im younger, Im a girl, whatever. But the dynamicbetween Johnny and myself was that he always saw me as his equal, even if nobody else

around us did.

My father was taken in an untimely way. He died when Johnny was 18.

He was ill for six to nine months, with brain cancer. It was a terrible illness: loss of faculties,

loss of speech, loss of mobility. The medication produced incoherent thoughts and temperchanges, plus a very undignified end, which was also shattering.

I was at school, so I was sheltered from a lot of it, but Johnny was at home in his gap year and

saw it all, and he experienced a profound agony from which it took him years to recover.

Our fathers death also gave him a sense of anger, and he developed a really explosive hair-

trigger temper. So there might have been a possibility for tremendous conflict, but the fact

that we were physically separate from each other helped to prevent it. When Johnny was at

Cambridge, I was at boarding school. Then he went to law school in America and became alawyer, and I went to graduate school at Oxford. So our relationship was on the telephone,

and wed see each other during holidays.

And then he had a really profound effect on my life. We had, for me, this seminal dinner oneNew Years Eve.

I was doing a PhD on attitudes to race and colour in 18th-century England. It was all very

heavy and learned. Id come across Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and I was fascinated

by her. Johnny said: Amanda, this is amazing you should turn this into a book. And he

really encouraged me. His confidence in me, his belief that I could and would do it, was

extraordinary. And it sustained me when everyone around me had kind of written me off as a

low achiever.

Im very traditional, and so Im happy in my marriage, and as much as I try to think outside

my little box, my yearning for Johnny is that he gets married and has children. I cant help it.All my life I thought wed have children at the same time, and theyd have this wonderful

cousinhood. Thats not going to happen now, which makes me really sad.


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Johnny and his girls I used to call him John Giovanni. Ive always been mopping up afterhim, consoling some girl I know he meant to call you He has a girlfriend now, whom

he loves very much, and theyre very connected, but she is also a free spirit she likes to go

off for months to India. That suits him, which may be why its working,

Johnny has this wanderlust, this desire to experience the world. Hes done two tours ofIraq as

a foreign correspondent, and one in Afghanistan. He did a horrendous journey through Chad,

and then an arduous trip in Pakistan. Thats where his heart is, doing these incredibly

uncomfortable, difficult, perilous, physically demanding things which is anathema to me,

as Im such a physical coward.

Because were so close, I feel as if hes my twin brother, rather than my older brother. We areclose under all the traditional criteria of closeness: we have a total unquestioning trust, great

enjoyment in each others company, a huge respect, and a profound hope and belief that goodthings will happen to the other person. I would do anything for Johnny, whatever it takes, if,

as and when needed or required. And I think he feels the same way towards me.

JONATHAN: Our parents had a very close, very intense relationship. With the benefit of

hindsight and therapy, their relationship came first, and the two of us came second. But it

made Amanda and me bond more. We did fight and argue, and Id tease her, and shed

provoke me, and wed tell on each other, but we were quite a strong unit from a very earlyage.

We were set in roles quite young. I was the academic, little-professor person, always involved

in conversations at dinner with the grown-ups. Being a couple of years older than Amanda,there were discussions I could have with my father that she couldnt. I think she resented that

much more attention had gone to me, although as a result I was under constant pressure from

my father to succeed academically.

Amanda was regarded as the practical one, and to some extent that became true in later life.

But she was also amazingly creative at school. She painted really well, she was very musical,

she sang, and wrote music, and carved her own non-academic role.

We were having a happy life in London, but then at quite an early age, everything got

disrupted. My parents decided to move to California, and we upped sticks completely. I was

nine and Amanda was seven. Suddenly we were going to schools in Los Angeles, and it was a

big, traumatic break from our previous life. We were both very unhappy there. We didnt

know the TV programmes, or any of the social references that are so important to small

children, and the kids made fun of our English accents. Amanda was quite shy, and she had a

particularly tough time.

It took a long time for my parents to notice we were unhappy two or three years, maybe.

But the experience brought Amanda and I together more than anything else, and thats when

we became the greatest friends.

When Amanda was finally sent back to boarding school in England, she was full of dreams

that it would be wonderful, like in the Enid Blyton books. It wasnt. She was teased for her

accent again by then shed picked up an American one and our parents were miles away

in California. But she toughed it out.

Amanda is very brave. My father was wonderfully charming, and very kind, but he was also

very difficult to stand up to. Amanda carved her own niche, and that was not an easy thing to

do in our family. Then she started going through a rebellious stage, although unfortunately


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she was in the middle of it when our father died, which was awful, because you dont everthen get to the other side.

Amanda always saw her life as being about work and career. She didnt think of herself as a

very maternal person. But this whole other side of her emerged when she started having

children, and the domestic sphere has given her far more pleasure than she expected.

Having five children is obviously a decision she made with her husband, but she and I used totalk about it well before she married. We both thought our household was very intense, having

just two children, and we envied our friends from big families; they seemed to have an easiertime. The parents arent investing all their hopes and dreams in one or two of their children.

Amanda is much more conventional than I am. She says to me: You should be married and

have children and lead a stable, traditional life. I think she has a wonderful married life, andits not that Im advertising my own life as so wonderful Im my age, and Im single and

childless but we approach things differently. Ive spent a lot of time in South Asia and

India, and the yoga and philosophy behind it is increasingly important to me as I get older,

and it means you live life in a different way.

Wed been confidants for such a long time, it was a big shock when she got married. I gave a

speech at her wedding saying that, for me, her marriage meantI

was genuinely losingsomeone, though for the greater good. We dont talk as often as we did, but the basic bond is

so strong. Shes been an amazing support to me. Amandas a little lion, completely loyal, andhas always been there for me, which is kind of wonderful.

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TWINS Interviews From the Sunday Times