\n My parents were country people who thought that looking after or chasing animals was more fun than reading: my father used to say that he\u2019d read half a book in his life (The Lonely Skier by Hammond Innes), and while my mother got through three or four novels a year, she didn\u2019t expect me to do anything equivalent. But I do remember enjoying something my grandmother gave me \u2013 My Father\u2019s Dragon by\u00a0Ruth Stiles Gannett. I\u00a0must have been seven\u00a0or so, and thought\u00a0it was amusing\u00a0and ingenious.<\/p>\n
The books that changed me as a teenager<\/strong>
\n At my first school, I somehow got my hands on White Eagles Over Serbia by Lawrence Durrell, which my parents thought was unsuitably violent. I never finished it, but enjoyed carrying it around as proof of how grown-up I was. Then, at my secondary school, my history teacher read us some Wilfred Owen (we were studying the first world war), and the poetry-lights in my mind immediately flickered on. When I subsequently bought Owen\u2019s Collected Poems it became a kind of sacred text for me (it still is).<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/d043009bd94fee6d599f5e6225b7710cbc5d9172\/699_197_4587_3671\/master\/4587.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=949384032703a86a26ed1bcc3a512084\" "\\"Andrew")
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"