Being told my books are boring is my greatest fear. If anything, I put excessive violence and sex in them to ensure it’s a charge I’ll never face.
My childhood was eccentric and wonderful. Mum was a novelist, my father a GP and psychiatrist. His surgery was in the basement of our house, where all sorts of dramas – both medical and psychological – played out. It’s from that, I think, that I got my fascination with how people live.
We were always aware of the family history. The Montefiores arrived in London in the 1790s: Moses Montefiore went from Jewish immigrant to wealthy banker, international envoy and baronet – an unusual narrative. Still, throughout my childhood, the Montefiores seemed stiff and Edwardian. Seder nights were held in a grand hotel – the men wore suits and bowler hats.
When tsars and autocrats fall, they are virtuallyalways destroyed by their closest courtiers. It will be the same with Putin.
From aged eight, I was at boarding school. I didn’t find it traumatic, I came from such an indulgent, loving family that it was rather refreshing to be out of the house.
Interviewing Margaret Thatcher while a pupil at Harrow was unexpected. I asked Ken Livingston first, and he said yes, and so I thought, why not Downing Street? For some reason, she obliged. I asked all sorts of cheeky questions, my copy of Mao’s Little Red Book in my pocket. I was impertinent, certainly. As we left, she told her private secretary: “No more schoolboys.”
I worked down South African goldmines at 17. For two months, I’d get up at 4am, put on my boiler suit, take a frozen bottle of water, and travel down in cages to drill, climb and dig in scorching heat. These were the last years of apartheid. I wanted to see its collapse first-hand.
Trust, openness and flexibility – these are the ingredients of a relationship that prospers. I’ve been married [to author Santa Montefiore] for 25 years. My father taught me to pay attention to the details when it comes to your partner. He was right.
In the early 90s, I was a war correspondent covering the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, when my driver and I were taken prisoner by renegade soldiers, all off their faces on drugs, firing machine guns at random. I was terrified we’d be killed, and felt this sickness that I was going to die for the couple of hundred quid I was being paid per article. We escaped when fighting broke out around us. I soon gave up war reporting for good.
There’s a complexity to historical figures, despots included. Take Stalin. When his young daughter wrote a document banning all homework in the Soviet Union, he playfully had it playfully signed by the whole politburo. Simultaneously, he was orchestrating the arrest and killing of millions.
Keep scotch eggs away from me. I’m fiercely opposed to them, in any form. Honestly, they should be criminalised: the most shameful part of British life.
My mother, April, died at 93, just before Covid. In a way, it’s a blessing that she avoided that isolation. She told me not to write my latest book (“too stressful!”), and to give the money back. Somehow, I finished – and it’s dedicated to her.
I’ve known the King for over 25 years, and was fortunate enough to be at his Coronation. He’s erudite, warm and funny; a well-read and charming man. He’s one of the most experienced public servants alive. We’re lucky to have him.
The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore (Orion Publishing Co, £14.99). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
