Last modified on Sat 24 Jul 2021 05.34 EDT When I was a young girl, a fabulous woman called Pam who lived opposite us would come to do my mumâs hair once a week. Pam was a retired hairdresser and beautician who had been taught partly by Vivien Leighâs mother. I knew this because I listened as she and my mother talked. My mum would sit under the stand hairdryer with wads of cotton wool curling out from under her hairnet to protect her ears from the heat, and Pam would talk and talk: about Margaret Thatcher (my mum wasnât a fan); their early lives (Pamâs in Yorkshire, my mumâs in Naples); and about life up and down the London street where we all lived.