'Like absolute fricking numpties, we borrowed an eye-watering sum of money, to live in a house that we couldn't afford' – Mel Giedroyc
In a way, it’s a wonder Mel Giedroyc — presenter, actor and writer — didn’t grow up hating books. “As a kid, I’d hear my elder brothers and sisters taking about ‘mum and Marcel Proust’, and I didn’t know who that was, and I thought mum had gone off with somebody called Marcel Proust. I think they were winding me up: ‘Mum really loves Proust.’” That wasn’t even the worst of it. “During those long summer holidays in the 1970s, my mum — I don’t think she even took her School Certificate (the rough equivalent of GCSEs today), but became a nurse and is the best-rea...