Five Topics:

-Define your ‘hero’, who is yours?

To me, a hero is someone with no power in the world, who is living a life of unfairness, but who is brave. Who strikes back, defends and would die for his race or country to the point that it becomes utterly inspirational. Someone who never gives up, who will do anything for freedom or justice. A wonderful example for this type of man is William Wallace, hero of the Scots. He risked everything for his country and ended up quartered at the hands of Edward I of England, whom he was fighting against. Edward and every king before and after him had wanted to be king of the Scots. William Wallace never gave in, which resulted in his grim fate.

-What are you trying to get better at, this year?

I regret to say that I have always been ridiculously bad at sport, so bad it’s really embarrassing. I am not bad at sports where you’re on your own, like tennis, skiing, waterskiing or ping pong (in fact, my family plays so much ping pong and table football that I have a lot of practice and therefore am not bad). But for team sports like soccer or basketball, I am just too bad. To get better, all I can really do is to play it more, though I hate it because it’s so embarrassing.

-Something you would like to change in your life.

All my life, I have had one really big problem: moving around. This means that I must leave behind friends and what I’m used to. Just when I’m finally used to the new place, I am told that I’m being whisked away. Again. This misfortune is because of the fact that my dad is in the United Nations, meaning that he never stays in one place more than three or four years. I have lived in Palestine during the war, in Africa, in New York and in Belgrade. My dad even lived in Iraq for two years, two years ago, but luckily we weren’t allowed to go with him. The only solution I can think of is going to boarding school in England. This means that, even if I am still here at the end of this year, which is unlikely because of my dad’s job, the next September I will be at boarding school.

-A moment from your childhood

When I was about four, I was living in Dakar, Senegal. My school was in Dakar, but we lived on a tiny island just off the coast, called Goree. It was truly beautiful, with many beaches but no cars or anything. Everyone went around barefooted. Anyway, just outside our house was a bread stand and my parents, every morning, gave me a coin and sent me out in my nightdress to get the bread from the incredibly nice owner, who was great friends with me. In fact, even if there was a long line, he always called me over, smiling, and gave me the baguette he had saved for me, and sometimes even a little piece of bun or something. It may sound truly awful to send your four-year-old daughter out in her nightdress to get bread, but it really wasn’t because I was kind of great friends with everyone on the island, and they wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Anyway, I remember those days and they were the most beautiful of my life.

-Your biggest role model.

My grandmother, definitely. She was the very beautiful granddaughter, then daughter, then sister, then aunt of the Dukes of Buccleuch and she was so clever, so kind, so graceful. Her name was Lady Caroline Montagu Douglas Scott, though when she married it was Lady Caroline Little Gilmour. She always insisted that her name be pronounced as Carolyn, which I think is so independent. As a child, during World War II, she was living in Drumlanrig Castle, property of the Buccleuchs. She had five children, of which my father was the youngest. She was born on the       17^th November 1927 and died on the 17^th October 2004.