President Kennedy was willing to go to war. He was not a coward. The man had been in war and so had Ken O'Donnell. He was ready to protect this nation but he was not ready for a military solution just because it was being rammed down his throat.
I didn't want to be the archetypal sponging brother-in-law so I didn't go into acting when I got to the States. I thought 'No I'll go to school and then I'll be an English teacher that'll be fun.' But I was horrible as a teacher. As hard as I tried I just couldn't inspire those kids to take an interest in Milton and Shakespeare and Donne.
I still read Donne particularly his love poems.
When I joined Custer I donned the uniform of a soldier. It was a bit awkward at first but I soon got to be perfectly at home in men's clothes.
In the 'Garnethill' trilogy people always forget that Maureen O'Donnell's dad was a journalist and she did art history at uni and her brother did law but no-one ever thinks they're middle-class - they're just working class because they speak with accents.
And obviously with hindsight now now knowing what went on in the company it would have been absolutely appropriate back then for us to have the chief executive of the company most senior person in the United Kingdom come and answer for the policy they were pursuing. And we ducked that and frankly that's a failure of Parliament.