Haven IMOGEN STUBBS

The actress, 57, at home on her houseboat on the River Thames in west London

1 BORN TO BARGE

I grew up on the wooden sailing barge pictured here, called Cetus, meaning ‘whale’. She only cost £600 because there were rats in the bilges, silverfish in the bath and the loo was a dustbin bag. We had a magical upbringing moored beside an island on the Thames in west London, but one day when I was about 12 we were watching Robinson Crusoe on TV and the boat began to sink. Then in 2011 I found myself back where I began, living on the river in this houseboat.

2 THE ARTIST NEXT DOOR

When I was growing up there was a girl called Tessanna Hoare who lived in the house opposite our barge. She wore bright Inca sweaters and Levi’s and her parents were artists. She and her family became role models for how I wanted to be – so bohemian. My brother Rupert and I both bought paintings from the family – he gave up his pocket money for a year to buy one of her mother’s paintings.

I now own several of Tessanna’s pictures, including this landscape.

3 DEFYING THE ODDS

I have two beautiful children. Jesse, 22, was severely dyslexic but confounded everyone by learning to fly, which was always his passion. He had the nightmare of being branded at school by poor exam results, and to see people like that being made to feel like criminals because their way of learning is different infuriates me. Just look at him now – he works for a helicopter company and flies both planes and helicopters.

4 MY DRAMATIC DAUGHTER

I’m so proud of my daughter Ellie too.

She’s 26 and a brilliant actress, but she was only four in this photo. It was drama from the word go when she was born because, as I was in labour in the maternity ward, her father, my ex-husband Sir Trevor Nunn, got stuck in the loo. Trevor and I weren’t sure about her entering the same profession as us – he’s a theatre director – but she’s incredible. She’s funny, sings very movingly and has done one-woman shows – wild horses wouldn’t drag me to do something like that!

5 COOKING WITH MOTHER

I don’t own many precious ‘things’ any more. I had everything stolen about nine years ago in a break-in, and living on a boat as a child means we often lost things or they got ruined by water. The one thing I do have is this book in which my mother, when she was very ill with cancer, set down the recipes we loved, like chicken and groundnut stew – she was a fabulous cook. She wrote funny advice next to them too, things like, ‘Be brave enough to make a fool of yourself.’ I was 25 when she died and my father had died a few years earlier. I’ve been an orphan a long time, but it still makes me weep when I cook her recipes.

6 A DOG’S LIFE

Molly, who’s a cockapoo, is actually my daughter Ellie’s dog but she lives mainly with me. She’s definitely a ladies’ dog and I just love having her around. She was the runt of the litter and is slightly blind, so she does tend to knock into things. She’s a bit nervy too, but she’s so sweet. I’m honestly left feeling bereft if Ellie takes her for a few days.