MY HAVEN – DAISY GOODWIN

The creator of ITV’s hit series Victoria, 55, in the bedroom at her west London home

1 POOR MOTHER

My husband Marcus, our two daughters and I have lived here for 13 years, but the house burnt down last year when the sun, reflecting in a mirror, set a curtain alight. My mum, interior designer Jocasta Innes, had decorated this room beautifully but I decided to redesign it myself and it’s now my haven again. When I was five my mum left my dad and found herself penniless. She became an expert on cooking delicious food for nothing, and wrote these very successful Pauper’s Cookbooks.

2 MY BIGGEST FAN

My dad, Richard B Goodwin, is the greatest source of unconditional love in my life, apart from my dogs here, Coco, Peanut and Pepper. He’s 84 now and worked as a producer on some incredible films like Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile. I grew up with my dad and my stepmother and he’s my biggest fan, I send him all my manuscripts because I trust his judgement absolutely. This portrait of him is by his artist sister Sal Wilkinson – he gave it to me on my 50th birthday.

3 SKIRT OBSESSION

I love this flamenco skirt made by my Mum – who unbelievably studied flamenco dancing. She was always a sort of teenager at heart really. I was obsessed with this skirt and when I used to go and stay with her in my teens I’d secretly steal it for a week. I’d take it home and wear it all the time. It made me feel close to her. Then I’d take it back and hear she’d been wondering where her skirt was. I never let on. When I was clearing out her house after she died I found the skirt and brought it home.

4 WRITE STUFF

Marcus, who is foreign news director for ABC News, and I met at a ball at Cambridge University. I lured him back to my room by saying that I couldn’t get out of my elaborate dress unaided! We’ve been married 30 years and he’s learnt I can be quite difficult when I’m writing and it cheers me up to have something delicious-smelling on my desk. He buys me Cire Trudon candles – they’re the best – and this particular one, ‘Spiritus Sancti’, reminds me of being in an Italian church.

5 I LOVE LETTERS

This box full of old letters survived the fire, and I found a wonderful one my younger brother – the novelist Jason Goodwin – wrote to me when we were teenagers. It made me cry. We’d been through my parents’ divorce together, and spent years trundling from a place of clean sheets and regular bedtimes to my mum’s house where people passed out on sofas after too much parsnip wine. The fire made me realise you don’t need most stuff you have, but things like Jason’s letter do matter.

6 VICTORIA REIGNS

This is Queen Victoria’s signature, it says ‘Victoria RI Osborne’ for Osborne House, her holiday home on the Isle of Wight. It was given to me by my US editor Hope Dellon who urged me to write a book about Victoria after I studied her diaries at Cambridge. As I wrote I realised it would make a great screenplay too – that’s Jenna Coleman as Victoria in the show. After we’d finished filming the series the crew sent me this clapperboard as a memento, and I’m now writing series two.

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