Jilly Cooper: ‘My books are my babies’

The novelist talks about her pride in her father, her mother – who taught her to read at four – and how writing novels saved her from loneliness after the death of her husbandMy father, Bill, was very, very shy, but he was divine. And very clever: he got a first in two years at Cambridge University and then became the youngest brigadier in the army, which made me burst with pride. He and I used to play Beethoven piano duets.After the war, he ran English Electric and then became