When she was nine years old, Diana Quick’s terminally ill grandfather told her “be sure you marry a pure-blooded Englishman”. She had no idea what he meant, and forgot the advice. Years later she got the part of Julia Flyte in Granada TV’s dramatisation of Brideshead Revisited and was acting with Sir Laurence Olivier who had been cast as the dying Lord Marchmain, when her early memories resurfaced. She started to research her family history, and discovered that the Quicks were far from “pure-blooded Englishmen.” She talks to Jenni about her early days at Oxford University, her life as a jobbing actor, and travelling east to learn about her father’s family in India.
A Tug on the Thread by Diana Quick is published by Virago ISBN - 13: 978-1860498442
