What were you reading when you were a teenager?
Mr Hempstead: I spent a lot of time on the cricket and football pitch as a teenager, but as I lived in the middle of nowhere I did manage to read quite a bit. The Lord of the Rings absorbed me for an entire Christmas holidays when I was about 15, and I read pretty much the complete works of Steinbeck from the ages of 14 to 17 as my parents had the full set on their bookshelf. I particularly like The Winter of our Discontent – it seemed to me to be a bit more nuanced than some of the others – and I enjoyed the more comedic works. The ne’er-do-wells of Cannery Row reminded me of a lot of men in my village!
