TALES FROM BELLA'S WORLD...
NEVER ON TIME
I don't remember when I started to be someone who was late for things but it became a signature, a horrible one, which I both dreaded as inevitable, and on some level relished. It is ironic...
FRAGILE BEAUTY
Here I am striking a pose in a room full of Nan Goldin prints at the Victoria and Albert museum. This room is part of an amazing selection of Sir Elton John and...
Bella's Birthday
My birthday falls on April 17th. Most years it coincides with the Easter holidays when I or everyone else is away. As a child in the 60's and 70's we didnt have parties...
Dash the Dog
My son flew 5.351 miles back from California on his US college Spring Break to meet his father James's new puppy called Dash. We had a family dog, a Border terrier named Joey...
Kim Gordon
I came late to Sonic Youth, after they split. I read Kim Gordon's memoir 'Girl in a Band' and was immediately interested in everything that interested her. I became fascinated by her look,...
Lucian Freud & His Rat
When I was a child I kept a pet rat. It wasn't much bigger than a mouse and mostly lived on my shoulder. I would go for walks with it nestling under my...
Camila Batmanghelidjh
I had tears in my eyes when I read an interview with Camila Batmanghelidjh. It moved me the way she spoke about the young people she worked with through her charity Kids Company, her...
101 YEARS OF LUCIAN FREUD
Last week I went to the archives of the National Portrait Gallery to look at some of the 47 sketch books our family donated after my father's death in 2011. Sarah, Tanya and Carys,...
Shane MacGowan
Few people have the ability to leave those they encounter with the feeling that they have been gifted a unique and treasurable exchange, never to be forgotten. Shane MacGowan had this power. Shane was no...
SIGH, CRY, ALMOST DIE
When I was a child in the late 1960’s my mother took us to live in Morocco for a couple of years. We didn’t have a lot of possessions but I was allowed...
Martin Amis
I remember what I was wearing when I first met Martin Amis. My then husband, the writer James Fox, was a great friend of Amis’ and of his new wife the writer Isabel...