Vanessa Nicolson at Proms at St Jude's Music and Literary Festival 2015

Vanessa Nicolson will discuss with Piers Plowright her meditative memoir, which examines the threads of emotional deprivation, privilege, love and loss woven through her life.

With grandparents Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson, Vanessa Nicolson's family life was unlikely to be ordinary. In 'Have You Been Good?', her powerful memoir of growing up in the 1970s, she describes a disjointed childhood and a reckless youth. There was culture and privilege but also emotional deprivation. Written with raw honesty, alternating between the gentle and the absurd, 'Have You Been Good?' contrasts three generations and their approach to family, in a bittersweet tale of loss and redemption. Vanessa is an art historian and curator. Her publications include 'The Sculpture of Maurice Lambert' commissioned by the Henry Moore Foundation. 'Have You Been Good?' will be published in May 2015.