Tom Crewe: What scares me most in life is probably the Tory party and death, in that order

My earliest memory is of my brother being born — I was given a red bus so I didn’t feel jealous

Tom Crewe. Photo: Jon Tonks, London Review of Books

I grew up in the northeast of England. My mum’s from a big Catholic family; she had five siblings, so we had a lot of big boozy family parties. We were always in each other’s pockets.

My mum and dad were readers but they weren’t massively bookish. My brother also ended up writing a novel so I don’t know what that means. We can’t quite work out where it comes from.