Obit quotes of the day

From the Telegraph obituary for Claire Rayner, "the journalist, broadcaster and novelist who died on October 11 aged 79, was one of Britain’s best-known agony aunts, a matronly figure prone to addressing everyone as “lovey”," about her novel Maddie:

Rayner claimed that she had based the novel on Medea, but added: it’s also about mental hospitals”.

I'm putting it on my "to read" list, assuming I can find it.

Other prime quotes:

She described her father, a tailor’s cutter, as “a fantasist”, and her mother as “exceptionally pretty, which is always dangerous. Thank God I didn’t take after her.”

And last, but certainly not least:

After retiring as a columnist, Claire Rayner devoted herself to, as she put it, “biting the arses of those in power”, in particular lambasting government for its failure to ensure proper care for the elderly. Among her most recent targets were the Pope (“His views are so disgusting, so repellent and so hugely damaging to the rest of us, that the only thing to do is to get rid of him.”) and the Prime Minister (“Tell David Cameron that if he screws up my beloved NHS I’ll come back and bloody haunt him.”)

Gotta love those outspoken East Enders.