Ninka had been diagnosed with leukaemia when she was 16 but for one final festive celebration, she was out of hospital and back home with us
We didn’t know until the very last minute whether my sister would be let out of hospital for Christmas.
It was 1991 and we were camping in a house in London that a friend had lent my parents, waiting to find out. Home, in theory, was Rome for my parents, Edinburgh for me – but in practice, a year and a bit into my sister’s leukaemia, home was wherever Ninka was being treated. There had been a brief, sunny period in the summer where she had been in remission. When the cancer came back, Mum just put her into the car and drove her from Italy to the Royal Free Hospital in London.
