My family values

Iain Banks, Writer

I had a very happy childhood. It's probably the single thing I'm most grateful for. I felt loved and protected, which is the best start you can get in life, much more important than riches. I was an only child, which was great, purely from a selfish point of view.

It would have been nice to have had brothers and sisters, but both my parents were from a big family so I always felt part of a much larger extended family. Some of my best friends are my cousins and always have been - the Banks clan is a pretty nice bunch.

My father had a huge influence on me. We're very similar. When I was born and he turned up at the hospital, a nurse who hadn't seen him before said: "Ah, you must be Mr Banks." He was in the admiralty and apparently we walk the same way - we have a nautical gait. And, like him, I have the constitution of an ox. We had a party for his 90th birthday last year and his three surviving siblings came along. He asked me to put on the invitations that if anyone didn't turn up to his 90th, they wouldn't get invited to his 100th.

My mother was a professional skater. After the war she was in a travelling review, touring ice-rinks in different cities, and later she taught skating in Dunfermline, where she met my dad. It was after the second world war, and the skating rink was a place young men could go to see pretty girls in short skirts. I saw her skate a few times. It was different from what mums tended to do at the time. I think I inherited a good sense of balance from her.

My parents were very supportive when I said I wanted to be a novelist. My mum wanted me to have a fallback career: a teacher or doctor, something professional. My dad was of the opinion that as long as I was happy, that was the most important thing. My Uncle Bob is a published poet: Robert Banks. They stopped saying, "When will you get a proper job?" when I helped buy them a house. I imagine they view my continuing success with the feeling of slight bafflement I tend to experience myself.

My parents live next door. It's like repaying the debt of care. They used to live 10 minutes away and then the farmhouse next door came up for sale when they were in their early 80s. As we're across the courtyard, I can see them often and nip over in any emergencies.

I got grief from my uncles when The Wasp Factory was published. My middle name is Menzies but I took the "M" out of my name and was published as Iain Banks. I decided to put it back in for my science-fiction books. I found out years later that our original family name was Menzies. My paternal grandfather was a miner and during the 1926 General Strike he was a union rabble rouser wanted by the police. He changed his name from Banks Menzies to Menzies Banks. That was enough to shake the rozzers off his tail. So I really should be called Iain Banks Menzies.

• Matter by Iain M Banks is out now

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