Each week Reaction Weekend brings you Favourite Things – interviews with interesting people about the skills, hobbies, pleasures and past times that make them who they are.
Mary Killen is a writer, journalist, and social etiquette expert. She has been the Spectator’s agony aunt for over two decades and a columnist for a range of national titles. More recently, she found fame beside her husband Giles Wood on the hit Channel 4 series Gogglebox. Her sixth book, What would HM The Queen Do? (Ebury Press, £9.99), is out now.
These are a few of her favourite things…
Being tucked up in bed surrounded by chatter
This must be an epigenetic taste derived from my mother. As one of eight children in a remote part of County Kildare, whatever sort of dormitory she slept in had two nannies in it, knitting and chatting to the background of a crackling real fire as the children slept.