Alan Bennett is one of Britain’s leading playwrights and screenwriters. He is the author of plays and films including Habeas Corpus, The Madness of George III and The History Boys, many celebrated and award winning television dramas and a series of monologues, Talking Heads. In 2005 he received the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Theatre and the following year The History Boys won six Tony Awards on Broadway including Best Play. His most recent play, The Habit of Art, which revolved around a fictional encounter between Benjamin Britten and W H Auden was broadcast to more than 200 cinemas worldwide from the Lyttelton Theatre at the Royal National Theatre in April 2010. In this extract from the inaugural World Book Night event in Trafalgar Square, he reads from his memoir about his parents, A Life Like Other People's.