I have so few memories of going to the Maryknoll Sisters' primary and secondary school in Happy Valley. Things really started for me when I got into the Vienna Academy to study piano. I'd decided quite young that I really wanted to be a pianist.
My parents were very easy about it. So long as you didn't do too badly, they didn't mind what you did. They just didn't want to pressure us. You felt you could do whatever you imagined doing. I said I wanted to study music, and they said 'OK', and then I said I wanted to move to Vienna to do it, and they said 'OK' to that too.
They both loved music, and we went to a lot of concerts from when I was very young. I still remember my father would listen to operatic music every night before we'd fall asleep.
Before Vienna, I had just done a couple of hours' tuition some nights during the week with a tutor and an hour or two practice at night which I considered quite good - I never realised there was another way to study an instrument. Vienna was a big shock.
I had a very hard start there, and I hadn't anticipated that. Culturally, of course, it was so different, but the language was also a big problem. I didn't know how to get back to where I lived or how to catch a bus anywhere. Daily life at the music school was so completely academic too.
The main thing, though, was you focused totally on the music, and that's where I really learned how devoted I needed to be. There was a sense of: 'Oh, this is how you do it!' In Vienna, I got up, went into a room on my own, stayed there until lunch, and then went back in. I must have done about eight hours playing every day.
I used to pass doors with other pupils playing so well and I'd say to myself: 'Oh, I am so far away from that.' So I'd go back determined to work even harder.