My parents tried for years for a baby, so Claire was considered a bit of a miracle. They adopted Gemma when Claire was five, and then I came along almost at the same time. By then, Claire had established her pitch. She was so bossy, Gemma and I once ran away in protest. We packed two pairs of knickers each and an orange and got as far as the garden shed. Claire decided everything we did — what we played, when we tidied up our rooms. There was no democracy.
She held very strong views and there were massive rows, mainly about her becoming a communist. She’d come home from university and lecture my mum and dad. We were a devout Catholic family who knelt down to pray every night, and two out of the six prayers we were made to say began: “Please, God, deliver the world from communism.” I still say a Hail Mary each time I get in the car, and I bet Claire does too. Communist or not, nobody in the Fox family ever left the Catholic Church.
Sadly, my dad never thought: “This is classic 19-year-old behaviour.” He took it hugely personally. He’d say: “Well, who pays for you to sit there becoming a smartarse?” Claire always wanted to pursue the issue, and he wanted to stop. When we lost our dad nine years ago, it hit Claire harder than any of us.
I gave up arguing with Claire a long time ago. These days we rarely get together, and that helps. When I moved to London about 20 years ago, I spent a year of complete misery trying to meet up with her. Invariably she’d be an hour late, or she’d be on the phone to her comrades all night. I’d really looked forward to being part of her life, and it didn’t happen. We e-mail and talk on the phone, and Christmas is very important to us. We have a five-hour journey back to Wales, during which time I say: “How’s your life?” and “Are you in love?” I’ll ring her at a time when I know she’s not in and leave a message saying: “I agreed with you on this and this and I disagreed with this...” And I’ll put the phone down.
When I first came to London I hung around with her Communist-party friends; I remember thinking the Socialist Workers party were better-looking, but how much it would hurt her if I joined a separate left-wing group. Claire loathed sectarianism, and it would have made it hard to stay good friends.
I get furious with her sometimes. I believe in an evidence-based approach to science, but Claire is more driven by her political passions. I heard her on [Radio 4’s] The Moral Maze saying the “bloody scientists” are exaggerating the risk of bird flu, and that made me very cross. I phoned her from Center Parcs, and within two minutes we’d both slammed the phone down. Then, because we don’t want to stay on bad terms, we e-mailed. I sent her the research, and she came back with her political point. She takes the same stance on climate change: she knows the evidence is there; her point is that the human race is far more resilient than people think.
She doesn’t have loads of girl friends because she doesn’t invest the time in them — it’s a thankless task arranging to go out with Claire — but the people who work for her love her. She’s incredibly good and kind-hearted. When I’ve really needed help, she’s been there. She’s the happiest person I know — and one of the healthiest, in spite of the fact that breakfast, as far as I know, is a coffee and three fags. She’s got a lovely little flat, but it’s chaotic. I shouldn’t think she’s got food in there. She goes out every night, smoking and drinking, then she’s up till 2 or 3am cutting articles from newspapers. She barely sleeps and has no idea what a healthy diet is. We lost a friend to breast cancer recently, and it made me think: “What the hell have I done with my life?” But Claire said, and I believed her: “If I died tomorrow, I feel I’ve done everything I wanted to do.”
CLAIRE: Ours was a very lively, volatile house, and I saw my role as protecting Gemma and Fiona from any tension. But as I got older and more obnoxiously self-righteous, I became the source of the tension. Having discovered all the injustices in the world, I thought I was the only person who had any insight into them, and I clashed horribly with my father, who understandably felt he had far more of a handle on the plight of the working classes than I did.
My father bought a yellow Jag, which I felt was both ostentatious and bad for my credibility. He said: “But this is what I’ve worked for all my life.” Fiona would try to stop me going too far, and also prevent my father getting too irritated. She was the baby of the family and was able to smooth things over. My father and I had such a difficult relationship, we both knew too much had happened to make it okay before he died.
Fiona and I have a pretty open and frank relationship. It annoys me when people say she’s been influenced by me, because it’s insulting to her. I try to influence everyone I meet, but she has argued back furiously. In many ways her work has affected me. If someone you respect has an opinion, you listen to them. One of the things I admire most about Fiona is that she’s passionately committed to her job, but it’s not about raising her personal profile. She’s very competitive, yet not driven by ego. A lot of science stories in the paper will have come through her, yet her name and organisation is never mentioned.
I don’t think we’ve had any really big fall-outs. She’ll often say: “You went too far.” She thinks I’m so over the top, people won’t take me seriously. Obviously I think I’m being principled and true to my beliefs, while she thinks I sound mad. She’s interested in science; I’m interested in the way science is interpreted in the political and public sphere. In today’s very anodyne climate, if you say something uncompromising you are seen as an extremist.
Fiona suffers from cystic fibrosis, which she never talks about. For a while it was a big shadow on all our lives, but she copes. She didn’t know if she would be a good mother; in fact, she’s an absolute natural. I was there for Declan’s birth. We had a thoroughly enjoyable labour, once she’d been put out of her agony by an epidural. I don’t think she’d want me to rear her child — she’d worry I’d leave him on the bus or something — but she knows I love him.
My parents came to this country because they wanted a new life for their children. They’d visit me in Coventry, where I was working with the homeless, and all these Irish tramps would be going: “All right, Foxy?” My father couldn’t believe I’d gone to university to end up wearing a charity-shop raincoat, with tramps for friends. Compared to me, Fiona was a success from the moment she left university. She went from one well-paid job to another, while I was a source of concern.
Her role was to point out to our parents that I was an idealist and I was happy with my choices, even if I wasn’t earning any money. For a long time she’d turn up with a bag of her clothes whenever we met. She still looks after me and makes sure I’m all right. She’s the one person I’d tell everything to, which is funny, because she’s my kid sister. She’s also the one person I’m scared of. I’m notoriously scatty. If I lose my purse I’m terrified she’ll find out, because she’ll go: “Claire, not again!”
It’s interesting that we’ve ended up in the public arena. Neither of my parents saw themselves as outspoken. They cared too much what people thought. Confidence to speak out was the gift they gave us, but not one they shared.
