Max Hastings, 75, in the drawing room of his Berkshire home 

1. LITTLE BOY’S BLUE 

This is a picture of me at a party in Kensington, aged three. The nanny I adored is sitting behind me and I think the reason I was sobbing was probably jealousy that she had another child on her lap.

 My parents were both writers and journalists, as were three of my grandparents, so I didn’t have much choice. My father used to try to motivate me when I was a bored teenager by talking about ‘the challenge of a blank sheet of paper’. 

I didn’t understand him, but I jolly well do now.

2. IDEAS ARE BREWING 

I have a passion for the past, and our house is full of things that make my imagination soar each time I look at them. This miniature tea service was made at Sèvres, outside Paris, in 1780, while Marie Antoinette was still Queen of France. 

We even know the name of the woman who painted the cornflowers on it – Félicité Armand. I must have spent a thousand hours dreaming about who might have owned it, and whether they ended up on the guillotine.

3. THE WRITE STUFF 

I had this model of a Second World War destroyer beside my desk as an inspiration while I wrote my new book on one of the biggest sea battles ever fought by the Royal Navy and Merchant Navy, in the Mediterranean in August 1942. 

Operation Pedestal is one of the most thrilling tales I have ever told. People ask me why I write so much – my wife Penny teases me that I don’t know how to do anything else.

But I would much sooner be tapping at a keyboard than be on a golf course or a beach, or going to parties. 

4. PRESSED INTO SERVICE 

This was my American press card, when I was working for BBC TV in Vietnam in 1970. That war made a deep impression on me, because of the ghastly civilian suffering. 

I enjoyed many of the adventures of those days, but gosh I am so grateful to live quietly at home now. I’ve discovered that the greatest privilege in the world is not to be rich or grand, it is to know how to be happy. Writing does it for me.

5. OUR BEST FRIENDS 

Our spaniel Scrabble and Labrador Ludo are almost as important in our lives as my wife Penny’s 42-year-old pony Splash, who is a bit big to get in the picture. I walk them in the morning, she does it in the afternoon. 

We overdid Ludo’s orange juice when he was little, or so we say, because he has grown enormous. 

The only serious argument in our house, where we’ve lived for 25 years, is that Penny would love to allow them upstairs. But I say that Ludo would break the bed.

6. COURAGE UNDER FIRE 

This is the Military Cross that one of my grandfathers won in France in 1917. I don’t do regrets, because most of my life has been so lucky, but I’m desperately jealous of him for getting an MC because I’ve always known I’m not brave enough to do anything worthy of one. 

Yet perhaps because I have written so much about wars, I overdo respect for physical courage. I’ve learned that moral courage is even more important, and that women more often have it than men.

Max’s new book Operation Pedestal: The Fleet That Battled To Malta 1942 is out now (William Collins, £25)