According to an interview in yesterday's Observer, Lynne Truss lacked confidence as a result of a fiercely close and competitive relationship with her sister:

"'My sister died three-and-a- half years ago and that was the biggest family event in my life.' Truss says that her sister's death has made her re-evaluate herself. She has also had to come to terms with the nature of that relationship. 'One of the awful, tragic things about her dying is that she would have hated this [success]. She would have been very unhappy about [the book] doing so well, because she always hated it when nice things happened.'"

'I used to feel intimidated.Not any more' by Robert McCrum, The Observer, Sunday, 13 June 2004.