Other books picked by Leith included Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and children’s book Snow Goose by Paul Gallico, which she recalled her father reading to her as she and her two brothers sat on his lap.
She said the latter book was a tear-jerker but a childhood favourite, which she recently shared with her husband, John Playfair.
“I’m quite tough. My mother used to call me hard-hearted honey because I don’t cry easily. But my husband cries at anything.”
She added her love for Austen first began when travelling home to South Africa, where she grew up with her family when she was about 11.
“My mother was a mad Jane Austen fan and we were travelling on one of those Union-Castle liners from Southampton to Capetown.
“When we got off the ship I noticed my mother had a beautiful collection of Jane Austen’s six novels.
“Leather-bound, beautiful. I wanted to read one so she gave me Pride and Prejudice. I opened it and saw it had the Union-Castle library stamp in it.
“I said ‘mum did you steal this book?’, and she said ‘yes I did, but if you look in the stamp, it’s now 1967 and it hasn’t been taken out of the library since 1930 when it was put in. I felt so sorry for them, so I rescued them’.
“I don’t think I had any perception [of romance]. I didn’t start lusting after boys until I was about 15, so I was a bit of a late starter.
“Mr Darcy was socially terrible, but of course so sexy you couldn’t resist him.”
Referring to cosy, period drama, she said she loved “all that stuff”.
“They are every good stories and they’re addictive. I always long to have a Downton Abbey in the background of my life so when I’m tired… I can just plonk myself in front of the telly… and forget myself in a wonderful world.
“Unfortunately, my husband is not as soppy as me.”