Breast cancer shocked her into asking how she would cope. What resources of body and mind had she inherited from her parents? 'Self-Portrait with Parents' combines original research with a personal understanding of Tyerman’s upbringing and its consequences. Looking back at her adolescence and exploring the largely unknown lives of her parents has helped her not only to recover from recurrent breast cancer but also to resist the powerfully negative reactions still common today. Tyerman’s father, Donald, Oxford scholar from the impoverished north-east, wartime Fleet Street hero and BBC...