Fiona Hill

You passed your 11 plus in 1976. You came first in the class and you were offered a place at the local private school, but you just weren't able to take it up. Why not?

'cause my mum and dad just couldn't afford all the extras and they weren't included. I mean, it was actually, you know, generous scholarship. But, you know, sometimes it's that opportunity. You can't actually take the opportunity that comes along and that was also a failure in the uniform, yeah, 'cause it was a uniform that was … also very uniform. If you played sports, it was tennis rackets. There was also the bus fare because this wasn't the local comprehensive school.

You had an interview at Oxford. How did it go?

Terribly. I mean, first of all, my mum made me a dress for the [interview] which was a bit disastrous. It was kind of heraldic pattern and I looked like I'd been wearing crests. I looked like I was wearing wallpaper. … And there were some girls already waiting on the kind of the wooden bench outside of the Oxford Don's office that was going to do the interview. … The other two girls start wincing and then stickering at my accent. … And I step up and I fall over the other girl's leg into the door, smash my nose. My nose starts bleeding, and I open the door. [The Oxford Don] looked at me and said, 'Oh dear, have you had an accident?'

Despite your experience and being an authority on your subject, President Trump didn't know who you were. At one stage, he thought you were a secretary. How did that end up happening?

Well, that's right. Look, one of the jobs of the senior director for the National Security Council on whatever subject it is is to take notes in high level meetings with the President and the National Security Advisor. … And I was, you know, sitting there taking notes for a phone call with Putin and I was listening very carefully to what Putin was saying when I suddenly realized that in fact Trump was looking at me and wanting me to basically edit and rewrite the press statement from the meeting. … he says to me, 'Are you listening, darling?' … 'Hey, darling, I'm talking to you', kind of thing. And I thought, 'darling? Oh god, that can only be me.'

How do you look back at your time in the crucible of American politics? And did you learn anything that you didn't already know about yourself?

It wasn't a great experience in many sects, and I often had to just really pull myself together and say, 'Come on, Fiona, get on with it. What would your granddad say? Or what would your grandma say? Or, you know, what would they say back home in Bishop Auckland? Just, you know, get over yourself, get on with this. You know, just keep on going and remember who you are, where you're from, and what you're here to do.' That's what I've learned about myself, actually, in a way that I can do things. … I've realised that everybody can make something happen, especially if you work with others.