Josephine Cox

Josephine Cox0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Josephine Cox0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

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My Castaway this week is a novelist. At the age of forty-two, with her husband's business in ruins and her health and their whole way of life under threat, she wrote her first book. The rest is best-selling history. Since then she's written another thirty-three novels and sold fifteen million copies worldwide. Her work is second only to Harry Potter as the most popular in Britain's lending libraries.

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Her stories are romantic, often set against a backdrop of poverty and hardship in the north of England. It's a world she knows well. She was brought up in desperate circumstances, in Blackburn, where every waking moment, it seems, was a battle for survival.

Presenter1:08

As a child, she charged her school friends a penny to listen to her stories. These days, she's paid rather more than that. When I write a book, she says, I live and breathe it. I'll never stop. She is Josephine Cox. And the books just pour out of you, Jo, do they? You can't stop. No, I can't. It it is like living and breathing. It's it's part of my nature. It's the stories are there. From when I was four years of age, I would sit on the steps down Derwent Street and I'd watch the whole world unfold around me. People making loving doorways, children fighting, dogs weeing against the gutter, everything. It all happened down Derwent Street. And all the stories of all the characters that lived down that street, they all come out in the books. And you've written thirty-four so far. I mean, have you got more planned? Are they all there, just waiting? No such thing as writer's block. No, touch wood, no, they are all waiting and

Josephine Cox1:54

And you've written

Josephine Cox1:55

I mean, have you got more

Josephine Cox1:59

I'm saying is writers block.

Presenter2:04

You know, I'd have to live two lifetimes, or maybe three, to write them all. And are they all in your head? Have you got notes? Have they got titles?

Josephine Cox2:08

And they'll be

Presenter2:11

They're all in my heart and they're all with titles. All the characters are there. The characters actually trigger the story off because I'll just have to think about Mrs. Brown who lived next door or Snelly Kelly who lived down the bottom of the street. And the story's there. But their their lives, it would seem from reading your books, you know, are so.

Presenter2:34

Dramatic, melodramatic. Yes. I mean, it's the stuff of opera almost, isn't it? It's amazing, Sue, because now, if you live down a street like that, you're lucky if they say good day to you.

Josephine Cox2:36

Yeah, I mean it's the stuff.

Josephine Cox2:39

It's

Presenter2:45

But then the children from next door would be coming running in and your mum would be feeding them and looking after them and everybody looked after everybody else. And you all shared the lavatory down in the back of the yard. We certainly did. So I mean, some of the titles Live the Dream, Angels Cry Sometimes, Alley Urchin. I mean, they speak for themselves really, as I say stories.

Josephine Cox3:05

Really?

Presenter3:07

Set in slums, really. I mean, we're talking of slum living, aren't we? Do you ever ask yourself why people want to read about this? Because it is Yes. I write about

Presenter3:17

people, their emotions and the world over, it doesn't matter what culture you are, what color you are, we all laugh, we all cry, we all grieve and we all, you know, sort of take joy out of everyday life. That's why people across the world love the stories.

Presenter3:34

I think.

Presenter3:36

Tell me about your first record. We're putting you on a desert island, as you know. What are you going to need musically to sustain you? Musically, well, one of the most favourite songs of mine is ABBA, singing I Have a Dream. Wonderful, wonderful group. And I wish they'd come back. I do wish they'd come back. And this particular song has got deeper meaning, I feel. But, you know, I believe in angels, and when the time is right for me, I'll cross the stream. It's not a song you can listen to and just skim the surface. There's something deeper and it's beautiful.

Speaker 44:08

I had the key.

Speaker 44:13

A fantasy.

Speaker 44:18

Help me.

Speaker 44:23

Ammit.

Speaker 44:27

And my destination

Speaker 44:32

Makes it worth the while

Presenter4:35

Abba and I have a dream. Um as we say, Joe Cox, it's a very matriarchal society you write about. The women suffer at the hands of men in all kinds of ways, neglect and bullying and rape and violence and

Josephine Cox4:45

Bullying

Presenter4:48

But there are always these women, and there's always one woman in particular who's very kindly and caring. And am I right in thinking she's always, in each book, based on your mother? She is, absolutely Sue. And it isn't always a woman. It can be an old man, it can be a little boy, a young woman. It's the essence of the character. What defines that then? It's strength of character. Strength of character, always able to see the good in everything, to smile, you know, when everything's against them.

Josephine Cox5:11

Uh

Presenter5:18

Full of joy, a heart full of joy, and it doesn't matter what you throw at them, they'll deal with it. There's one woman, isn't it, early on in Angels Cry sometimes, Marcia Bendle. Now that she was your mother, wasn't she? She was. Marcia Bendle was Mary Brindle.

Josephine Cox5:23

Yeah.

Josephine Cox5:31

She walked.

Presenter5:35

My mum. And uh

Presenter5:37

Yes, it th that story, Angels Cry Sometimes, it takes on board a great deal of my mum's life. When she was eighteen she was uh married to a man who um

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I won't say too much about him, but he made her life a misery.

Presenter5:53

She was in love with this man, he married her, they had two little boys, and then about four years down the line, the police came knocking at the door one day and they arrested him for bigamously marrying her, and he was jailed for seven years. But it left Mum with two illegitimate children on her own at a time when that was a very, very bad thing.

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And so then she met Dad at Barney.

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And um he was uh a happy go lucky chap. He was uh you know up for a laugh and uh charming as ever. And he loved her, or he said he loved her. He loved her very much, actually, and um and she grew to love him. And they had lots and lots of children, and I'm obviously one of them. Um

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But along the way somewhere they started to bring out the worst in each other.

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He was a hard working man. He worked very hard for the corporation.

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But then on Friday all the men would go off and have a pint and some of them would get, you know, a bit lippy or a bit nasty. So he was no different than any of the other men. But I loved him enormously. But he would come home, if it's true in the book, and you know, push her around. The book has exaggerated what happened, really.

Speaker 46:58

But he

Josephine Cox6:58

Would come

Josephine Cox7:02

Push her around quite badly.

Presenter7:09

But he did come home on Fridays and there were arguments and they were bad and it did upset the children. And were there times when you went to the police station to fetch the police because of you? I did, I did. And I was uh no no bigger than a whippet and I'd be off and I could hardly see over the counter at the constabulary, but

Speaker 47:19

I did

Josephine Cox7:19

Yeah.

Presenter7:27

And he'd say, Oh, as he started again, lass, and he'd take me home and tell my dad off, and everything would be fine. But, you know, it just um it just was every Friday, that's it. How many of you were there then, uh, children, ultimately? All together, seven boys, three girls. But there were two others who died, yes. Your mother lost in infancy. My mum had twelve altogether, and two died in infancy. Yes. But she um she just battled through. She was an amazing person. But you, as I understand it, were always, you know, a little adult, really. You were kind of self-appointed surrogate mum. I was, especially

Josephine Cox7:53

But

Josephine Cox7:58

Yeah.

Presenter8:01

Every time mum had a baby we were all shipped off to the authorities' home, which was awful.

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And the first time he went they separated us, because boys weren't allowed to be in the same house as girls. And and that that was pretty awful when so the next time they took us, after they'd separate, I kicked up such a terrible fuss. They actually made an area in the girls' house so that my brothers could come and I could look after them.

Presenter8:27

Tell me about your second record.

Presenter8:29

Well, the second record is is very much a a a love song. I'm an I'm a sentimentalist me, you know. I sort of I like to think that people fall in love and get married and live happily ever after. And I know it doesn't always happen, but this song is so beautiful, you know. Um it needs to have

Presenter8:47

A boy and a girl sitting listening to it with arms round each other and uh the words are very prophetic, it's lovely.

Speaker 48:54

You fill up my senses Like night in a forest

Speaker 49:03

Like the mountains in springtime Like a walk in the rain Like a storm in the desert Like a sleepy blue ocean

Speaker 49:23

Uh

Presenter9:23

John Denver and Annie Song.

Speaker 49:23

John Denver and

Josephine Cox9:24

Yeah.

Presenter9:26

It was, as we say, a slum where you were brought up, um, Joe Cox. What did I mean, poverty what did poverty mean for you? It means different things to different people. What was it like? Well, it meant uh

Presenter9:37

Bare f floorboards. It meant um a stand chair either side of the bed with a candle on it. It meant uh curtains that, you know, we'd got at the rag and bone shop. And you didn't expect anything better because you didn't know any any better. Just how it was for so many people in the street. Exactly. But you s you mentioned a bed. I mean presumably it was a bed that you shared.

Josephine Cox9:51

You better.

Josephine Cox9:53

People in the street. Exactly.

Presenter9:57

Oh, six in a bed we had initially. We had three top, three bottom, and uh

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It was the way it was.

Speaker 410:04

Yeah.

Presenter10:05

Well, we had we had a couple of blankets and we had my dad's khaki overcoat thrown over the top of us. But um

Presenter10:13

You just didn't realize that you were very poor until you went to school, because we had girls coming from the better areas. And um What did they think of you then?

Presenter10:23

Well, they used to call me Spindly Brindly, and they used to tease me because I was very, very thin, and I had these these big blue eyes and white hair, and you know, they used to take the mickey out of me a lot.

Presenter10:35

But when I remember the first day I started at a new school, and you had to have, you know, the blue Gabardine Macs with the hood and the belt, you know. Well, we hadn't got one and we hadn't got the money to get me one.

Presenter10:46

So mum took me down to the ragabone shop.

Presenter10:49

and there was a Mac there that fitted me as though it was made for me, and I went to school on the Monday morning very proud with my Mac on.

Presenter10:57

And suddenly the girls behind me started tittering and laughing, and they were laughing all the way into the cloakroom, and I thought, What are they laughing? Are they laughing at me? And I was ready to fight, you know. I mean, I'd give anybody a thump if they laughed at me.

Presenter11:09

But I knew then wh why they were laughing, because I took the Mac off and hung it up, and hanging out the back was one of their names on the tab. So they'd obviously given it to the Ragabone Man, and they knew where I'd got it from. So I didn't lift that down, and on the way home I threw it down the ditch. What, the whole Mac? Oh, yes I was never going to wear that Mac again.

Josephine Cox11:19

New break.

Presenter11:28

I've got a good hiding, mind you, for this.

Josephine Cox11:30

For this

Presenter11:31

Never mind about that. So they were pretty merciless. I mean, children are, it's the way it is. So you were made to feel very inferior.

Josephine Cox11:32

See the

Josephine Cox11:34

Children are. It's the way it is.

Presenter11:39

I think that some people can't appreciate

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The word poverty. What does that mean? You know, you you only have one meal instead of three.

Presenter11:46

Uh it means you don't have a meal at all, you know. It means that you go down on Saturday afternoon to the market uh when they're closing up and you get the food off the floor. That's what poverty is. Do you have any plates to eat it off? We had plates'cause my grandma gave us plates. My grandma was lovely and she would always give us things, you know. It was th she was just wonderful. But you didn't have cups to drink out of, did you? We didn't have cups. Um we were left with one cup.

Josephine Cox12:06

But you

Josephine Cox12:07

If we didn't

Presenter12:12

And that was my dad's cup, and woe betide anyone who touched that cup. We had, you know, jam jars, bottles, anything.

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It was pretty bad. Am I right in thinking that you now own twelve bone china dinner services? I do. I've told you that.

Presenter12:29

I do, and they're in the loft. And do you know what? I don't know why I keep buying these dinner services, but somewhere in the back of my mind I'm frightened that I'm never going to have a cup to drink out of, so I keep buying these dinner services.

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Number three.

Presenter12:44

Number three, well now come on, John Lennon, you know, he came out with this Imagine.

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And I think it's the most beautiful song ever written.

Speaker 412:54

Imagine there's no heaven.

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Matt and

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See if you try.

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Oh hell

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Below us

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Above us only sky

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Imagine all the people

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John Lennon and Imagine. Um as in so many stories, Jo, there's a good teacher at the heart of yours, isn't there? Um she who spotted your talent and encouraged you. Tell me about her. She's Miss Jackson, yes. Miss Jackson, very formidable. You know, you could be sitting at the back of the classroom and uh

Speaker 413:34

Uh

Presenter13:39

She'd be at the board with one of these wooden rubbers and she'd throw it without looking at it and smack you between the eyes. She was amazing, but she was the most wonderful teacher because um

Presenter13:49

She encouraged and she created, you know, such zest for learning in us. There's a character in, I think, the first two of your books, Snake Tongue Jack. Well, the kids all called her Snake Tongue, you say, because she had this vicious tongue. What'd she look like?

Speaker 413:59

I think that well the

Presenter14:04

Very small. I think they're the worst, aren't they? Very small. White hair.

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Uh I thought when I first started writing that she must be dead, you know, like thirty years on.

Presenter14:15

And I was doing a signing session in Blackburn, and I'd got my head down signing someone's book, and I heard this voice, Hello, Josephine. I thought, oh my God, it's her. And I looked up, and she was looking, oh, she hadn't changed a bit, but she was lively, she was angry, she was going to sue me for every penny. Oh, my God, she'd read the book.

Josephine Cox14:24

Snake Don Jackson

Presenter14:37

So I had to take her away and buy her a piece of cake and a cup of tea, and she was fine. But she prophesied, didn't she, that you She did, yes. We there was a competition, the whole school entered this competition.

Josephine Cox14:43

She

Presenter14:47

And I wrote a story about my grandad Harrison and his dog, and I won the prize. And the same girls that that were laughing at me because of the Mac,

Presenter14:57

When I went up to get my prize, they'd obviously entered for the competition, and the feeling I got when I walked past them to collect my prize was just well, it was priceless. I can imagine. And then you were charging them a penny. Was this at the same time to tell them stories, or was that earlier? No, this was this was right from the age of about seven. You know, all the kids would gather on a Friday afternoon after school and they'd bring pennies because my mum needed those pennies and I would tell them stories about my granddad. Oh, granddad? Mainly about my granddad Harrison and his dog. He had a little terrier dog.

Josephine Cox15:24

It's about my granddad.

Josephine Cox15:25

Maybe.

Presenter15:30

And I'd send them off on all sorts of adventures, you know. But going back to Mrs. Jackson Miss Jackson, Miss she was she never married. No man would take her on, I think.

Josephine Cox15:36

Miss Doris she never married.

Presenter15:40

But she, I as I understand it, you know, encouraged you in the first book well, inspired you in the first place by reading Dickens to you. Yes, she did. She read Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist.

Josephine Cox15:45

Yes, but

Josephine Cox15:47

Yes, she did.

Presenter15:52

And

Presenter15:53

When she was reading this I mean, I played truant a lot, I'm ashamed to say, but whenever the story was due I was there in the front row, and it mesmerized me. And it was then, I think, that

Presenter16:04

The yearning for me to write was born in me. I think she triggered it off.

Presenter16:09

But I think the actual magic.

Presenter16:12

was actually instilled in me by my granddad, because he'd sit me on his knee and he'd tell me all these wonderful stories and

Presenter16:19

I think it was just a combination of Miss Jackson and my grandad that brought out something that was dormant in me. And Dickens always. Making you realize no, but making you realise that actually you could write about misery, of course.

Josephine Cox16:26

Making you realize

Josephine Cox16:30

Cool.

Presenter16:32

And I think also if you're brought up in very difficult circumstances, something in you drives you on. You want to get out of it and above it.

Presenter16:41

Next piece of music.

Presenter16:43

The next piece of music is Carpenter's and Top of the World. And this is the one I sing when I'm doing karaoke, which I often do. I think it's just great. I think it's uplifting. It it makes you smile. It makes your feet tap. It's just it's and she's wonderful, obviously.

Speaker 416:59

Everything I want the world to be

Speaker 417:04

Is now coming true especially for me

Speaker 417:09

And the reason is clear, it's because you are here. You're the nearest thing to heaven that I've seen. I'm on

Speaker 417:21

Time for the world looking

Speaker 417:23

Down on creation and the only explanation I can find

Presenter17:29

Carpenters and top of the world, well, Karen Carpenter, really, up front there, wasn't she? So you couldn't stay on at school. Miss Jackson wanted to you too, you wanted to, but it wasn't going to happen. You had to get out there. And I mean, the next minute, age fourteen, you were in a factory sticking labels on vinegar bottles. I was, I was. And that was an experience, I'll tell you.

Josephine Cox17:44

I was

Presenter17:49

We were in a warehouse by a canal and uh

Presenter17:52

Six women were sitting, you know, in this carousel.

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And um I I was only fourteen and these women were middle aged and what I learned about life I oh, well, I can't tell you.

Presenter18:03

Yeah.

Presenter18:04

And I was taking it all in and when I got home I was scribbling things down. So you were writing all the time? All the time, yes, yeah. Then the family split up. You went down south with your mother and most of the children, I think some of them stayed behind. Some of the boys stayed behind with your dad, isn't it? Yes, they did. Some of the boys stayed behind with my dad, who did an an absolutely marvellous job of raising them. But very traumatic for me. It was traumatic. For someone who felt so strongly about family for all the reasons we've heard.

Josephine Cox18:19

Yeah.

Josephine Cox18:25

It was traumatic.

Josephine Cox18:29

I'm not sure.

Presenter18:31

It was the most traumatic thing uh in my childhood, I think, you know, and more so than the poverty or anything, to be to be split up. My mother drew us all together on on the the wreck where they used to park the buses at night.

Presenter18:43

And she said, I'm leaving, I'm going to Auntie Biddy's in Dunstable. I want you all to come with me.

Presenter18:49

And we couldn't believe we we had a feeling that it would happen, but we couldn't believe that she was actually leaving.

Presenter18:57

Blackburn and leaving our dad and all of that. So she was taking you to her sister though. She was taking us to and that was going to be temporary and God knows what was going to happen after that. Your life I mean it really is the stuff of romantic fiction. I mean by the by fifteen then down South Dunstable and around you in a factory making plastic Macs, by sixteen you're married and you're going to tell me it was love at first sight, you know? I I was about sixteen as of course it was love at first sight. I was uh over the working man's club and I was I was messing around with a few a few girls of us were just messing around.

Presenter19:36

And I looked up. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and I just looked up the street, and I saw this tall, slim, blond haired boy walking across, and I couldn't take my eyes off him. And then he suddenly turned and looked at me, and that was it.

Presenter19:51

That was it. You know, I was I was in love. And that's how it happened. And it was amazing. I mean, before anybody shakes their head and says, well, that was always doomed for disaster, you were married for the next forty-four years. Yes, yes. She died a few years ago.

Josephine Cox19:56

And it was amazing.

Josephine Cox20:02

Yes, it is.

Presenter20:06

No, of course not. That was Ken Cox. That's Ken Cox. Yes, he's absolutely wonderful, special.

Josephine Cox20:07

Of course not. But that he he

Josephine Cox20:09

Yeah.

Josephine Cox20:13

Mention

Presenter20:14

He took us all under his wing. He was nineteen.

Presenter20:17

When it happened, if I was fourteen,

Presenter20:21

and we actually got lodgings with his with his parents. And I'd follow him everywhere, and he'd say, Clear off, he's snotty nose kid, clear off, you know. But um I really did fall in love with him on that first instant.

Presenter20:35

And after a while I wore him down and bit by bit, you know, over the next two years it w he fell in love with me. Well, I'm h I hope that he fell in love with me th th when he turned round and looked at me that day, I don't know. But um

Presenter20:49

He he was just is just very, very special.

Presenter20:53

Equip number five.

Presenter20:55

Um where are we now? Better Middler Wind Beneath My Wings, which is.

Presenter21:01

From me to K?

Speaker 421:06

Begone my hero

Speaker 421:11

You're everything I wish I could be.

Speaker 421:20

I put my heart on an eagle.

Presenter21:28

Yeah. Bette Middler and Wind Beneath My Wings. Essentially, it seems to me you led your life backwards, Joe. You got married at sixteen, you had your children in your twenties and then you did your O-levels. I did, yes, because like I said before, Sue, I played truant a lot when I was at school.

Speaker 421:38

Get it.

Josephine Cox21:38

Uh

Josephine Cox21:42

Yeah.

Presenter21:48

I was allowed to leave when I was fourteen.

Presenter21:51

Because I was helping with the wage, I was helping the family. So you were allowed to do that. But you did your O's and then your A's at night school, did you? I went to night school to get my O and A levels. And then I applied for teacher train for to go as a teacher, so I had to go to teacher training college for three years. But you had you were offered a place at Cambridge, I understand. Yes, I'd passed the exams for Cambridge University. I was offered a place at Lucy Cavendish.

Presenter22:19

But at the time you could not go in daily, you had to live in. And I said, I can't do that. And got two children, I mean you couldn't possibly and it was an echo of my mum.

Josephine Cox22:25

I got ch

Josephine Cox22:26

Couldn't possibly have done it.

Presenter22:29

Leaving my dad, the family splitting up, I could not leave my family and live in.

Josephine Cox22:30

Yeah.

Presenter22:34

For you know, two or three years. But why were you doing this? So there was something in you that I mean, was it just education as an end in itself? Yeah, two things really, Sue. First of all, I felt as if I'd missed out. I had missed out on the learning and the excitement of sort of achieving things.

Josephine Cox22:36

Yeah.

Presenter22:54

And also Miss Jackson was, for me, you know, the exemplary teacher. She taught us so much. She was so wonderful. You wanted to be Miss Jackson. I wanted to be Miss Jackson.

Josephine Cox23:04

I wanted

Presenter23:08

So you became her, really. You taught for fifteen years. I did, and I loved every minute. And you know, long after I'd left school, they were still knocking on my door, you know.

Josephine Cox23:10

Yeah.

Presenter23:16

Are you all right? Can we come in and see you? And all that. And it was just great.

Josephine Cox23:16

Yeah.

Presenter23:21

But then there was this spooling on a few years, there was this crisis which I mentioned in the introduction. Your husband's business, he had a haulage business, he went bankrupt, your health suffered and

Josephine Cox23:26

Mention

Josephine Cox23:29

Yeah.

Josephine Cox23:31

Yeah.

Presenter23:32

So age forty-two, we find you in

Josephine Cox23:32

So

Presenter23:36

A convalescent home after a major operation, sitting there, and then you start to write this book. Why why then? Why that moment? Because up until then I hadn't had time.

Josephine Cox23:38

Obsidian

Presenter23:47

And then suddenly it was like life suddenly said stop.

Presenter23:51

you know, before you fall down. I was confined to bed and I was going stir crazy, but uh Ken said to me, Well, look, I'll bring you some pen and paper. Why don't you write that story that you've always been talking about? So I did. Then I put it in a drawer.

Presenter24:08

And then one day, about two years later, Ken said to me, Why did you write that book? and I said, Well,

Presenter24:14

I want the world to know what it was like. And he said, They're not going to know if it's in the drawer. So I sent it away and uh

Presenter24:20

It was accepted straight away. They wanted everything else I'd written in the two years, which was three more books. And I've written two a year ever since. I've been very lucky really.

Presenter24:31

Number six, what's that?

Presenter24:33

Number six R now.

Presenter24:35

I've got two absolutely wonderful friends living across the road, Rudy and Iris. They have their own problems, and they recently lost a son.

Presenter24:43

and it's been pretty bad for them. But they are the most wonderful people and I love them to bits. And I had not heard this chap, Peter Hoffman. Now Rudy, he was playing this Peter Hoffman, Knights in White Satin, and I heard it and loved it. So dramatic. Beautiful voice, beautiful song.

Speaker 425:02

Lights with white satin

Speaker 425:06

Never reaching the end

Speaker 425:10

The letters I have written

Josephine Cox25:11

I have written

Speaker 425:15

Never meaning to send

Speaker 425:20

E G I'd always miss

Speaker 425:24

With his eyes before

Speaker 425:28

Just what the truth is.

Presenter25:31

Peter Hoffman and Knights in White Satin. Seeing your name in print for the first time must have been an amazing experience. You hit the nail on the head there. I was in Blackburn doing a signing and I hadn't seen the book out in the shops. And I walked in the shop, Sue, and it was just amazing. All these posters hanging from the ceiling and all these displays and my book everywhere with my name on. And I just have stood and s I was staring at it for a good two minutes. I can't believe this.

Presenter25:59

Because they now stamp bestseller on the cover when they first print it, I gather, because they just know that's going to happen. It's amazing. I mean, I.

Presenter26:06

I can't believe I mean I th you should read some of the readers' letters that I get. They are so wonderful, and it's very personal, very intimate.

Josephine Cox26:13

It's

Presenter26:15

Um and we help each other and and it's wonderful. So your writing's made you a lot of friends, obviously. Um it's also made you a millionaire s, I imagine, many times over. I mean I suppose a million doesn't mean that much. But anyway, you're very, really.

Josephine Cox26:26

But anyway, you're very rich.

Presenter26:31

What uh so you got the house? I mean, just tell me and what have you needed? We've mentioned the twelve dinner services. I presume you you need to have.

Speaker 426:37

Assume you

Presenter26:39

things just to prove that you've got there and I'm not surprised. I don't really, Sue. I don't really. You'd think, you know, that I would, but I don't. I have a nice house, yes. I have a a car, a nice car.

Speaker 426:43

Surprise.

Presenter26:52

But you know what?

Presenter26:53

If I had to choose between, as I said before, my family,

Presenter26:59

And everything material it would be my family. And if we had to live in a tent, so be it.

Presenter27:05

Now this is wonderful, Sue, you're gonna like this. It's Tina Turner, simply the best. And I did this once in the little red skirt and the boots, you know, and I I gave it all I'd got, I really went for it. And uh the kids at school thought it was hilarious, but you know, I'll do it again if I had to.

Speaker 427:22

You're simply the bad

Speaker 427:41

Stop!

Speaker 427:45

They want every word to say.

Presenter27:50

Tina Turner and the best. Can I just ask you something? Did you see me there in the little red skirt and the boots? Did you long coat? Did you? Best pictures are on radio. You should know that.

Josephine Cox27:56

Hello

Presenter28:03

The your latest book is not is is not about the kind of background that we've been talking not so much anyway. It's much more middle class, as it were. Do you feel you've you know, you've risen through the ranks now, have you?

Speaker 428:08

Much more.

Presenter28:14

Uh

Presenter28:15

No, not really, because there there is the same strength in the characters, there's the same sort of heartbreak, and it doesn't matter what setting it's in, you know, the characters rule the story.

Presenter28:25

I must tell you, Sue, how that came about.

Presenter28:29

I've always woken up through the night and I've got a pen and paper by my bed and I'm scribbling things down.

Presenter28:35

Well, I was in the third chapter of the book that I was working on.

Presenter28:39

I was on a deadline, uh so I didn't have the time to stop.

Presenter28:43

That book.

Presenter28:45

And this particular uh in the early morning I woke up and uh and I I was half asleep and I was writing and I wrote and wrote and wrote and and you know and when I woke up in the morning I assumed it was for the book I was working on.

Presenter28:59

Because you do it half asleep.

Presenter29:01

But when I read what I'd written I was absolutely amazed. There were four A four sides of paper. Quite a lot for me to write.

Presenter29:08

Um

Presenter29:09

And it was a brand new book.

Presenter29:11

And all the characters were there. It was the outline, the h total skeleton of this book.

Presenter29:17

And I was absolutely amazed. Where are you suggesting it came from? I've no idea.

Presenter29:21

I've got no i it must have been ticking away in the back of my head somewhere. But it's an amazing thing. It never happened to me before. Really? Never before. It's a strange state you describe. It's a kind of semi-consciousness. Very, very strange. So now you go to sleep every night hoping it's going to happen again. No, I'll go to sleep frightened to death it's going to happen again. What's going on here?

Josephine Cox29:29

Never before.

Presenter29:41

Okay, just give me a last little image then. Joe Cox on a desert island. What's she going to be like? I mean, she's pretty self sufficient, really, isn't she? be all right physically.

Josephine Cox29:47

Uh

Speaker 429:47

Pretty much.

Josephine Cox29:47

Seven.

Josephine Cox29:49

Yeah.

Presenter29:55

But mentally and emotionally I'd be in tatters because I'm not one to be on my own.

Presenter30:00

I'd be totally out of my mind, Sue. Absolutely.

Presenter30:05

Last record. Oh, my last record is that well, Freddie Mercury, of course. What a man, what a performer. And We Will Rock You, will, you know, sort of um it will lift your spirits, I think.

Speaker 330:18

Buddy, you're a boy, make a big noise. Playing in the street, gonna be a big man someday. You got mud on your face, you big disgrace. Kicking your can all over the place, singing, We will, we will, rod you!

Presenter30:47

Queen and we will rock you. So if you could only take one, Joe, which one would you take of those eight?

Presenter30:56

I think it would have to be John Lennon Imagine, because imagine there's no people. I mean, I wouldn't be imagining I'd be there with no people, you know, and and I would feel that he understood.

Presenter31:07

And then you can take a book as well as the Bible and Shakespeare. Well

Presenter31:12

I don't know if it's allowed, but the book that I would take is written in my head, but it's not written yet. And it's about my brother, Richard. And it will be a comedy kind of a story because he's a disaster area and everything he does goes wrong. Never mind, Delboy, forget Delboy. This is the original Delboy, my brother Richard. And I've got a file jam packed full with little scribbles about the things that have happened to him. And every time I open it, I'm in stitches. So I've got to write that and maybe get a script written for T V because it will just knock your socks off. Richard's file goes as your book. Richard's Pile, what a good title.

Speaker 431:48

See ya.

Josephine Cox31:48

Ah

Presenter31:54

And a luxury. Uh oh, a luxury. Well, a luxury would be my family album, wouldn't it?

Presenter31:59

And I would take that, and I wouldn't be alone, then, would I?

Presenter32:02

Josephine Cox, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island history. Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it.

Josephine Cox32:15

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.