Andrea Levy

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this week is the writer Andrea Levy. She is full of surprises. Award-winning and highly regarded, she didn't read a book till she was twenty-three, and there surely can't be another significant figure of the literary establishment who's worked on the Dick Emery Christmas Show. But perhaps most surprising of all, for someone whose father came to Britain on the windrush and who so vividly depicts the experiences of Caribbean immigrants, she says that growing up she didn't really think of herself as black, adding that when she began writing, she wasn't writing about being black, she was writing about being human. You might well then be held up, Andrea, as this sort of ideal articulate spokesperson for the black experience, but it sounds to me like you don't really think there is a black experience to write about.

Andrea Levy1:21

Well, a black experience is an experience of many millions and millions of people. So no, not one experience at all. The reason I write is because I am exploring my heritage and uh its relationship to Britain and, you know, all sorts of things like that. And there's still a lot of that story untold. We'll talk more about that. What about the

Presenter1:40

What about the

Andrea Levy1:40

The camera

Presenter1:40

Merry Christmas Show

Andrea Levy1:41

Oh, yes, I remember it very well. It was recorded in July.

Presenter1:43

Uh

Andrea Levy1:47

Fake snow, all of that. I'm not sure. Fake snow, absolutely.

Presenter1:48

Fake snow

Presenter1:49

What were you doing on it?

Andrea Levy1:51

I was uh very lowly employed in the BBC uh in the costume department. It was a great job. I loved being on set and just watching everybody doing their their stuff. And having Christmas in July was wonderful.

Presenter2:04

And your career at that point at the BBC ended with something of a whimper because your your contract was r not renewed. And as I understand it,

Presenter2:12

As you left the building you sort of vowed I will be back.

Andrea Levy2:15

I did, you know, I sort of punched the I'll be back, I'll be back, and uh and I did. Yes, and you did.

Presenter2:21

Tell me about that.

Andrea Levy2:22

When Small Island was coming out the television series, they invited me to come and view it. A car picked me up and dropped me at the door and I was back. Yeah.

Presenter2:33

Uh

Andrea Levy2:33

Yeah.

Presenter2:34

Yes, you could hardly have imagined when your contract wasn't renewed that it would be under such circumstances.

Andrea Levy2:39

Did you

Presenter2:39

Did you?

Andrea Levy2:43

Came true. You daydreamed what, that you would be back as a a grand writer of great novels? Not as a grand writer of novels, but certainly as somebody who was producing something creative that the BBC had to do. How interesting.

Presenter2:56

And and so now when I mean, when you hear me introducing you, or you read a piece in some broadsheet newspaper talking about you as the identity that we all know you as, the the great novelist, does it feel like you? Do you feel you can occupy it quite comfortably, or do you sometimes think, gosh, really, th this is me, this is the life I have?

Andrea Levy3:14

I actually occupy it very uncomfortably. I feel quite uncomfortable with it and I'm never quite sure of what my place is within it and I'm I'm constantly surprised by it too. I feel very uncomfortable and very sort of nervous. My mum's mantra was always pride comes before a fall and I'm uh very sort of nervous of being too um uppity, you know.

Presenter3:40

But for now we're gonna have some

Andrea Levy3:41

Music. The the first uh track of yours that we're going to hear today is what? The first track is High Hopes by Frank Sinatra. Now this track, where I was brought up, the sort of mantra was Don't get ideas above your station. That was how I was sort of told to view life really. And once I'd heard this song I thought, you know what, I think I'll wheel ideas above my station.

Presenter3:58

Please.

Andrea Levy4:04

Uh

Speaker 34:04

Next time you're found with your chin on the ground, there's a lot to be learned.

Andrea Levy4:05

Uh

Speaker 34:10

Solo round.

Speaker 44:15

Just what makes that little old ant think he'll move that rubber tree plant? Anyone knows an ant can't move a rubber tree plant. But he's got high hopes. He's got...

Presenter4:34

Frank Sinatra and High Hopes. So, Andrea Levy, it is true, you were twenty-three when you read your first novel. Yes. Why had it taken you so long?

Andrea Levy4:41

Oh, to my shame, yes. Well, I was supposed to read novels at school. I did A-level English, can you believe? And we were meant to read nineteenth-century novels. So we I was reading Dickens and George Eliot and Jane Austen, those sorts of things. But I lived in a council flat, a tiny council flat, and there were six of us in there.

Andrea Levy5:03

And this was the days before central heating. So we only ever really kept one room warm, and that was the front room. And we were all in the front room. Usually the television was on from the time we got home from school to the time the little dot disappeared after the national anthem. So I would defy anybody to sit and read Middlemark whilst, you know, the golden shot is going on. I mean, it's really very difficult. And you couldn't, you know, you had to go to another room and be quiet to read a sort of novel like that. So I never managed to actually read them. But you say you got your English A-level. How did you get it then if you've never read it? Well, you get all those little pass note things. That's what they were called. And that was how I sort of got through it. You know, I wasn't a brilliant pupil at English, I have to say.

Presenter5:51

And what about oh, I mean, I I talk to plenty of writers who say, Well, you know, I was secretly writing from the age of seven. Uh, obviously that wasn't the case for you. So as a as a young child, what was it you were aiming at?

Andrea Levy6:03

Well, I loved watching the telly and what I was aiming at well my main ambition was to become Julia Andrews. I wanted to sing and dance. I wanted to live in a world where all of a sudden everybody got up and sang and danced and knew how it was. You know, that was the sort of thing that I I I aspired to. So it was more sort of that that kind of entertainment.

Presenter6:25

We're going to have some more music, so t tell me about uh what's coming up next.

Andrea Levy6:29

I'm in the Mood for Love by Scartoons. Now Scartoons are a group of friends. I have great family and great friends and I doubt that I ever let them know how much they mean to me. Basically as I've got older I realised that to love and be loved is what life is about and so I wanted to just play this song for my friends. We used to have these wonderful parties where we had karaoke evenings with a live band and the kids were growing up then and it got to the point where one of the kids is actually singing. So Max is singing this song and it's just for my friends really.

Speaker 47:10

I'm in the mood for love

Speaker 47:15

Because you're only me

Andrea Levy7:15

Uh Yeah.

Speaker 47:18

But if it waves your living

Speaker 47:22

I'm in a mood.

Speaker 47:26

When it's in the R.

Speaker 47:30

Bright as the stars we run

Speaker 47:33

Oh, is it any wonder?

Speaker 47:38

Lambda moved

Presenter7:40

That was The Scartoons and I'm in the Mood for Love and it was Max singing there, who, as you say, is now one of the grown-up children of uh one of your friends. So plenty of memories there of family parties. And your father came to Britain then, Andrea Levy, in it was nineteen forty eight. He was on the Empire Wind Rush. Uh your mother stayed at home for the first few months. Uh why did they d

Andrea Levy7:58

Decide to move. Well, my mum had always wanted to come to Brittany. She really wanted to go to university. There wasn't a university at that time in Jamaica. And she she wanted to better herself in that sort of way. And my dad just wanted a quiet life and a good job. So that was what they wanted. What did they find?

Andrea Levy8:19

They were quite shocked, I think, when they well, not I don't think I know they were very shocked when they first came to Britain, just to find themselves sort of not considered part of the empire and certainly not considered a desirable part of the empire. You know, people asking them where they'd come from. Nobody knew about Jamaica. And also they felt like second class citizens completely. They were treated badly.

Presenter8:47

Yeah, uh some of the language that you use in Small Island is, you know, is very arresting and it's it's vicious to contemporary ears. Were they routinely

Presenter8:56

um sort of abused in the streets that were you know

Andrea Levy8:58

Yeah. Well, I I don't know about routinely. I'm sure that they you know, they had many days where ev everything was fine. I mean, they they loved this country too and and they got on with a lot of people here as well. It wasn't uh you know, every single day was like that.

Presenter8:59

I I don't know about routine.

Presenter9:12

Yeah, I mean color is a very complex issue, and even degrees of blackness is is a complex issue. Can can you explain why you know, I said in the beginning that you didn't really think of yourself as black when you were growing up. Can you explain more about that?

Andrea Levy9:17

Is is a corner.

Andrea Levy9:25

Right, well, my family are very light-skinned, so we're not obviously.

Andrea Levy9:31

Dark skinned black. And in Jamaica, the class structure kind of works on the colour of your skin, not on the amount of money you have. So my parents were sort of brought up to think of themselves as high class because they had a lighter complexion. And they believed that once they got to Britain, those sort of gradations would be recognised by the white British, and were surprised to see that no, they were just black here. They tried to sort of distance themselves, I suppose, from other black people in the hope that nobody would notice that they'd sneaked into the country. They didn't want us to talk about Jamaica because they were not. They didn't. No, no, no. Because they hoped that nobody would question us about that and that they would just think that we were, you know, we were a little dark, but not we'd just sort of got a tan. It's a very complex.

Presenter10:24

It is a very cold.

Andrea Levy10:25

It's very complex, and it's very hard to explain, sort of, quickly, without it sounding.

Presenter10:25

It's very

Andrea Levy10:30

Crazy.

Presenter10:31

No, it doesn't sound crazy and it doesn't sound good, but I think you've described it very well, and this idea that they could slip in unnoticed and maybe they were just people with a bit of a tan, but of course everybody else was seeing them as the black people who've arrived from somewhere we don't know where. How did you feel in school?

Andrea Levy10:42

How did you feel?

Andrea Levy10:44

Well, in school I knew I was the a black girl who'd uh arrived um and I was made to feel very different. Uh where are you from and when are you going back? was asked um a lot. Were you welcomed into people's houses as a little girl?

Presenter10:58

Oh, did you go around to play? Did you yes. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.

Andrea Levy11:01

Yeah, as I say, it's not you know, prejudice isn't sort of thing that happens every single day, you know.

Presenter11:06

Yes, but it's interesting that you have spoken about uh the fact that that any uh racial slurs or insults were quick to surface when things became difficult. You know, you could be playing a game in the playground and then as they do between kids, things suddenly turn sour.

Andrea Levy11:17

And then as

Andrea Levy11:20

Yeah.

Andrea Levy11:21

That's it. You have to be very careful. And we were very careful. And I didn't realize until I got older that I had been very careful as a child. You know, I thought everybody had to be this careful.

Presenter11:22

Have to be

Presenter11:29

You know, I thought

Presenter11:32

And this was in Highbury. Were there many other black families living?

Andrea Levy11:33

This was in hybrid.

Andrea Levy11:35

Not not round our way. No, they weren't.

Presenter11:38

Right.

Presenter11:40

Right. Let's have some more music for now then, Andrea. Tell me what we're going to hear. We're on disc three now.

Andrea Levy11:45

Disc 3. Ah, this is Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames singing. Why have you chosen this? Yeah, yeah. Um.

Andrea Levy11:53

Well, this there's something about this song. It takes me right back to my childhood and to a particular Christmas. And it's Christmas Day in this tiny flat. And we've got a coal fire burning. And my dad's lying on the sofa snoozing. My brothers and sisters are just sort of sitting around being annoying. I'm playing with a Penny Bright doll and my mum's in the kitchen. And yeah, yeah, he's playing.

Speaker 412:20

Every evening, when all my days work is true, I call my baby and let's go watch it with her I'm at some movies, but she don't see me beginning Until she asks me, why wanna come to her flat And have some supper And let the evening pass by I'm making records, the sounds are groovy, I find I say yeah yeah

Speaker 412:37

That's what I say, I say yeah yeah

Speaker 412:41

My baby loves me, she gets me feeling so fine When she love me, she makes me know that she's smiling When she kisses, I feel the fire get her

Presenter12:50

That was Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames and yeah, yeah. You were the youngest then of the four kids. And and your mother had your mother been a teacher in Jamaica? She'd worked in the education system. She had. Yes. Yeah.

Andrea Levy13:00

She had. Yes, yes.

Presenter13:01

And she want when she came over to Britain, did she want to work again as a teacher?

Andrea Levy13:05

Yes, and uh and she thought she would, but uh she she had to retrain.

Presenter13:09

So what what she took in did she take in sewing or she worked in a factory as a seamstress? What ha what happened?

Andrea Levy13:14

She she took in sewing. There was nothing else that she could actually do. She'd got four children and she had to

Andrea Levy13:22

make ends meet as well. You know, my dad was just working for the post office. I remember very well her just sitting sewing in the bedroom and somebody would come with great bundles of uh things for her to sew. And so as a trained, educated

Presenter13:36

young woman and a a busy mother of four. How did she feel about all of that?

Andrea Levy13:40

I think she felt incredibly frustrated and she was scared that she wasn't going to make this work, that that move that she'd made had taken her out of the middle class in Jamaica and put her, you know, really into a very lowly position in this country. And she was scared that she was never going to get out of that. Did she talk to you about that? Latterly, she has spoken to me about it, yes. And I could tell. I was brought up with my mum, you know, I was at home with her and I could tell her frustration. I sort of took it in my paws, you know. Did she want to go back?

Andrea Levy14:17

I don't think that that was ever a possibility. I know that there were times when she missed her mother with, you know, a passion, but there was never enough money to do anything like

Andrea Levy14:30

that, you know, there was barely enough money to put food on the table.

Presenter14:34

Do do you think she regretted having such a big family? I mean, four kids, that's a that's a lot of responsibility. It's a lot of work.

Andrea Levy14:40

Yes, I think that that is definitely a possibility. And I certainly thought that my being at home with her as a young child was very frustrating for her. At that point, she was about to go to college and become a teacher. And then she got pregnant with me, and that kept her at home again for another five years.

Presenter14:59

Right. Did did she expect you to do well in school then?

Andrea Levy15:03

Yes, she did. I mean, education was everything to my mum. You know, you had to be well educated. And so she, you know, sh she made us go to ballet lessons, she made us go to piano lessons, you know, and to work hard at school. And she didn't get involved in the school work. She she had a great sort of respect for school teachers because she used to be one.

Presenter15:22

Bitch.

Presenter15:23

E earlier when we were talking, you said you you weren't a very good pupil then, so were you aware of disappointing your mother?

Andrea Levy15:30

Did I say I wasn't a very good pupil?

Presenter15:32

You did Yes, when I was asking you how come you'd got to the age of twenty three and you hadn't read read a book, you said, Well, obviously I wasn't a very good pupil.

Andrea Levy15:38

Oh, okay. Yes, I wasn't very good at English. Yes, um well, I don't think I did disappoint my mum. Um I think I did fairly well. I know when I went to college, my mother was very disappointed that I went to art college and that I didn't go to university. In art college she didn't really rate at all. She just thought uh

Presenter15:44

Uh

Speaker 315:44

Okay.

Speaker 315:53

Yeah.

Andrea Levy15:57

I was just going to go and do some drawing for four years, you know. So she thought I should have been good enough to go to university. Let's have uh some more music. Tell me what we're going to hear next. Um we're going to hear the hi a hymn, which is Dear Lord and Father of Mankind.

Presenter16:14

And why have you chosen this, Andrea?

Andrea Levy16:15

Well, I was in a lot of choirs when I was young. I loved singing. I miss it. I miss it. That communal singing there. So I was in a choir at church. I was brought up as a Christian, but I'm not anymore. But I was in a choir. So I went three times on a Sunday. And if ever this hymn was to be sung, then it cheered me up. It was going to be a good day.

Speaker 416:47

Uh

Speaker 416:55

Arms, full barns.

Speaker 416:59

Your life sun is my

Speaker 417:05

Living the spirits.

Speaker 417:12

Fairless way.

Presenter17:22

That was St. Paul's Cathedral Choir, singing Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, written by John Greenleaf Whittier, set to Repton by Sir Hubert Parry. Andrea Levy, your mother then was a little disappointed that you didn't go to university. She can't surely have been disappointed with the success that has followed later in your life. What has she made of of your writing?

Andrea Levy17:43

Oh well, when I first started writing, my mum would have liked me to shut up, to be honest. She was absolutely horrified. I think there were a couple of reasons for that. One of them was that she was worried somehow I would make a fool of myself. And my mum always used to say to me, if you can't parse a sentence, you can't speak. And I didn't want to argue with her. But my mum just thought, I am just going to show her up with my lack of knowledge of English as well. And also, I was writing about our family and I was writing semi-autobiographical stuff, thinly disguised sometimes. And I was telling everyone our business, you know. And so she really wanted me to.

Presenter18:19

Yeah, and I was

Andrea Levy18:30

To stop.

Presenter18:31

I mean, telling everyone her business, that's really interesting, because in Small Island, of course, you are.

Presenter18:36

Almost telling the story of your parents' life, and certainly the lives of that generation of Caribbean immigrants.

Presenter18:44

It was interesting you said that when your parents came here they knew everything about Britain.

Andrea Levy18:48

Hmm.

Presenter18:49

But people in Britain knew nothing about them and nothing about where they came from. In a way, with Small Island, it seems as though you were.

Andrea Levy18:51

Nothing

Presenter18:56

defying people to ignore the importance of that relationship and of where these people should stand in in British society.

Andrea Levy19:04

Absolutely. I mean, that's why I write books, is because I'm I'm sort of belligerent on that topic. Uh that um you you should understand what happened in the Caribbean. It's a a very important part of British history. Yes, I'm very uh that's why I write.

Presenter19:20

Yet, the beginning of the first piece of prose that you were moved to write was. Am I right about this? The death of your budgie? Yes, a very.

Andrea Levy19:25

Yes, a very important subject as well. But yes, that was just me sort of when I thought.

Andrea Levy19:32

I'm going to do an evening class and I think I might try writing, but just in case I'll try I'll write something down and see. And the first thing that came was the death of my budgie, which was a very important event. And I wrote it and I read it out to my husband. And I was so scared of this one paragraph. I just thought I really am going to make a fool of myself by writing.

Presenter19:58

So you gathered uh your courage in both hands and read it out loud to your husband, and his response was what?

Presenter20:04

His response was, That's very good, yes, do.

Andrea Levy20:07

The class.

Presenter20:07

Right. Did you actually learn anything in a night class about writing? Did you learn more about sentence structure and all of those things that you learned?

Andrea Levy20:14

Oh, I learnt everything. I learnt such a lot about writing. Not in that sort of teacher and blackboard sort of way, but by listening to other people's writing and by listening to what the teacher, Alison Fell, who's a wonderful teacher, said about that writing. So I learnt about storytelling and I realized as well that I could bless my mother, but I could just not worry about the grammar and actually go for the feeling, go for the story, go for how you gain somebody's interest.

Presenter20:50

And also you've been as well as the recipient of many prizes, you've been on many judging panels for these big literary prizes. You've said and I think this is very straightforward of you that you've learned a lot about writing while you've been reading other people's books. Do do you think it's the case that your readers can almost trace your development as a writer as you've matured?

Andrea Levy21:10

Oh, absolutely. If you start from the beginning of my books, you can see absolutely that I'm learning my craft as I go along. That's absolutely there. And it was when I judged the Orange Prize for Fiction in 1997 that completely changed the way I felt about writing. I sort of read all these 70 books in three months, back to back, and from them I just sort of learned that you could be more ambitious. You know, it really taught me to trust my instinct in that way and to really push myself.

Andrea Levy21:44

Let's have some more music.

Presenter21:45

Yeah.

Andrea Levy21:45

What's next?

Andrea Levy21:47

Okay, well, um, there was a T V series made of Small Island, the music.

Andrea Levy21:55

for this was by Martin Phipps. And this bit that we're going to hear is the theme tune from Small Island. And I when I first heard this, which was in a studio in Hampstead, I went to see this sort of fifty piece orchestra playing this music.

Andrea Levy22:11

And it was such a great moment in that I was sitting listening to a piece of music that in some way I had inspired. And I think it's the most fabulous piece of music that that he made. In fact, it won a BAFTA. But it's so wonderful.

Presenter23:27

That was the theme music written for the television dramatization of Small Island by Martin Phipps. So, Andrea Levy, how you were you thirty eight when your first novel was published?

Andrea Levy23:36

Oh, I believe so.

Presenter23:37

Yes, and uh how many publishers had seen the manuscript?

Andrea Levy23:41

Oh, every single one. I think there was about one left by the end of it. Um quite a lot, quite a lot of seeing the manuscript. Yes, it took about um I'd sent it out for about a year, um and then I got an agent and he sent it out for about a year. So we must have got through quite a lot of publishers.

Presenter23:58

So Every Light in the House Burning was your first novel, and then ten years later was when you won the Whitbread Prize. Di was that the point at which you felt there had there been two novels in between that?

Andrea Levy24:09

They had

Presenter24:11

When did you feel you could look yourself in the eye, in the mirror, and say, Yep, definitely a writer?

Andrea Levy24:17

Oh, any day now, yes.

Andrea Levy24:19

I just always feel I'm learning. I I do fear complacency. I do fear that you sort of think I am the best thing since sliced bread. You know, uh I I think it's bad for the creative spirit. I really do.

Presenter24:31

Did you ever worry after the first novel that that was it, that you'd spent your creative force, that the that that niggling feeling that you seemed to have had for a couple of decades that you you just wanted a you had a connection, you didn't know how to scratch it?

Andrea Levy24:40

The

Andrea Levy24:42

Yeah.

Andrea Levy24:44

I think you feel that after every book, ef after every book I've written I think, Well, that was it That's it I'm washed up now It's like the tide going out and then it sort of slowly starts to come back in again and you think, Well, maybe I could write another book.

Presenter24:58

Yes, y you used a curious phrase once. You said um that that when you write your first uh draft of of a novel, you say it's like the meandering of an idiot's mind. Yes. Tell me more.

Andrea Levy25:11

Well, I usually write in uh my local library, and I just I write just absolutely the first thing that comes into my mind.

Presenter25:19

And this is long hand in name.

Andrea Levy25:20

Longhand. Yes. You know, they really are, you know, the meanderings of the the very first ideas that I sort of um come to and and they're bad. The first things I write down.

Presenter25:22

Yes, you

Andrea Levy25:32

Yeah.

Presenter25:33

So if the writing in itself can be difficult, then the subject matter I'm thinking about the long song nominated for the Mann Booker Prize last year tackled the incredibly I mean a very big subject and also a very difficult subject of slavery. You you went back to the Caribbean, I'm imagining, to to do that research.

Andrea Levy25:53

I did. I went to the Caribbean to sort of research a plantation, the sort of geography of a plantation. You couldn't really do that from Crouch End.

Presenter25:57

Yeah, it's good

Presenter25:59

You said in one interview it was terribly unpleasant research. Nineteenth century ideas of racial superiority are, to a modern ear, abhorrent. My heart would sink sometimes.

Andrea Levy26:09

Yes, absolutely. It was difficult in that there wasn't anything for me to read about what a life of a slave would have been like. And the only way I could do it was by reading sort of the slim volumes that a lot of the white people, like missionaries or planters, planters' wives, wrote about when they went to the Caribbean. I mean, I would read some things and be really quite shocked. Really, the history of the Caribbean and the history of Jamaica is a a very violent and unpleasant history. And the history of slavery is you know a very difficult thing to go into. We don't really talk about it that much in British history in this country.

Presenter26:48

You are clearly driven to change that. Clearly you see your books as as if they are doing anything, it seems to me, is that that is recorded and people understand.

Andrea Levy26:58

Yeah, I mean it's I don't want it to sound too worthy that I'm going out trying to be didactic about something. I'm not about sort of beating people over the head with this history. That would be horrible. I want to entertain you as well. I want you to understand this story and to understand the sort of people that had to to go through that sort of situation.

Presenter27:19

We'll have some more music. Disc number six, then, Andrea Levy, tell us what it is.

Andrea Levy27:24

Well, we're talking about Jamaica, and um this is Redemption Song by Bob Marley, and somehow this song really speaks the history of Jamaica.

Speaker 427:35

But my hand was made strong

Speaker 427:40

By the end of the Almighty.

Speaker 427:43

We forward in this generation.

Speaker 427:49

Triumphantly

Speaker 427:52

Won't you hear Justin?

Speaker 427:57

The Sons of Freedom.

Speaker 428:00

'Cause all I ever have.

Presenter28:05

That was Bob Marley and the Wailers and Redemption Song. Andrea Levy, you've described how your mother had uh well, not just really mixed feelings, but actually quite negative feelings when you started to write, given the enormous success you've had as a writer.

Presenter28:18

Uh what's her view of that?

Andrea Levy28:20

Oh, she was so excited when Small Island began to take off and when it began to sort of win prizes. Now that was a real nod from, I don't know, from somewhere that she respected. And then I actually, when I won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, won it, part of the prize is that you get to meet the Queen. I phoned my mum and I said that I was going to meet the Queen and my mum just cried. She just thought, how can a child of hers get to go and meet the Queen? She was terribly proud of it. And now she sort of was saying to me, Why don't you write about Jamaican women getting older? You know, so she's willing to tell me anything. I can't shut her up.

Presenter29:00

And and she went on, did she she she did retrain and she did become a teacher.

Andrea Levy29:05

Oh, she did. Yes. She became a teacher. Yes, but she had another ambition, and the big ambition was to have a degree.

Presenter29:06

Yeah.

Andrea Levy29:12

she couldn't go to university because she had to work, but um

Andrea Levy29:16

She did an open university course and got got her degree.

Presenter29:20

Uh

Andrea Levy29:20

And what

Presenter29:20

What about your husband then? How is he? He works in graphic design and you worked with him for many years and he was the one who heard the story about the budgie that you wrote at night class. How has he coped with all of the enormous attention that your career and your success has brought?

Andrea Levy29:35

Well, I think he's coke very well. It's funny because um

Andrea Levy29:39

I know, it's something to do with him being a male and me being a female. People uh almost feel sorry for him. He has a wife who has been successful and it's sort of like are you all right?

Presenter29:45

That he

Andrea Levy29:49

Are you all right? Because somehow he's being emasculated in some way. But he doesn't feel that at all. He's been absolutely fantastic.

Presenter29:58

And does he critique your manuscripts before you hand them to the publisher, or that's not his department?

Andrea Levy30:03

When I finished writing a section, I will read it out to him, and I will trust that if there is anything wrong with that manuscript, he will find a way of telling me. Now, it can't be directly, because divorce would come into the equation, but he must find a way of doing it, and he usually does, and is very tactful about it.

Presenter30:24

And and you are a stepmum to his two kids. That I mean, that is a very different role from being a mum. Oh, yes. Yes. How have you found it?

Andrea Levy30:29

Oh yes, how do you find

Andrea Levy30:32

Well, I sort of modelled myself on Maria in the sound of music, and uh how did that go?

Andrea Levy30:38

It didn't go so well. I mean, most of the time you feel like Fruella de Ville. You know, it's a very difficult role. And when you're having to do the sort of parenting, it somehow feels crueler or more difficult coming from a step parent. But it's also been a great joy. And I'm really pleased to have those two girls in my life. It's great.

Presenter30:41

You know, it's

Presenter30:59

And you haven't had your own children. Has there been any point at which you've thought, mm, okay, I made that decision. Maybe I should have made another decision, or has it been fine with you?

Andrea Levy31:07

No, I think I made the decision not to have children at about the age of five. I always knew I would never have children. Why was that?

Andrea Levy31:15

I don't know. I don't know. I just didn't want to have children, and I knew I would never have children. And that was always the case, and it never wavered. I think it wavered for about ten seconds once when I was at the birth of a friend's child, and I thought, ah, and then it passed.

Presenter31:31

Uh And so

Andrea Levy31:31

So

Presenter31:31

Having children in your life, though.

Andrea Levy31:34

Oh yes. I'm so pleased about that. Yes. Ah having children in your life is very good. And having grandchildren now is um is great. You know, you just see life afresh.

Presenter31:34

So please.

Andrea Levy31:44

Yeah.

Presenter31:44

Let's have some more music then. Where are we now? We're on disc number seven, Andrea.

Andrea Levy31:49

I've been with my husband now for thirty years but when we were courting this was our courting song it's uh Baby Just Cares For Me, Nina Simone.

Speaker 431:59

My baby don't care for sure

Speaker 432:03

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 432:06

Hello?

Speaker 432:09

Mambo man just cares for me

Speaker 432:16

My baby we don't care for

Speaker 432:20

Cars and races

Speaker 432:24

But we really don't care for

Presenter32:28

That was Nina Simone, and my baby just cares for me. So, Andrea Levi, when we order our experiences, it somehow helps us understand our own responses to ourselves. Do you find that you're writing

Andrea Levy32:39

Still.

Presenter32:41

has I used in the introduction that phrase, you saying that you didn't really think of yourself as black, which is so interesting given the decades that you've spent writing about what it means to be black and the history of coming from Jamaica.

Andrea Levy32:47

So

Presenter32:53

Has it helped you understand yourself more? Do you feel more of a connection with that cultural heritage that was never really spoken about at home?

Andrea Levy33:01

Oh, absolutely. It's been extremely important. I've grown two inches, you know. I mean, really has made an enormous difference to me. And it's an ongoing project. There's still work to be done. You've grown two inches. That's what a great phrase to explain.

Presenter33:15

In a little bit more of that to me than you.

Andrea Levy33:18

Well, I suppose w we were talking earlier about those those kids who sort of say to you, why are you here and what are you about? And that cowed me for very many years. And I felt like I had no right to take up space in this country, indeed in this world. And actually learning about my history and about my heritage has made me stand tall.

Presenter33:40

You've r written a lot about the resilience of the human spirit in your novels, Andrea Levy. I I'm imagining on a desert island you'll be absolutely fine. I think you're made of strong stuff. How do you think you'll be?

Andrea Levy33:51

I think I'll be fine for the first day.

Andrea Levy33:53

Then the night will come, and in the morning I think I will probably be insane.

Andrea Levy33:59

Just twenty-four hours, I think.

Speaker 334:00

Uh

Andrea Levy34:01

Just twenty four hours before insanity sets in. I am actually scared of anything that creeps and crawls. I am scared of things that fly. I am scared of things that go bump in the night. You know, I I have a lot of fears. Although I do have some grit, a desert island is not a good place to put me.

Presenter34:07

Science screen.

Presenter34:21

Let's comfort ourselves with your final piece of music then. Tell me about the eighth track to day.

Andrea Levy34:26

Okay, well I'm going to take you back to my adolescence here, to disco's. I used to have a dread of slow songs at disco's because if nobody asked you to dance, which is usually hammed, you'd have to sort of do this strange swinging your arms dance with a sort of head tilting as if I don't care that nobody's asked me to dance and you just had to do this on your own. But when this song came on, I didn't care because I just went into a world of my own. And this is Let's Stay Together by Al Green.

Andrea Levy35:04

I'm so

Speaker 435:04

Yeah.

Speaker 435:08

Whatever you want.

Speaker 435:13

Is it all right?

Speaker 435:24

Right.

Presenter35:26

That was Al Green and Let's Stay Together. So, Andrea Levy, let's have your book. Of course, I'm going to give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you're going to take what?

Andrea Levy35:33

Yeah.

Andrea Levy35:35

Well, I'm presuming there is no book called Get Off a Desert Island in Two Days or Your Money Back.

Presenter35:40

No, and even if there was I probably wouldn't let you have it.

Andrea Levy35:42

Oh, okay. Well, failing that, then, I'm going to take my Theosaurus. Ah, okay. I'll do some work while I'm there, probably. Right, that's yours. And a luxury, too.

Andrea Levy35:52

My luxury. Most people when they see sort of, you know, rolling white sand and beautiful sea lapping the shore and sun and palm trees dipping down, they they think of paradise and I just think, ooh, I'll bet there's a lot of mosquitoes.

Andrea Levy36:09

So I need some mosquito repellent, I'm afraid.

Presenter36:12

Okay, that's your luxury, it's yours. And if you had to choose just one of these eight disks, if they were gonna be washed away by the waves, which one would you choose?

Andrea Levy36:21

Well, it's so apt and so beautiful. The theme from Small Island.

Presenter36:26

To Andrea Levy, thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Andrea Levy36:30

Thank you. Ambition Achieve

Presenter37:02

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc.co.uk slash Radio Four.