Kay Mellor

Kay Mellor0:00

This is the beat.

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BBC

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Hello, I'm Kirstie Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.

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For rights' reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast. You can find over two thousand more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Disc's website.

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My Castaway this week is the writer and producer Kay Meller. With a superb ear for dialogue and a sharp talent for ensemble pieces, she has spent the past few decades making TV shows rich with real-life resonance. From coronation streak to band of gold, her reputation's been forged by telling it like it is, crafting the stories and struggles of so-called ordinary characters into prime-time drama. Proof indeed of that old cliché, write what you know. Her own beginnings were not without incident. As a small child, my castaway walked into the family kitchen one day to find her mum knocked unconscious on the floor. Her violent father walked out on the family, never giving them a penny of support. Later, my castaway found herself pregnant and married by sixteen.

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Indeed, there was a stage in her life she thought her dreams of a creative life were just that. But, as unlikely a storyline as it may seem, she has triumphed. Now a doyenne of the T V industry, she's also about to celebrate her golden wedding anniversary. She says

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I've always been able to tell stories, and I just started writing them down. I was the bossy kid at school who would say, You say that, and then I'll say this. I wasn't bossy at other things, but I'd be bossy at that, because it was an area I loved. And you loved it because, K. Miller?

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Me and Margaret Pickering had stand at the front of the class entertaining everybody and I'd go, Margaret, you do this when I do that and then I'll be this and the kids'd laugh and then they'd be spellbound.

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And I realized that I could sort of entertain them, and I loved doing it. As I mentioned, you are very well known for these great, often female, ensemble, T V dramas, things like Band of Gold, Fat Friends, in the Club, to name just a few of them.

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How do you decide upon what the vehicle is that is going to give you the environment in which you can tell those tales? That sort of comes separately. In the first instance, I'll kind of go.

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I'd like to write about what I know about, and I don't see much on television about women that are my age, so I'll kind of go, okay, I want three women.

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And who better than to kind of go to my friends or my family members? And so I'll then start to cook up the characters with they'll have a dollop of me in them. Each one has a dollop of me in them. So the characters then start to form. And then I go, What story do I want to tell? And sometimes I don't always know. Sometimes I'm traveling along and I go, Oh, this is it. This is the story. And then I have to go back to episode one and start to reshape that.

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Let's have some music, K. Miller. Tell me about your first disc. What is it? Why have you chosen it? The Beautiful South. Well, because.

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I did Fat Friends, I did four series of it, and it became the theme tune. So every time I heard that, I used to get excited and butterflies. And it was just such a lovely time in my life because it was a kind of a drama, which was really important to me because I thought I had something important to say about weight and body image. But I also loved the characters of Kelly and Kevin, and I used to feel great being with my characters. And then, of course, won a few awards. So whenever I got up to go and get the award or whatever, they go did you know that intro.

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And so it became synonymous with me feeling good, and it still does the same thing.

Kay Mellor4:05

She's a perfect tan.

Kay Mellor4:08

But she wears a twelve Baby, keep a little two for me.

Kay Mellor4:14

She could be sweet sixteen

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But the nine of the seams

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I still love and fast degree.

Kay Mellor4:24

When it's at my game

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With a big fat A You wanna see the smile on my face?

Kay Mellor4:33

And even at my door

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That's the beautiful South in Perfect Town, you said, Kaymella, because it brings back extremely happy memories of that. It was a great success, a big ITV hit. A sort of comedy drama, really, Fat Friends. It brought together Ruth Jones, James Gordon and Alison Stetton for the first time on TV, who of course went on then to great things in Gavin and Stacy. What gave you the inspiration to write about it? Because it really was the first time that the subject had been tackled in such a way.

Kay Mellor4:43

Yeah.

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But friends.

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For your first time on T V

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Uh

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Better break.

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I think it was really everybody who I spoke to was on a diet. The cabbage soup diet or the, well, it was before the 5.2 diet. So they were on the, you know, slimming world weight watch, a million diets out there. And I'd look at people, I'd go, why are you on a diet? You know, you've got the most gorgeous figure. And they go, I've got to lose five pounds. And did you do research? Oh, yeah. I thought, how am I going to research this properly? And I thought, I know what I'll do. I'll go to a slimming group. So I thought to myself, well, I'll put really heavy clothes on and some big shoes on and stuff my pockets full of heavy things. And so I went off and I got in the queue and new members got me packed, got me, what is it? Okay, now stand on the scales. And I'm thinking, it might be a bit overweight. Oh, no, no, no. You know, anyway, so she stood on the scales and she looked at me and I looked at her. And she said,

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We'll start half a stone at a time.

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I know it's sorry looked down at the thing. She said, You're too stone overweight.

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I'm too sound of a weight. But then, slowly, I became fixated myself. I started wanting to lose the weight so I could please her and then please all the class and stand there and be applauded for losing the weight. I think it's around about 12 years since the series ended, but now I think you're currently in rehearsal for Fat Friends the Musical. This is your first ever go after all these years at writing a musical. What are the specific problems and disciplines of doing a musical rather than a TV drama? For a start, I don't really understand the language.

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Probably easier.

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And T V drama.

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When people go, is this the bridge K? I think it's something to do with the flyover going over the motorway. And then they go, Is this the Middle Eight?'Cause I've written the lyrics. I've just written it like a poem really. And then I've got the gorgeous Nickloyd Webber, who certainly knows what he's doing, you know, who weaves it into some glorious thing. You are a very established, well-known writer at the top of your game in production terms. Why have you taken the decision to go into theatre and musicals when you could potentially come an absolute cropper?

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Because I'm learning something new. And, you know, the very nature of sitting in an auditorium. You know, I did a passionate woman. I started off in theatre. I started off in small-scale touring fringe theatre. That's how when I left Bretton Hall. And actually, there's nothing like sitting in an auditorium, listening to people laughing at your words, being able to hear a pin drop because people are engrossed in the drama and the applause at the end for those characters on the stage that you've helped create. It is the most magical and wonderful feeling. Let's fit in some music, Kim Heather. Tell me about your second one. What are we going to hear? Our Day Will Come by Amy Winehouse. Which, for me, her voice always will be the great voice. She's got such soul and such kind of, I don't know, she just makes you listen to every single word that she says. You know, it's so sad that she's passed. And you just think of what could have happened. You know, when she's singing Our Day Will Come, which is an optimistic song. And I've chosen this for the titles for my BBC show, Love, Lives, and Records, because it means such a lot to me.

Kay Mellor8:05

Our day will come.

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And we'll have everything

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We'll share the joy all in love embrace

Kay Mellor8:25

No one can tell me that I am too young to know

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That was Amy Winehouse and our day will come. K. Miller, you were born then in Leeds, nineteen fifty one. Yeah, that would be right. Um your mum Dinah, your dad George, your mum was Jewish, dad was Catholic. What do you remember of their relationship?

Kay Mellor8:40

Yeah, the

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I'll be right now.

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Oh, Crikey. It was um difficult really because it's slightly overshadowed by what happened really. So I have got some memories of going to Philey in a caravan and but um overshadowing it all really was hearing screaming get downstairs and coming downstairs with my brother and peeping into the room and finding my mother on the floor. Horrendous. I think it was probably about three.

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Her end

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And then I remember sort of

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Putting my dressing gown on. I don't know who put my dressing gown on me, probably my brother, and we ran across the road to where two women lived. And then them racing back in and lifting my mother up and my mother's face bleeding. And I vaguely recollect I wanted to stay up to watch something like Lone Ranger or something. And my dad didn't want me, said I couldn't. And then I was sent to bed and then a row ensued over that. Do you think now, I wonder if I've thought about that more, that I that was I at the root of this horrible thing that happened? Of course you wouldn't have been, but children sometimes think they might be at fault for things that go on between their families. I definitely think that I thought it was my fault somehow as a little girl.

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Time a blank.

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And I remember seeing my dad leave. I remember looking out of the window and remember seeing my dad with a trilby hat on and a suitcase passing.

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And then I didn't see him for years and years and years. You didn't see him for years? Years, years and years. I didn't see him. I I think once my mum said, Oh, your dad wants to see you, and I went up to the top of our road and sat on the the wall of the the wise owl, which was a pub, sat on that pub wall waiting for my dad to come and collect me, and he didn't come. And then I remember walking back down and going, He didn't come and I remember my mum hugging me and going, It doesn't matter, darling, you know, like that. How old were you when he didn't come? I think probably about nine. And then

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Much, much later on, when I was probably about nineteen, my mum said, Oh, your dad's wanting to get in touch. By this time I was married. He felt like a stranger to me.

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The images of the break up, to be honest with you.

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We were always with me. Even when I was talking to him, I couldn't get out of my mind the image of my mum laid there. Ultimately, we kind of lost touch with each other because I found him difficult. He still had that kind of aggressiveness within him. And I started to withdraw from my dad. Sad, but I couldn't ever reconcile myself really with him. I want to ask you all about your mum, but we shall come to that in a minute. For now, let's listen to some music, Kay. Okay. Tell me about this third one. What are we going to hear? Well, this reminds me of my youth. I had a very sort of short teenage years because I met Anthony. And so when I was hanging around like the bowling alley and living a kind of teenage, rebellious sort of life, this was on all the jukeboxes and booming through the bowling alley. And it reminds me of a carefree time, carefree and mystical because I've no idea what the lyrics are, to be honest with you. But it conjures up a nice time before responsibility.

Kay Mellor12:02

We skip the light and then go

Kay Mellor12:09

Turned cartwheels crossed the floor.

Kay Mellor12:15

I was feeling kinda seasick.

Kay Mellor12:22

The crowd called out for more

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Prokoharam and a whiter shade of pale. At K. Mellor, in nineteen ninety two your play A Passionate Affair was staged at the Leeds Playhouse. Tell me about the inspiration for that.

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My mum told me when um

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I was kind of washing up round at her house. She said, You see, I met somebody and he lived in the flat below us, and I'm putting the pots away. And I loved him. Well, to hear my mother say love and man in one sentence was unheard of. She'd had two sorts of semi-disastrous marriages. And I looked at her, tears pouring down her face. And she went, Yes, I really loved him. She said, I wanted to be with him. I said, Well, why didn't you show well he got killed?

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And then she said to me, I've never told anybody this. 30 years she'd hung on to this. And she just collapsed into my arms, tears falling down her face. And she obviously had a very passionate affair with him and loved him. Did she come to see the play? A passionate affair? Yeah, well, I told her, I'll never tell anybody, mum. Don't worry, I'll never tell anybody. Cut to 10 years later. And then it started happening in my head, this stage play. And I thought, do you know what? If I disguise it well enough, my mother won't put two and two together. So I disguised it. I called her Betty. She wasn't Jewish. A million and mum things they lived somewhere else. Her husband was called Douglas. So I changed it all.

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Yeah, well I

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Previews. Anne Reed was playing the part of Betty. Brought my mum to see it. She sat there, watched it in the auditorium by herself, and at the end of it I turned to look at her, all tears in her eyes, and she went, Oh, it's a lovely play, Kay. You enjoyed it then? Oh, it's lovely.

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Four days after I'd like to see that play again.

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Came to see the play again, and then she says to me

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I think this play is about me.

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And I went, it is, mum. It is the story that you told me. But look, it took you twice to realise. Unless we tell them, nobody will ever know. It's still our secret. And she said to me, Oh, that's all right then. It's cut to press night. All the people that had stayed behind to ask questions still there. We all go up on the stage. Anne reads on the stage, director, myself, press are firing questions. Somebody from the Daily Mail starts going, It seems really personal. She was a very astute journalist. Seems very personal, this story, Kay. Can you tell us who inspired it? I came clean, I went, Somebody did inspire it, but I'm not at liberty to say, okay? And then my mother from the auditorium stands up and goes, It was me.

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It's my story, I'm a mother.

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All the press turn round.

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She becomes a star. They're all there, microphones underneath her, dictaphone things underneath her. She's holding court, coming out. It was her saying, I have a voice. I did this thing years ago. It's not that bad what I did. You know, I was married to a violent man, as it turns out, and I found love and comfort from this man that lived below us. It was brilliant.

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But she took to telling me every day this is what you should be writing now, Kay.

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God love her. God love her indeed. Tell me about this. We're going to listen now, Kaymella, to your fourth piece of music. Tell me about this. This is The Rolling Stones. How could I not have that on my list? And I love both sides of this. Let's Spend the Night Together and Ruby Tuesday. They're both beautiful songs and amazing. And this reminds me of my first sort of sexual encounter with Anthony.

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I was passionately in love with him. I was only a kid, probably just 16, just legal. You know, I fancied him like mad.

Kay Mellor16:07

Don't you worry about what my mum do

Kay Mellor16:13

Yeah.

Kay Mellor16:14

I'm in no hurry, I can take my time. Oh, ba la la ba ba

Kay Mellor16:21

Going red, my tongue's getting tired Tongue's getting tired

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Rolling Stones, let's spend the night together. Kay Meller, if you were writing your wedding day for T V, what would we see? What would the scene be?

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A girl.

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Who wore her hair up in loops for the first time? I wore high heels to try and make herself look older. I had a blue suit, crimpline suit on with a swing, so that when I got bigger, because obviously I was pregnant, when I got bigger I could still wear the wedding suit'cause that's all I had in my wardrobe. You know, it would be like three items of clothing that would fit me. Everybody crying, literally. We were children, really. You were sixteen? Yeah, and he was seventeen. And we were bewildered. So we had our reception at the co-op.

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They were sick.

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We got married in the register office and Anthony's mum wanted a church wedding and the the vicar wouldn't marry us because we were too young and said it won't last.

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God bless him.

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Fifty years later. Are you surprised you were even pregnant?

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I didn't know anything really. I was so naive, you know, literally the second time I'd had sex I was pregnant because why? Because I'd never had a pill. And then for ages after I was missing my periods, I just thought, I didn't even realise I was pregnant. I went to the doctor's, I had stomachache, and the doctor said, you know, you're at least four and a half months pregnant. And I remember Anthony and I walking back home going, what are we going to do?

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And I remember going to Anthony and he was going, We're going to have the baby, that's what we're going to do, because he was thrilled, he was completely over the moon. I was terrified'cause I thought I'd let my mother down. And my mum sort of half watching Tally, half looking at me and Anthony, and she went, Are you all right? Like that. And I went, Yeah, I'm fine. She went, What's the matter?

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And Anthony says, We've got something to tell you.

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And my mum turned and she went

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She's not pregnant, is she? Just like that, like intuitively she knew.

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And I went, No Anthony went, Yes.

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Colour drained from her face, and she said, What are you going to do? and Anthony went we're going to get married.

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The rest of the evening sort of goes into some hazy something or other. But I remember the next morning getting up and my mum had made me a boiled egg and some toast fingers. And I remember her saying to me, You've got to eat properly. You know you're pregnant. So there I was eating my boiled egg and she just turned round and looked at me and she said, You don't have to marry him, you know, if you don't want to. Which was incredible thing to say then, back in those days. She went, you can have the baby and you can live here.

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And for that, I was forever grateful because I didn't feel like I had to get married. And I remember saying, I want to marry him, mum. And she went, Well, if that's what you want, and I did. I was in love with him. By the time you were 19, you had two little girls. Tell me about those early days of being you were a kid yourself with two young children and a husband. Yeah, I loved being a mum. I still do. I love being a grandma too. So you weren't there feeling thwarted or compromised or we had no money. Anthony got a job on the buses. He was a bus conductor, and I used to kind of.

Speaker 219:07

Yeah.

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Oh yeah.

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Yeah, and a husband.

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Historical

Presenter19:29

Partition the money out. Monday's money, Tuesday's money, put it in an envelope, you know, and and this is a little bit for the gas bill. Before you got pregnant, aged 14, 15, what had your thoughts been? If if not quite formed ambitions, what did you think you you might do? I just thought it would be in drama,'cause that's what I was interested in. I was the playmaker in the school. You know, I was the one front of the class making up plays. I'd be the one that got cast as the, you know, the lead in any show. And

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Yes.

Speaker 219:40

Yeah

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I loved drama. And so as you were taking the nappies on the boil wash from the twin tub to the other and measuring eking out the money in the envelopes, were you not thinking of what could have been?

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Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 220:08

Yeah, come

Presenter20:11

A little bit of me maybe was I used to tell the kids stories'cause when I was living at Anthony's mum's, in particular his sister, Gail, would be in another bedroom. So I'd be telling the children the stories and then they'd fall asleep and I'd I'd stop, obviously. So from the other bedroom it'd go, How does it finish?

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And that Miguel shouted, she wanted the end of the story.

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More music, K. Meller. Tell me about your fifth. I was sixteen, and there I had this little creation put in my arms that had come from Anthony and I's sort of

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love, if you like. And she was the most beautiful little thing placed in my arms. And then this was playing on the radio, which was, you know, a wonderful world, Louis Armstrong. It encapsulated how I felt and still does. Every time I hear it, I think of Yvonne.

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I see trees of green.

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Red Brothers Joe

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I see them blue.

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Five minutes.

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And I think to myself

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What a wonderful world

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I see skies of blue.

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That was Louis Armstrong, and what a wonderful world. By the early 1980s, 1980 itself, K. Miller, I think your life was starting to take on a distinctly new direction. You'd started studying drama. By then, you had two young children. I'm sure there were lots of logistical problems in kind of coordinating all of that. But I'm interested in how your experience as a mature student and presumably all the extraordinary growth and the whole new world that you entered as a student, how did it affect your relationship with your husband?

Presenter22:08

You know, it's fair to say that Anthony struggled because he was used to Kay, who was just, you know, mother, enjoyed motherhood, you know, would do slightly crazy things occasionally, but this was a complete shift. I was moving away from him sort of intellectually. And I think he felt sort of like left behind. And in some ways, he was, because I became all consumed with things like, you know, Sophocles, Commedia dell'Arte, Shakespeare, and it was all

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Beyond, it was beyond me before, so I could sort of understand he couldn't relate to this girl who was morphing into something that he didn't understand, I think, and felt insecure. But I knew that I just had to do this. And so there were, you know, there was one day where we went out for a meal, and I just said to him, This is what I have to do.

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And I'd chosen to go to a public place because I kind of thought it might be a meltdown situation because if he says

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Well, I don't want you to. What how would it end? Would it end?'Cause it could have done, let's be honest about it. But he didn't say that. He said, I'm gonna do everything I can.

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to understand what's going on.

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to try and help you.

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So there was a chasm at that time in our lives. Intellectually, we were separate from each other because I couldn't relate to him anymore, who was busy trying to put food on the table and a roof over our heads and look after two small girls. Do you know what I mean? That's what his roommate was. I was off studying Greek drama, you know. So, how did you build it? Because, in a way, I did this play called Paul, Bretton Hall, which was based on my friend Linda's brother-in-law, and he was called Paul, and he had a learning disability.

Speaker 223:41

Yeah.

Speaker 223:46

Well, because

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He came with us, used to come with us. Now Paul is a lovely lad, but he was quite demanding. So Anthony said, I'll come along with you. I'll look after Paul while you get the gigs and pack up the van and stuff like that. So that's what he did, and then Anthony became interested.

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In working with people that had got a learning difficulty. So one day, Anthony said to me,

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I'd like to go to college, and I was thrilled. You know, it was payback time.

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So while I was touring around with the theatre company earning £90 a week, you know, and he was earning more money trying to put food on the table and pay the mortgage by then because we bought our own little house, I thought, right, okay, I have to let him do this. So he went to Stockport College to do a degree himself. And I then thought, I've got to earn and get a proper job. You know, £90 a week won't play anything. I went over to Granada Television, went over there to audition. So I got the part of the doctor, played Dr. Baker in the practice. Tell me about your next then, Kay Miller. We're going to hear your sixth piece of music. When I had Gaynor, what was playing and around at that particular time was George Harrison's My Sweet Lord, which was...

Presenter25:06

Beautiful. And that summons up a time when I had my second child and just was in l fell in love with her and and it's funny'cause it's quite a spiritual song when you listen to it. And Gaina's now a Buddhist and sort of followed that kind of same spiritual path.

Kay Mellor25:36

My sweet Lord.

Kay Mellor25:40

Mm hello.

Kay Mellor25:44

Mm, my Lord.

Kay Mellor25:48

I really wanna see

Presenter25:50

That was George Harrison and My Sweet Lord. K. Miller, I'm sure you've heard the quote. It goes like this: When a writer is born into a family, the family is finished. Very clearly, that is not the case with you. But I'm wondering about, you know, compelling narrative is born out of difficult material. And we know from listening to you this morning that you have used much of the stuff that's happened in your life. How do you navigate writing about the tricky stuff, the real life experience, without feeling that you're

Speaker 226:12

Happened to

Presenter26:21

Overly exploiting the real lives of the people that are close to you.

Presenter26:26

I have dear friends and some of them are sensible. I can see them going, Oh, but not all of that. And I have other friends who just trust that if they tell me something, I would maybe use it, but I'll disguise it so much that they won't recognize who they are anymore. But of course your mother clearly did. But it took her a couple of times seeing it before she did. But do you ever get the calls of people saying, Well, I was just watching Black? Yeah, I have had one. I forgot to change that.

Speaker 226:48

Yeah.

Presenter26:51

Forgot to change their name completely. I was meant to change their names down the line and I didn't. And it was quite close to the wind, and it was about, you know, sort of their sexuality. And I got a call from somebody who will remain nameless, I better be careful, saying, Kay, you know, and I went, oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. She went, oh, no, no, no, I'm flattered.

Presenter27:13

Tell me about your next piece of music then. We are on your seventh. Ain't no mountain high enough always, always reminds me of Linda, my dearest friend. She's the one that I met at school when I was three years old with her big curly hair, who I absolutely adore. I've known her all my life and she's travelled with me all my life and is a rock in my life. You know, my husband's my male rock. She's my female go-to person. There isn't anything that that woman doesn't know about my life. And she's non-judgmental and gorgeous.

Speaker 227:50

If you need me.

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Call.

Speaker 227:56

No matter where you are

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No matter how far.

Speaker 228:01

Just call my name.

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I'll be there in a hurry.

Speaker 228:07

On that you can depend and never worry.

Speaker 228:13

Nora

Kay Mellor28:15

Winter's cold

Kay Mellor28:18

Can't stop debate.

Presenter28:21

That was Diana Ross and Ain't No Mountain High Enough.

Presenter28:25

If you and your company were to have a script treatment land on your desk that outlined a story where a little poverty-stricken girl abandoned by her father becomes a teenage mum at sixteen, then grows up to be one of the most respected writers, directors and producers of her generation, a successful businesswoman and a wife of fifty years, would you think that was a credible plot? Well there you go, you see. Yes, you see. There you go. I'd kinda go not very lightly, I think. I will beg you though to have a little moment of introspection. You know, I'm giving the title of that drama against the odds, by the way, that's what I'm going to call it, the treatment I've just given you.

Presenter29:00

What do you think it is in your story that's meant that you've done it when, you know, it is a very rare, rare journey that you've made?

Presenter29:07

I think there's been some incredible people along the way that's that's helped me, you know. My mother.

Presenter29:14

Anthony's mum and dad, Anthony, I think people like David Lidderman, you know, who was responsible for Band of Gold being on IT V. It was turned down by the BBC. Turned down by the BBC.

Speaker 229:24

It was turned down by the BBC.

Presenter29:26

People that had faith in me.

Presenter29:29

you know, at a time, you know,'cause I was just a young girl from Leeds, working class, couldn't didn't speak their language, you know. Um, and people that believed in me along the way, still to this day people

Presenter29:44

People going, I believe that she can do it.

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And I'm going.

Presenter29:48

I'm going to do the very best I can. And I suppose a kind of belief

Presenter29:53

In Gail in the next bedroom, shouting, finish the story. Finish the story. I suppose in a way I feel like I've I'm a storyteller and I've got stories to tell and along the way somebody's paid me to do it and people have come up to me and gone I loved last night's episode it was fantastic I'm gonna have brought them pleasure

Presenter30:16

The fact that I've brought people pleasure or entertain, you know, that for me is.

Presenter30:22

It's such a lovely thing, which goes back to the little girl in the classroom entertaining the kids.

Presenter30:28

Tell me about your final one, K. Miller. What are we gonna hear? This guy has got the voice of an angel, honestly. But also, when I heard this record, I thought this is a man who understands the world that I write, that that every person is important, no matter who they are.

Presenter30:45

It's John Legends.

Presenter30:46

Ordinary people.

Kay Mellor30:48

Girl, I'm in love with you But this ain't the honeymoon

Kay Mellor30:53

Past the infatuation, Faye

Kay Mellor30:58

Right in the thick of love

Kay Mellor31:00

At times we get sick of love, it seems like we argue every day.

Kay Mellor31:06

I know I misbehaved and you've made your mistakes And we both still got room left to grow

Kay Mellor31:16

And though love sometimes hurts, I still put you

Presenter31:20

That was John Legend and Ordinary People. So, okay, I will give you now the books. You get to take to this island. The Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and then one other single book. What's yours gonna be? Yeah, I thought about this for a bit and I'm thinking if I'm stranded on a desert island.

Presenter31:36

I want a happy ending. The book that came to mind was Jane Eyre, which I could read over and over and over again because of all the different layers that are in it.

Presenter31:47

And you know, she was a Yorkshire woman writing about a Yorkshire woman and I'm a Yorkshire woman, so her words and her landscape is the same as my landscape. And it's romantic.

Presenter32:01

And it's kind of gothic and spooky.

Presenter32:04

And it's got a happy ending. I shall give you that then. Thank you. You're allowed a luxury. I don't know that I could take my computer or No, I probably wouldn't take a computer, to be honest with you. I'd probably take a pen.

Presenter32:15

a pen and paper, or coloured pencils that I could write with as well, so that I could write, because wherever I can write I can transport myself anywhere I want.

Presenter32:26

To any place, to any scenario, because I'll just create that world. So, on my little desert island, I can be creating this other world and all these other characters, which is going to populate my desert island. And then, if they're coloured ones, I can also paint the scenes as well of where they are and fish and chip shop, and any world that I want to paint. Leads, I could do that. I'd like to take, but if I can, paper and coloured pens. Yes, I will certainly give you that. If the waves were to threaten to wash them away and you had to run to save just one, which one would it be? I think probably what a wonderful world because

Presenter33:04

There I am on this island.

Presenter33:06

And I'd have to listen to that and it'd summon up my a time when I was frightened because I had nothing.

Presenter33:16

But yet I'd got this little creation in my arms and it was something absolutely magnificent. So hope.

Presenter33:26

Hope for the future. That's what that would summon up. I will give you that. Okay, Meller, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert islands. Loved it. Thank you so much.

Speaker 233:33

Island is

Presenter33:58

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Desert Island Discs. You'll find more interviews with comedians, artists, musicians, scientists, sports stars and more at bbc.co.uk slash desertisland discs.

Kay Mellor34:53

This is the BBC.