Jilly Cooper

Jilly Cooper0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Jilly Cooper0:08

Well, I I always wanted to be a journalist. My great-great-great-grandfather founded the Leeds Mercury, which came the Yorkshire Post, and then my great-great-grandfather was editor too. And I used to see all these marvellous men in Macs at airports running round celebrities, and that was what I wanted to be always.

Presenter0:21

Running

Presenter0:24

Did you start on the school magazine?

Jilly Cooper0:26

Well, I they wouldn't have anything I wrote on the School magazine. I think it was a bit bit wild. I think I've always been a bit outrageous, but I the difference I get paid for it now.

Presenter0:33

What was your first job?

Jilly Cooper0:35

Um, well I I got onto a local paper in Brentford, down by the docks.

Presenter0:39

You came to London on your

Jilly Cooper0:40

You know, my parents came. They moved down south. My father got a new job down here.

Presenter0:44

Yes.

Jilly Cooper0:44

And um I got onto this paper.

Presenter0:46

Were your success in Brantford?

Jilly Cooper0:47

Yes, I love Brentford. It was it was very extraordinary. I mean I was a very sort of conventional schoolgirl and suddenly been thrown into the docks. But I used to go and drink gym with the police.

Jilly Cooper0:55

and um with a farmer and and and I liked it very much, I loved it.

Presenter0:58

Was the Kew Theatre still going in your day?

Jilly Cooper1:00

Yes, it was. It was it was you know it.

Presenter1:02

Yes, indeed I do.

Jilly Cooper1:04

Because it was it was I used to go and sort of hang around there too. That was but then I used to report weddings too.

Jilly Cooper1:09

And I always had it wrong because one had a wedding form one had to fill in.

Jilly Cooper1:13

Well I always sort of forgot I I used to keep marrying people to the wrong people a week early and things like that.

Presenter1:17

Week early and things like that.

Presenter1:20

What was the big story that you remember?

Jilly Cooper1:24

Well it was a terribly silly. I had this very wild editor and we didn't like going out very much and and one day it got very, very dark and so we

Jilly Cooper1:30

He said, Go and interview people whether they think the w world's coming to an end and so I went and asked a few few lo some yokels whether they thought the world was coming to an end and then there was a big story. People of Brentford think the world is coming to an end.

Presenter1:42

It was rather a desperate week that, wasn't it?

Jilly Cooper1:45

Yeah.

Presenter1:47

How long did you stay there?

Jilly Cooper1:48

Um I said of two years.

Presenter1:49

And then?

Jilly Cooper1:50

And then I um kept writing to newspapers, um, you know, trying to get into public relations and things like that. And finally I got accepted by public relations firm.

Presenter1:58

Yes. How many jobs would you say if you did?

Jilly Cooper1:59

I'm gonna go to the

Jilly Cooper2:01

Well, my husband always says I had about eighteen, nineteen. I think it was a little bit less than that, but I'm awful I was aw I was very b inefficient and

Presenter2:07

Were you writing at that time?

Jilly Cooper2:08

Well, I was I was making notes. I I sort of kept vague diaries. I was writing love letters too. Yeah. I mean, I I think before I got married

Presenter2:13

Yeah.

Jilly Cooper2:15

I was so and also afterwards I was so busy being in love and out of love that I didn't sort of you know, I think that's a full-time occupation and you don't do really much else.

Presenter2:24

You were making notes and writing love letters. When did you start writing seriously?

Jilly Cooper2:30

Um well I I went I started

Jilly Cooper2:32

Really, I went to a party in London and I met a very nice man and I was wearing a very low black dress.

Jilly Cooper2:38

And we started talking and he turned out to be the editor of the colour supplement of the Sunday Times.

Jilly Cooper2:43

And I think somebody told him that I was quite bright, but rather sort of misguided and stupid.

Jilly Cooper2:49

And so he said, why didn't I write about being married? You know, we were talking about the difficulties of being a working wife.

Jilly Cooper2:54

Yeah. And I wrote a piece about it, you know, all sorts of rushing home cooking aubergines that which wouldn't sort of materialise till midnight.

Jilly Cooper3:00

And um he liked the piece and he bought it and he paid me a hundred pounds for it.

Presenter3:04

Uh

Jilly Cooper3:04

Shang couldn't believe and it came out and

Presenter3:04

Try and quit.

Jilly Cooper3:06

I think quite a lot of people liked it and they signed me up for a column, you know, as a result of that.

Presenter3:10

What were your terms of referent as a columnist?

Jilly Cooper3:12

Well anything was I could I've always been completely free to write anything I like.

Presenter3:15

Yes, and more or less go where you like.

Jilly Cooper3:17

Yeah, anywhere.

Presenter3:18

Which is

Jilly Cooper3:18

Which

Jilly Cooper3:19

Amazing thing really, because in some ways it's it's easier because it means that you can do what you want to do, but it's a bit lonely sometimes.

Presenter3:26

Yes. You've done a lot as a roving girl reporter, um and as a constant reader. I remember um a nice Tedford you

Jilly Cooper3:35

That was a nightmare. I got there and I arrived at ten and I listened to Welsh and walked around in the mud till six and I said, rubbing my hands, now it's about time for a drink, and and no booze.

Jilly Cooper3:44

Take a drive.

Presenter3:45

Yeah, yes. Yes. And a strip club.

Jilly Cooper3:47

Yes, that was very funny because they because they we couldn't get over the fact there was a girl in the audience, the girls kept screaming out, you know, Come up, the blonde in the back, come and join us and things like that.

Presenter3:56

There's a challenge.

Presenter3:58

and the other extreme a diocesan conference.

Jilly Cooper4:01

Yes, that was amazing. That was about sort of five hundred Vickers at Butler's.

Jilly Cooper4:06

Which was very touching actually. It was extraordinary coming down the chalets and hearing this sort of hymn of praise in the morning coming out of the of the conference hall.

Presenter4:13

Yes, indeed.

Presenter4:14

The paper regularly prints critical letters the following week.

Jilly Cooper4:19

Yes, there are

Presenter4:20

Is that a friendly thing?

Jilly Cooper4:22

Um quite friendly, yes. I mean qui some of the critical letters are very funny. I had a lovely woman who wrote to me the other day and said, Dear Mrs. Cooper, I loathe your column, but I think it might be improved if you included a few recipes.

Presenter4:32

Yeah.

Presenter4:34

You ran into a bit of trouble about uh Princess Anne's wedding.

Jilly Cooper4:37

Yes, I did. I I loved it. I thought it was marvellous, but I was slightly sort of free and frank about the guess.

Presenter4:42

You also got into trouble about the best man's tight trousers.

Jilly Cooper4:44

Yes, I I said which was obviously wildly inaccurate. I said he had to come down the steps sideways because his trousers were so tight.

Presenter4:50

Mm.

Jilly Cooper4:50

But I I they were terribly tight, but it wasn't that, it was because he was wearing spurs so long that you have to walk sideways.

Presenter4:55

There's a sort of technical point.

Jilly Cooper4:57

I got picked up by lots of colonels on that.

Presenter5:00

I know you've been offered more money to go to another paper.

Jilly Cooper5:03

Yes, I have. Uh um it it would have been very nice. It was a lot of money, but

Jilly Cooper5:07

I think, you know, I'm a very conservative person underneath and

Jilly Cooper5:10

I mean, I like staying with the same husband and I like being sort of married to the same paper too.

Presenter5:15

Your husband, in fact, is also from Yorkshire, isn't he?

Jilly Cooper5:18

Yes, he is. I I met him when I was eleven at a children's party and he threw jelly at another girl and I thought this was terribly stylish.

Jilly Cooper5:25

And he used to come to our parties and then um we started writing to each other at school and he used to sort of say, Oh my love, I must go to choir practice or go off to orchestral practice or something.

Jilly Cooper5:35

And then he got married to somebody else when he was a bit older.

Jilly Cooper5:39

And um then he

Jilly Cooper5:41

got unmarried, and I met him again in London and when he got married to me.

Presenter5:45

Yes. He's a publisher.

Jilly Cooper5:47

He's publishing.

Presenter5:47

Now in your pieces you've taken us into your private life to an extent. I think some clarification is necessary. Jane there are a number of children, but the number seems to vary.

Jilly Cooper5:59

No, it doesn't really. Um I've got a a lovely stepdaughter of um seventeen, nearly eighteen, who lives with us and then I've got um a son of an adopted son of six, Felix, and an adopted daughter of three, Emily.

Presenter6:12

Yes. And a dog called Mates to me.

Jilly Cooper6:14

The dog call maidston.

Presenter6:15

and a number of cats.

Jilly Cooper6:16

Number of cats with wild names too, and and and four goldfish. Four goldfish.

Presenter6:21

Now you used to be in Fulham, and now you're south of the river in Putney.

Jilly Cooper6:25

Now you.

Presenter6:26

Yes, indeed. Uh do you find partning an improvement?

Jilly Cooper6:28

I love Putney. It's very, very sort of silly and tremendously um neighbour conscious and you get marvellous from a writer's point of view it's a gem because you've got this marvellous tight little nucleus of people reacting against each other.

Presenter6:38

Yes. Well, that's good. Let's have plenty of that. We must keep the property values up.

Presenter6:44

Now, in the midst of all those people and animals and goldfish, as well as writing your Sunday paper pieces, you write books.

Jilly Cooper6:50

I write books, yes.

Presenter6:52

How many is over?

Jilly Cooper6:53

Well I've done six which seems rather amazing. I've done two collected pieces which is marvellous. They just collect what they think is the best Sunday Times pieces and make a book out of them.

Presenter6:59

Yeah.

Jilly Cooper7:01

And I've written a book on marriage.

Jilly Cooper7:04

Which is sort of pretty presumptuous I think. And then a book on the office and a book on women and a book on men.

Presenter7:10

He once left fifty thousand words of a novel on a bus. Did you get it back?

Jilly Cooper7:14

Yeah. That was the most awful thing I think ever happened to me.

Jilly Cooper7:18

It just sort of disappeared and I even advertised and I went spent my time hanging around outside the lost property office, but it never came back.

Presenter7:25

An awful thing. Have you already written that novel?

Jilly Cooper7:27

I'm starting to rewrite it now, but it's a very slow process.

Presenter7:30

This will be your first novel. You haven't written fiction before.

Jilly Cooper7:32

I've written a bit of romantic fiction.

Presenter7:33

Romantic picture. Yes. When was that?

Jilly Cooper7:35

Well, I d I do it all the time really because it's it's it's it I think it's a very good if you're married, if you write romantic fiction it keeps you on the straight and narrow because you have this glamorous hero to fantasize about and so you don't have to go scampering off after other people.

Presenter7:47

Yes, you also write for television.

Jilly Cooper7:48

Direct television.