Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Crime fiction author known as the queen of village noir, creator of the Vera and Shetland series adapted into acclaimed TV dramas.
On the island
Eight records
It's Bowie, and it's got to be Bowie, because he runs through my life, really. I'm not someone whose soul is stirred by music, so these records have all been chosen because of memories or stories.
This is for my father, who was born and brought up in the Ronva. His family obviously had a mining background, and I remember going, and it seemed so romantic and so fun to go and stay with his parents, my grandparents, in this terraced house with the outside lavatory, with the tin bath, the back kitchen with the range being stoked by coal from the pit, and I think it's also about community again, isn't it? Male Voice choirs growing out of working communities.
SuzanneFavourite
This is very much a Devon song. My dad got a job in North Devon. And it was a sort of sense of freedom then for me. I started at the grammar school. I was 11 and met different friends, a wide range of friends. And I had the best time at school, especially in the sixth form. I loved it. And Suzanne reminds me of great intense friendships that you get when you're 15, 16, 17, and sitting in candlelit bedrooms putting the world to rights and listening to Leonard Cohen on there.
This is Chris Stout, who is a brilliant Shetland fiddle player. But he's also a Fair Islander, and Fair Isle is one of the smaller, most remote of the Shetland Isles. And I knew his parents on Fair Isle because the job that I got after dropping out of university, just after a chance meeting in a pub, really. Was assistant cook in the Bird Observatory in Farrar. Couldn't cook, knew nothing about birds, but it was an escape from the city, so off I went. And much later, when I first wrote the Shetland books, I wanted to involve him in some way, Shetlanders, because it seemed like a terrible intrusion to be coming in from outside and writing about the islands. So I got in touch with Chris and asked if we could do some gigs together and I would do some readings and he'd play some music. And this piece is a New Year's Day piece and it's a traditional tune.
This moves us on from Shetland because I told you I met my husband there and pretty well the first place we lived after we got married was another island, a tiny tidal island called Hilbury. And you get there by plodging out in the mud and the sand at low water and then the tide comes in and it's a real island. So that's where we lived and I always loved Geonama Trady anyway but I can remember being invited out to a party and we went in our island gear, you know, wellies, sweater, jeans and it was quite a smart party and there we were and this was playing in the background.
This is from The Last Ship and this is my North East song. I think there was a BBC Do documentary before it was actually complete about Sting's, this musical that he was writing. And I heard a couple of the tunes and said to myself, that sounds good. And Tim was so thrilled that I'd expressed some kind of interest in music that he immediately, without telling me, went the next day, queued up at the Sage, the music centre in Ingateshead, to get tickets. And so we went along to that. And then we went to the northern stage with my daughters after he died to watch them do it there. And in the cast was the fantastic Charlie Hardwick, who's a friend, and she and I had, with a lot of other people, had battled to save Newcastle Libraries. And then it's the North East, isn't it? It's Walsenda, it's Vera filmed for the first few seasons in the Swanhunter shipyard offices. And just the thought that they were making things there again, and it might not be ships, but it was a TV show, and maybe some of the crew were men that had worked there. That made me just dead shocked.
This is Dylan, and Tim was a real Dylan freak, and he did drag me to see Dylan, oh, too many times. And it's back to Barnstable again, because my English teacher was a guy called Michael Gray, who was much more interested in Dylan than he was in teaching us English, I think.
This is Tilted by Christine and the Queens. And again, this is the song for Tim, a final song for Tim, because he loved finding new music. And this is something that I'm not quite sure where he found it or where he heard it, but he loved and dragged me up to his computer. Look at this, look at this music video, isn't it brilliant? And I loved it. And I think it is very restful and sapperific. And if I'm trying to get to sleep on this island with the waves in the background and this, I think this would help me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:06You don't plan your books at all. Tell me about that decision.
Well, partly it's because for the first 20 years I didn't have any commercial success, so it had to be fun. And I think if I knew how a book was going to end, there'd be no fun in writing it,'cause... It's already written in a sense, isn't it? So, no, I start with a scene or an idea or a vague theme and I write the first chapter and then I write like a reader, so I need to know what's going to happen next. So, I have to write the next bit and then the next bit.
Presenter asks
3:32Every time you launch a Shetland book, it's read by an islander before publication. Why is that?
I don't want to get it too wrong. I always make mistakes. The Shetland Times usually manages to find something that I've got not quite right. But it's a matter of respect, really. I know the islands fairly well because I've been going there for more than 40 years, but I don't live there. So it's important to recognise that it's not my community, it's their community.
Presenter asks
5:39How would you describe Vera?
She just appeared halfway through a book. And I think it's quite interesting to go back and try and work out where things come from. And I was born in the mid-50s, and in the small town where I grew up, there were some formidable spinsters who'd either lost sweethearts during the war or who'd been given roles and responsibilities that they wouldn't otherwise as women be allowed... And they wore dreadful tweed skirts that were frayed at the hems and thick stockings and sensible shoes, but they were really competent and authoritative. And they were hospital matrons or they were school teachers. And I think that Vera grew out of some of those women who had decided they'd rather be single than be 1950s housewives.
The keepsakes
The book
Olivia Manning
I want to read the book because it's gossipy, but it also gives an insight, I think, into the politics of the region.
The luxury
Presenter asks
14:31How was that experience [of doing community service volunteer work in London]?
That was mad, really, because I always lived in the country, lived in North Devon, and it was a single dad and four kids. And he worked shifts on the railways. And they were very, very forward-thinking, and I don't think you'd be allowed to do it now. But Social Services decided that they would put two young lasses in to look after these kids to keep them at home. And so two of us went, and we had a council flat in Chalk Farm. And I just didn't feel any sense of danger coming back from King's Cross on my own at midnight after looking after these kids because it was quite rough then. But we had these ideals for these children. And we did things like take them to the ballet and the theatre and obviously join them up to the library. And what they made of us, I'm not entirely sure. And I suppose that was perhaps why I didn't settle at university because reading about Keats seemed a bit trivial after battling to get these kids sorted and get them well looked after and fed and to school.
Presenter asks
27:10You experienced breast cancer and your husband's bipolar diagnosis. What helped you through?
Books, escape, family, friends, great, great friends, and I suppose a kind of sense that we were in it together. And there were dreadful times. There were times when lying beside him in bed and it felt as if I was lying next to a stranger'cause I didn't know him. But the magnificent NHS that I can remember going in and one of the charge nurses saying, Don't worry, we'll get him back for you and not really believing them because he was so different. and so depressed and so anxious. There were times when he thought he was Jesus and he could cure the neighbour's cat. But they did get him back and he was properly diagnosed and... Lived happily afterwards. And I think I would say to anybody out there who is struggling with mental illness. It is something that you can get better from, it's not a life sentence.
Presenter asks
28:19How did you keep up your extraordinary work rate alongside those struggles?
It was escape again. And you need time for yourself. If you're caring for somebody or you're in the life of somebody who's struggling, you need to stay well. And my way of staying well was by writing.
“I start with a scene or an idea or a vague theme and I write the first chapter and then I write like a reader, so I need to know what's going to happen next.”
“I think that Vera grew out of some of those women who had decided they'd rather be single than be 1950s housewives.”
“I was always the one watching and being the observer and being a great reader because that was an escape and it was something I could do on my own.”
“It is something that you can get better from, it's not a life sentence.”
“I like Whitley'cause it's kind of it's a bit scruffy. I don't feel very happy in posh places, in tidy places.”
“I think it would have to be Suzanne because that scrolls through the whole of my memories and it's got so many stories in there.”