Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Writer and producer of female-led TV dramas including Band of Gold, Fat Friends, and In the Club.
On the island
Eight records
It became the theme tune of Fat Friends. 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.
[Her voice] 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.
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.
Let's Spend the Night Together / Ruby Tuesday
It reminds me of my first sort of sexual encounter with Anthony. … I was passionately in love with him. I was only a kid, probably just 16, just legal.
What a Wonderful WorldFavourite
I was sixteen, and there I had this little creation put in my arms … she was the most beautiful little thing placed in my arms. And then this was playing on the radio … It encapsulated how I felt and still does. Every time I hear it, I think of Yvonne.
When I had Gaynor, what was playing and around at that particular time was George Harrison's My Sweet Lord … That summons up a time when I had my second child and just was in love with her.
Always reminds me of Linda, my dearest friend. She's the one that I met at school when I was three years old … She's my female go-to person.
This guy has got the voice of an angel … when I heard this record, I thought this is a man who understands the world that I write, that every person is important, no matter who they are.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:29How 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, 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. 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 … And then I go, What story do I want to tell? And sometimes I don't always know.
Presenter asks
4:43What gave you the inspiration to write about weight and body image in Fat Friends?
I think it was really everybody who I spoke to was on a diet. … 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. … 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. … She said, 'You're two stone overweight.' … 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.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Charlotte Brontë
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. … 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. And it's kind of gothic and spooky. And it's got a happy ending.
The luxury
so that I could write, because wherever I can write I can transport myself anywhere I want. To any place, to any scenario, because I'll just create that world. … 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.
What do you remember of [your parents'] relationship?
Oh, Crikey. It was difficult really because it's slightly overshadowed by what happened really. … I have got some memories of going to Philey in a caravan … overshadowing it all really was hearing screaming … and peeping into the room and finding my mother on the floor. Horrendous. I think it was probably about three. … I definitely think that I thought it was my fault somehow as a little girl. … 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. And then I didn't see him for years and years and years.
Presenter asks
12:36Tell me about the inspiration for [A Passionate Affair].
My mum told me when 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 … I loved him.' … 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?' … 'Well he got killed.' … And then she said to me, 'I've never told anybody this.' … She obviously had a very passionate affair with him and loved him. … I'll never tell anybody, mum. … Cut to 10 years later. … I thought, do you know what? If I disguise it well enough, my mother won't put two and two together. … And then my mother from the auditorium stands up and goes, 'It was me.' … She becomes a star. … It was her saying, 'I have a voice.'
Presenter asks
16:29If you were writing your wedding day for TV, what would the scene be?
A girl who wore her hair up in loops for the first time … I had a blue suit, crimplene 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 … Everybody crying, literally. We were children, really. … I was sixteen … and he was seventeen. And we were bewildered. … The vicar wouldn't marry us because we were too young and said it won't last. … Fifty years later. … Are you surprised you were even pregnant? … I didn't know anything really. I was so naive … the second time I'd had sex I was pregnant … I went to the doctor's … and the doctor said, you know, you're at least four and a half months pregnant. … Anthony … was completely over the moon. I was terrified 'cause I thought I'd let my mother down. … The next morning … my mum had made me a 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.' … I remember saying, 'I want to marry him, mum.' … I was in love with him.
Presenter asks
21:35How did your experience as a mature student affect your relationship with your husband?
It's fair to say that Anthony struggled because he was used to Kay, who was just, you know, mother … this was a complete shift. I was moving away from him sort of intellectually. … He felt like left behind. … I knew that I just had to do this. … I just said to him, 'This is what I have to do.' … He said, 'I'm gonna do everything I can to understand what's going on.' … I did this play … Anthony said, 'I'll come along with you. I'll look after Paul while you get the gigs.' … Anthony became interested in working with people that had got a learning difficulty. … One day, Anthony said to me, 'I'd like to go to college,' and I was thrilled. … So while I was touring … he went to Stockport College to do a degree himself.
“I definitely think that I thought it was my fault somehow as a little girl.”
“I used to tell the kids stories … when I was living at Anthony's mum's … I'd be telling the children the stories and then they'd fall asleep and I'd stop, obviously. So from the other bedroom it'd go, 'How does it finish?'”
“I think there's been some incredible people along the way that's helped me … People that had faith in me … at a time, you know, 'cause I was just a young girl from Leeds, working class … And people that believed in me along the way … And I think … in a way I feel like 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' … The fact that I've brought people pleasure or entertained, you know, that for me is such a lovely thing, which goes back to the little girl in the classroom entertaining the kids.”
“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. 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. And it's kind of gothic and spooky. And it's got a happy ending.”