Reflecting on Joy and New Beginnings

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But I read a lovely thing recently, which was, I bet you turned into the adult that you needed as a child. Oh Godd, sorry Whaty are you doing to me? I'm sorry. I was trying on versions of myself And then suddenly In a newsroom, I suddenly had a focus. You getting into journalism was the first step towards the power of the written work. So I wrote me Before You and suddenly got so many offers of work in Hollywood. What happened then? My mum died and I got divorced and then it was just survived. That's a lot of rief The world will have its way with you. You just have to keep bouncing back. I want to ask you about dating in midlife, but also your top bits of advice for anybody watching this who is getting divorced. The very very first thing is First of all, I just want to say welcome to our humble abode Jojo. You you know it's funny 'cause we've met before We did. We met a strange period of both our lives. Yeah, And I want to tell you that I knew we were kindred spirits Well, we cut straight to the wwistle, didn't we That evening. And I couldn't wait to get you on here because of the number of times that you have pivoted. begun again. And I love the way that you are able to verbalize that because obviously you are a fantastic wordsmith and a worldwide bestseller writer, but Also, you are a very wise and sage woman and it's just nice to have you on I said. Welcome. That's really kind of you. Thank you So often I don't do this. I don't start at the beginning, but I would like to start with your upbringing in the East End and with your parents because you had quite different parents for the era like they were quite boohemian. Yes, it's quite funny because you always assume that your own parents are the norm and it was only when I ite a bit older that I thought, No, not everybody's parents had a tortoise walking around the house. and free roaming. free roaming sort of a yeah, that they Someone described them as hippies with a work ethic. and I think my dad would bristle slightly at the idea of him being a hippie. But if I look at the pictures, they're not far off. they They were very hard working though, both of them. So there was never any kind of lying around getting stoned. It wasn't that kind of a hippie. I think they just they were very arts minded. they were a bit alternative they but might abiding childhood memories of them working I was either out with my dad in a van or I was sitting under my mum's desk while she painted She was an illustrator and he set up a company that moved workors of art So that That's my childhood memories is working B Both of those jobs based around extremely creative process. Yeah. I mean, it was kind of an extraordinary childhood when I look back because my dad set up this company called Momart, which grew And and it was Basically lots of warehouses that were full of works of art, everything from kind of priceless, I don't know, David Hockneys or Vanguves to Cartney storing the Beatles uniforms from Sergeant Pepper So you know I was a cleaner there for a while and I would just putot around and you you'd be confronted by these extraordinary things. And I think you take on some of it by osmosis. I didn't ever want to be a visual artist, but I think there's definitely something about being around all that creativity that fed in But I think the most important thing I saw with them was just work. You copy what you know. and they were always working. So I just thought that's how You exist in this world, you work and And I grew up in the seventies and eighties at a time when you could still rely on working hard to get you somewhere. I think it's much harder for young people now Yeah, I just I loved meeting all the people that came through. I remember meeting some kind of amazing artists. I watched the people that my mum worked with creating amazing things. My mum's partner, who she went on to marry, was working with Stanley Kubrick on doing on set work for two thousand one. so there were sort pictures of You know Mr. Kubrick on set. So Everywhere I looked there was something interesting going on. Yeah. but I think I was also a bit muulish. I didn't want to do what they wanted me to do. Yes. So yeah, that's how I ended up in words rather than pictures. And I mean, you grew up in Hackney. I did. understand. Very different. What was it like? My momum used to hate this, but My abiding feeling when I was growing up was not safety. Right It was I was tiny and blond at a time when to be those things was not the safest. and So very early on in life, I learned to put my keys through my hand when I got off the bus, I got followed home from school numerous times We got broken into a lot and It's funny, you grow up and you absorb all this stuff and it's just your life experience It shows up later in life in different ways. I remember my daughter kind of wearing a pair of shorts once when she was going out. and I said, you can't wear that. you know, you don't understand what's going to happen if you provoke that sort of response? And she just looked at me and I'm like, Mom, this is Saffrim Malden, not Hackney. It's like I'm fine. But I think I was hyper vigilant for a long time. I moved out of London when I was thirirty. and It just felt extraordinary to me the safety. Like I could through a wood and not feel unsafe and I felt safer and safer as I've grown older, but I don't remember feeling safe in my childhood. and my parents were working, so I was a latchkey kid. so I spent an awful lot of time on my own u which I've spent many years in therapy kind of undoing. Oh, it's um My M too. Yeah. Not the latchkey kid thing, but but I was thinking about things that happened to you when you were a kid If something difficult happens to you when you're an adult, often the old feelings from that experience of trauma, whatever you want to call it will be echoed again in this present day issue unless you learn to deal with it. Oh So that's what I've used therapies to help me in particular in the last year and a half. but the word that my therapist ve got to listen to me who am I I've changed. The word that my therapist uses when My parents, my well, particularly my mum would leave me. And back in those days, they did a lot. They did. didn' kids. It theses kids. It was a very different experience. Yeah. She said you weren't left. You weren't forgotten You were abandoned and you need to use that because it's not it's not what they meant to do, they didn't know. They just were saying, you'll be fine. you'll, you know, you you'll be safe to a child and they didn't know this the parents No that time so it's not their fault They did, you felt abandoned you. I not was into your m reallyally interesting because I was also thinking there was also a big bit of me that protected them from the things that happened I remember being chased with knives by some guys with two of my girlfriends when we were about fourteen. and it was only because we knew the very labyrinthine back of the flats on the estate near where we lived that we could shake them off. And I remember us collapsing indoors slamming the door and kind of falling onto the mat, like staring at each other like just happened and my mum calling from upstairs. Did you have a nice evening? And we all just went, Yes. because you knew that They couldn't cope with the knowledge and also that the risk of not being allowed out. I think It's really hard to convey either to this generation or to men often, what it was like to be female in the low seventies, early eighties. It was different. It was completely different. I mean Benny Hill had a really big influence on men's behavior. The amount of being chased around didid you hate? I h Oh so much. I was so angry by Benny Hill. Yeah. but also the feeling that you couldn't fight back because it was just part of being a woman. Yeah. Now someone touched me on a busub punch their f. But then you just tolerated so much I do think, while there's a lot of things that have got worse for women, I do think the fact that women, young women can name it and understand what it is against it is a really important development. Every single woman I speak to era the same experience and I know you have three children and ye my youngest is nineteen now I literally feel so proud of myself that I've got them through life without anything terrible hacker to them But we did it a very different way. I think if anything, you know, I've had the brakes I've had to put on myself is to not be a helicopter parent because You know, I think every generation decides they're going to do it differently to the one before. don't they? And I just knew that I wanted my kids to feel that I was there even if I was emotionally tuned into something else, my work, but I was in the house, they could come to me for stuff. I didn't much of a social life. I didn't do very much for a long time while my kids were growing up. other than work or be with them and So they had a very different childhood to me. and they also had each other, although I'm sure like my siblings, they would sometimes have rather been on their own. But I think I hope they would say it was a really happy childhood because We just kind of bummed around in the house and garden and had chickens and all that kind of stuff. and Well, you know what it's like yours had a rural semi rural childhood too. I think it's a really nice thing. It's certainly better than Running from the number seventy three bus stop with your keys through your knuckles. Yeah. When you look back at little Jojo. Yeah What what does it feel like You must be proud of her. Do you know, I' read a lovely thing recently which was I bet you turned into the adult that you needed as a child Right Oh God, sorry. I know. It's quite a thing when you think about it and I Why are you doing to me?m sorry. That's amazing, isn't it? you the adult that you needed as a child And did you I Yeah, I think Like you said, our parents did the best they could with the knowledge they had at the time. and my mum was very young as was my dad. My mum was nineteen when she had me. so I totally get Also they were broke, so they had to work So H If I'm honest, I would have liked to feel less lonely I was without siblings and I spent a lot of time on my own in a house that I was afraid of because we'd been broken into a lot And And this is going to sound very woooo, but I once got hypnotized and I went in really skeptically thinking You know, because I was a journalist for ten years. I'm like, well, I don't know how this is going to work. And I was a bit nervous and I was like, I'm to keep one part of my my I I can lock that bet away. Yeah, you better not mess around with me. And then It was one of the most weirdly moving things has ever happened to me because this guy took me into my childhood and Oh, this is going to sound a bit weird. but u Because I was afraid from when we'd been broken into we had an old church pew in our front hall and I used to get home from school and I would sit on the pew until my parents came home because I was afraid to go upstairs because if the people broke in, I wouldn't have a way out. It was one of those tall thin Victorian houses And this hypnotist someomehow I'd forgotten this and he got me to sit next to my I don't know, twelve year old self on this bench And and I was really conscious that I was hypnotized at one level, but also I wasn't. L I was also aware of two sides of I thought it was a really strange experience And then he said, What would you do with that girl because I was a mother by the time I had this hypnosis And I said, Oh I want to take her into the kitchen and give her some toast because I know and then I cried, buckets. and It really hit me then, like, o you were just quQuite anxious, quite a lot of the time good reason as well. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't a great place to grow up, to be honest um, And so that's what I did. I took my twelve year old self to the kitchen and made us some toasted peanut butter and then cried backets. So when you came out of your hypnotism Yeah What were the things that you noticed changed in your presence Life. O Gosh, that's an interesting question. and I'm not sure if there were any immediate changes. But I think I had to start acknowledging parts of my character that had come from that. and honestly I think there are a lot of positives. I am a very practical person and very capable. The downside is I am hyper independent. I find it very hard, almost physically impossible to ask for help Yeah Because also it just feels sort of horribly self indulgent. Again, if you're a girl of the eighties, just just muscle on, get on with it And it was girl powerower before girl powerower, right? Yes It's cosmopolitan. You can do anything. You just have to make sure you're skinny enough, work hard enough, you know know all the sex tips and just get on with it. That was the ethos. And I half of me, you know, when daught's generation is taking their mental health days or you know, complaining about some what I would have considered in my age almost non existent sexual harassment Half of me wants to applaud them because I'm like, oh, you guys are really taking care of yourselves. And then I have to fight this slightly reggressive part of me just going, Ohh, come on, just get on with it. And you know my partner says to me quite often, you can be quite tough You know, just get on with it because I feel we my girls than I am with my son because are you I'm a girl Yeah, but I think it's also because you know what they're going to be up against. So you're trying to give them armour Yeah, I hadn't thought about like that I'm trying to make them strong Yes. I mean, they are, you know, I mean they're amazing. I'm quite interested in how you came to look at journalism because Journalism is quite a tough Yeah, Um like line of work to go into. Yeah. So what was it that first it was kind of an accident. I didn't go to college for two years. I was quite happy doing my thing And then I was working for a bank doing statements for blind people and They sent me on a management training course at Oxford University and For the first time, I was suddenly surrounded by young people my age who were fiercely ambitious And you talk about pivots and there was a real pivot that happened at this point because I had been engaged up til then. I think because I was It was a bit estrangeed for my parents from the age of sixteen. Things had not gone well after their divorce and I spent a period of time where I kind of just did my own thing. I was living in lodgings on the Blls Pond Road with a very nice family and from there I went to university. Wow because I just realized after I met all these it was in Oxford University. It was a one week course. I mean, if you've been living in a room with flock wallpaper and a picture of the laughing Cavalier and the windows shake every time the number seventy two bus comes past, I can promise you suddenly to be in the dreaming spires. You're like. And then there's all these people are going, yeah, yeah no I want to travel the world and then I'm going to do this I was thinking God, I'm just working at the pub in the evenings and doing statements for blind people in the day. And I remember my then fiance came to pick me up on the last day and I broke off my engagement on the way home because I was suddenly transfixed by these people who had a really wide horizon. Everybody had a big horizon Everyone I was mixing with didn't leave their own postcode. It was just.s very small lines. And I think my parents slightly dispared of me at that point because I had rejected everything to do with their lives, art, culture I was working in a pub, I didn't care. I was, you know, engaged way too early. I think because he had a huge family and I wanted to be part of a big family. It was the Waltons thing, you know, just like Oh my God, I wanted to be in the Waltons. Yes. I just wanted to be embedded somewhere. And so I yeah, ended my engagement didn't go down terribly well, understandably. And then I got a place at Royal Hollowway and Bedford New College. Honestly, I hadn't thought about what I wanted to do. I just liked the building. It was really pretty, it looked a bit like Oxford. I never made strategic choices. Wow. I just kind of was buffeted along but can I Can I ask you? You did when an opportunity arose Take it. takeake it. Yes. I think there's always been a really strong sense of self preservation in me. I think I'm resilient. Yes, you are. And that's the difference and that's the thing I try and teach my own kids is just The world will have its way with you and you just have to keep bouncing back which I think is the point of your podcast. Yes. Well, I mean, I always try and explain it in the simplest of terms, but it's really, I want you to live a life you've loved. Yes, so you can die happy. But you know, my friend Sophie Canlla died just before Christmas of a brain tumor and she wrote a letter be read out at her funeral, which was So good and so funny and heartbreaking. but one of the first things she said is, Ah, but I have been so lucky and Having known her for twenty years, I totally got it She was married to the same man that she adored for thirty five years. She had five glorious children. She'd had this career that she could only have dreamt of. And that was how she chose to meet it. It was notot, why me? you know, I have all these things to do. That wasn't in her nature. She just That's exactly how she viewed it. I have been so lucky. and it was very liberating for all of us who loved her to hear it Wallets for that exact free. Yes And you're going to miss her. She lives an enormous hole in your life B every day. But ye You are at peace her death, which is a gift from her. Yeah. But I think this idea of grasping opportunities even when you weren't sure. Yeah, if it was something that you wanted to do, but it was an opportunity and not being afraid to fail. Yes quuite fearless really, but Oh, I have failed so many times I mean I The first really lucky thing that happened was I when I was at university, I started wor on the student paper and then I found out there was a local paper that might take, you know interns. and so I opp in and I said, L, I can make tea and I can empty bins and I can photocopy for you. And I think I just really pushed them until they agreed I was just this annoying person who would turn up a couple of times a week. and then eventually they let me start writing pieces. And I thought, this is my thing. And I remember walking into that tiny newsroom and everybody was working on typewriters with three sheets of carbon paper. It was so old school. But I just remember thinking, o, Here are my people.es. And I had never felt at home anywhere until that point. I didn't feel it at school, I didn't feel it at work in the pub, any you know, I was always sort of trying to fit in, but I didn't feel like that was me. I was trying on versions of myself And then suddenly in a newsroom I thought, o, okay, I can just relax here. I can be who I am. So from that point I suddenly had a focus and I think Th best thing you can be given in life is to know the thing that you want to do because that was it then for the next ten years. You know, you getting into journalism was the first step towards putting words in an order of realizing powerower of the written work. I just loved storytelling. Yeah. I realized that from the start, I loved talking to people and then everything changed when you had your first child Yeah in terms of you know, journalism and well, I started writing books I Also at the Independent was Helen Fielding, who wrote Bridget Jones. And I remember watching her do that column from afar and thinking, oh wow, They may have had tried harder or been as talented. but it was like someone accessible was doing it right in front of me and succeeding. And then there was a sort of huge tranche of I think they were called chick lit novels in the nineties and lots of novels about being young and in London. and I kept thinking they can do it, why can't I as that thing? So I started to write in my spare time and Charles, my husband was very understanding and used to take daughter out when she was a toddler to the park on Saturday morning so that I could have some uninterrupted writing time and I would get back from work and I would write or I would get up early before work and write. I ended up writing three books in my spare time. What happened was the first one got rejected, but someone I knew who knew an agent showed it to them. And they said, well It's not publishable, but you've got a voice, you should keep going and that was all the encouragement I needed. And then I wrote a second one and that got me an agent, even though it wasn't good enough. And then the third one did go out on submission to six publishes and I was so excited. I thought that that was it. And I was pregnant with my second child then. very sickly. I was hopeless at being pregnant. And I also had this thingis pubis.is Pubis you can't stand on one leg. Yeah standanding on one leg is like Every actually stabbing in the vagina. I had the same thing. So So here I am, picture this grrey Bmange, bit weepy On crutches, really gorgeous. Pak je advertisement P being pregnant. And then six rejections come back one after the other And I'd written three books by then and I just thought this I'm not going to happen. I can't use up all my free time when I've got a baby and I've got another one coming and I have this very understanding husband who cannot letting me you know, use up our family time to do this And Ied for about two days. G is a very vulnerable thing because you're giving of yourself. I used to say it's like someone' saying, Sorry, your baby's ugly Be it is it's you've poured everything into it, all your love, all your thoughts, all your you know, so much of yourself and it's just like, no, we don't want this. So I have huge sympathy for people who books are rejected because it's not just a piece of work, it's a piece of view they don't want it. And I mean, how long would it take you to write a novel about eighteen months to two years at that point. Yeah. You'd taken six nearly six years, five or years Yeah out of your life. Yeah do three books. Yeah and no one wanted you. Like that's a long Yeah T And you're thirty at this point? Yes. I was just because I have my second child at thirty one. So yes. And I just thought, okay, we're done. we're done here. I can't keep trying. You know when you've got that little idea in the back of your mind, something that You think, you know what, I might do that one day. and then life gets kind of busy and it just sort of stays there. 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And then it explains what your body is telling you clearly and calmly and then gives you a weekly plan with an in app coach So you know what to do next. More worry It's a way forward Go to do health. co slash begin again and use code begin again. look in early access pricing. Where did Me before you come come from. It wasn't me before you. This is No it wasn't. It was a book called Sheltering Rains. Yeah, sheltering R. It was course my grandmother who was Australian And she had married my grandfather after two weeks of knowing him And she'd actually been attached to another man at the time but just met my grandfather, fell in love. They were happily together until he died. But she told me this story and I'd never really got into how they'd me. I was like, Hang on, he was Scottish. You were Australian. How did you meet? And she told me this story and I said How did you know after two weeks? And she said, Oh well, you know, dear, you just know, don't you? And I thought, Well, no, I can't even pick a brand of air conditioner and stick with it. so And it got me thinking about how different generations of women have viewed choice and how sometimes how having loads of choice might actually be best thing for you because she just made this commitment and she's stuck with it and I suddenly thought, oh, I want to write about different generations of women. And unbeknownst to me is where chance and luck came in. Mave Binchci, Rosmamond Pilcher, all those great Doyenes of female literature had suddenly announced either they were retiring or they'd written their last book. And so publishers were casting around looking for a multig generational story. So I wrote three of this story and a synopsis and I sent it to this agent and she just sent it back going, I want more. And I went out heavily pregnant and met six different publishers.. And they all bid on this book. So you were suddenly in a bidding or having been literally, no one would go anywhere. No one would touch me You that you were in a bidding war. And then I remember I have a friend who works in publishing and he was advising me and telling me You know, just sit tight, you don't have to because I was in a spin now. I was just like, just say yes. I don't care. I just And he said, Well, what do you want? And I said, I just want to be able to redo my bathroom that's all I want. And he was like, I think you're going to do a bit better than that and I didn't end up going with the highest bidder in the end. I went with the one that I felt most A line a line too, which was hr and stout in I was with them for a further eight books and it wasn't I didn't have a single best seller any of them for whatever reason I thought that once I got published, everything was going to be fine. and then you find out, No because you're grafting away, you're doing your little library tours and you're showing up and you're turning your books surreptitiously face out in all the local books shops. And Oh my Godd, Jja, did you do that I love that. I still do and anybody who says they don't is lying. Those eight books. Yes So you are at a stage now where none of them are bestsellers. No, I en writing these books I put everything into them and for whatever reason You don't know why. they're just not taking off. And Is anybody going tryry bit more this, tryry bit more? It's like nobody knows nobody knew why. They all loved my writing. They would read the books, they would make them cry They would try new marketing strategies Uh There was one that everybody thought was going to be huge and then the Richard and Judy list had just come out three weeks early and it was like being run over by a steam roller because everyone at that point just went for the Richard and Judy books I just saw my little book just disappear under under the big rooly thing and You just don't know what people are doing what's going to appeal. And my problem was I kept writing very different kinds of books and the supermarkets were very dominant in book selling at the time. And so they wanted to know that their customers could trust what they saw on the cover mind didn't fit into anything Be one minute I was writing something historical, the next minute I was writing a kind of almost a murder mystery. The next time I was writing something else. and I didn't They couldn't jacket me in a way that said, oh You know, here's this thing, like cozy crime is massive at the moment. You know what you're going to get Yes a cozy Cime Yes yes yes. Richard Osmond thing None of my books fit that mold So I'd to sense that my publishers, although they hadd been incredibly supportive and tried really hard, they were losing interest in me. and then I was looking after, helping look after my aunt who had multiple sclerosis. I had another close friend who I'd trained with as a journalist who also had late stage multiple sclerosis. And so I'd spent a lot of time consonsidering the issues of dignity and hope when you have someone in your life who is H in need of twenty four hour care just to stay alive And then there was this court case that I read about, actually I heard about it on the radio first. A you man it wasn't a court case, so it was a case of a young man called Daniel James, who was a rugby player, a young rugby player who had ended up quadriplegic after an accident and after a few years had persuaded his parents to take him to Dignnitas. and I remember being really shocked by this story and the journalist in me wanted to read more about it. So I was sort of reading all the information that I could because At first I felt quite judgmental of the parents and then I realized that brain seeks certainty, but actually a lot of issues are far more gray than that and it because of what was going on in my own family and my attempts to make my aunt happy when there was nothing for her to be happy about or look forward to anything. And I knew that if she had known about Dignitas before She had got ill that that's the route she would have chosen because she was furious and unhappy about the indignities that she had to suffer as a woman who could no longer take care of herself.es It's a no it's a lot of things that you don't even think about as an able bodied person And I came up with this story idea I told my publishers and they kind of looked at me like Mmm Okay. And then I think if we're going to talk money, I'll tell you, they offered me one sixth of the amount that they'd been offering me and Penguin Michael Joseph, who had been I won't say courting me, but they'd certainly let me know that they'd be interested. Their managing director, Louise had loved a couple of my books and was sort of furious on my behalf that they hadn't done better. And so I had lunch with her and she laid out exactly what she would do. And she said, We're not going to be able to rebuild you quickly because your sell's history is terrible We can do it and we love your work and we think you know, and They offered me the same amount of money But I just felt that was more aligned. More aligned. Yeah. she was so enthusiastic. More importantly, she had this vision that I trusted. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with me. And I thought, I've got nothing to lose. I'm going to switch to these people and Th Richard and Judy picked up this book And the rest is history because it started a kind of snowball And I remember a friend saying to me that for about the first three years of actual big success, I look like a rabbit in headlights.ally just I kept thinking, well, it's going to stop now. D it's going to stop like thinking it was going to get taken away from you. Yes. You couldn't trust it Absolutely not. And it was about three years before I finally thought, o Okay, so the next book sold okay and now the backlist, the books that I'd written before the other eight 're starting to sell Oh, maybe this is okay and And then may before you, went around the world and I mean, can we just talk about numbers there? How many countries, how many languages, I mean, something like forty six languages. Yeah. believe. I think it' about fifteen million copies so far. And then the rest of them have sold another forty five on top of that. So I went from selling I mean a handful. Like I don't think I made six figures to I think now it's in the region of sixty million all happened in my forties these I mean, this is a real A really solid loud message. Yes So any billiions And also keep going. never give up. Yeah onn your dream. never you know, sure, like do different jobs, do whatever you need to stay afloat, but Never give up. No, because anything can happen. Yes, and also love the process because love the process. I deffinitely. When I pitched me before you, I remember pitching it to my hairdresser lovely Frank and he always used to ask me what I was working on. I said, Oh, well, I've just started this book. It's a bit weird. It's about a quadriplegic who's decided he wants to end his life and it's about Um, you know, this carer and he just looked at me And I said Okay, let me change how I describe this I said, It's about a man who has everything and then decides that because he can't live the life that he had he wants none of it And it's about a woman who falls in love with him and decides to try and change his mind. And he went, Oh that I would read And then my dad, when I first he read it and he said, Well, darling, it's very good, but I think, you know, you're going to get in terrible trouble with the Catholic countries. They're not going to like it The truth is for the first three years that that book went out into the world. I think got I was delued with the emails. I cannot tell well, I've got them at home still, but like probably thousands of emails from people who were either in a similar position. They were carers, there were people suffering life limiting illnesses, or they were people who were in a wheelchair and Pe responded to it in this extraordinary way. So by the end of that three years, I had to take every Sunday simply to respond to all the messages. And in all that time I only had one message while it was just the book. from a woman who was furious with me. and I entered into a correspondence with her and it turns out her daughter had taken herself to Dignmatas without telling her and she was so angry and we I can completely understand it. And so we talked for a while and we came out on good terms with each other U J, can I ask you something? Yeah Is that you've just told me that Sundays were spent answering people and you had this woman and you entered into a discussion with Is that really important to gauge people and how exhausting is that? because it's an awful lot of giving Yes. Well I had to stop in the end because it became very overwhelming and I'm quite a kind of pooreous person, so I would take on a lot of There things You know, under I'm a lot older now and I've had a lot of therapy. so I understand about boundaries, but I didn't have any. I just felt I've had all this luck. And I remember hearing about JK Rowling once talking about the guilt she felt when she was successful. And I thought, how ridiculous. Just enjoy it And then I got it because I'd written this book that was very specifically about You know, terrible things happening to people and And suddenly, people were asking me to share their experiences and wanting to tell me and being incredibly vulnerable And so I had to answer them it was like the least I could do. you think. And also finally I had some readers, That was the other thing I wanted to Thank you. Thank them respond and make them feel like they hadn't wasted their time. But then it becomes too much. And then some of the people want to answer you again and again and then I'd taken on a friend, Jackie as an assistant by them because I couldn't cope with the volume of stuff And so we set up an arrangement where I would answer the first one and then she would answer subsequent emails. But then people would get unhappy with that because they felt that somehow I was blocking myself off from them And then I realized that I got to a point where I couldn't make anybody happy. No, because I couldn't answer all the emails. And so we had to take the contact button off. You went from just being desperate to get into this and then thinking, my god, and you actually hit a bit of overwhelm like where you I did. I actually I'm a bit broken. What happened then? Do you know what an ESI is? Be honest. It does the same job as a physical simM, but it's built into your phone digitally And Sale, who sponsors Begin again is an ESIM app I love because it gives you a safe, secure internet data connection overseas without having to pay expensive roaming fees. It's available in over two hundred destinations and it comes with built in cybersecurity. But the best part is that it lets you change your online location to home Well you're away. If you've been watching a show, for example, then you go on holiday and suddenly you can't access it anymore. Well with Saly, you can. G it a try. Download Salely in the app store. or by scanning the QR code that's on your screen right now And for a cheeky fifteen percent off your first purchase, you can use the code DeVina cheheck out. Divena the fifteen percent off So the thing about Achieving some success after a long period of not being very successful is that you find it very hard to say no I mean, I don't know if you've experienced this in your life. You're very conscious that fortunes can rise and fall. and so you feel like I've got to milk every opportunity as it comes. And I wrote the screenplay for the film of Mo Be You and it was a big commercial success. My my God So I suddenly got so many offers of work in Hollywood So I My kids were all school age, so I was getting out and doing whatever they needed in the morning. Then I would be writing books in the day and then in the evening I would be on LA time working on scripts and never free. never. And in fact, I was thinking about One year, I think it was twenty seventeen where I had one week's holiday and we all got food poisoning just being so gutted. It was in October. We were in Lisbon and We'd been to a fish restaurant two days into our holiday and I'd been so excited about this holiday. I was so uncool on the plane. I was pretty much bouncing. And so I've never been very good at giving myself rest I like working and I'm really lucky to do the thing that I love. So I find it really hard to step away from that. And I think It's not unusual for freelancers and I think it's especially not unusual for women. and So that was going on. My mum got cancer They said she would last six months and she ended up lasting four and a half years. And anyone who's been on that cancer journey knows that it is not a straight trajectory It is an absolute roller coaster of hope, despair, treatments, no treatments Is she going to make Christmas this year? Is she not you know, it you are orr I was trying to manage my children's feelings about it. I was trying to help her. I was having my own feelings about it while dealing with work And I was touring a lot. so I The books were so successful at this point that every publisher wanted me at the same time. So I was often doing back to back And I remember doing a really crazy tour, I think it was about three and a half weeks, non stop and M ended up on the west coast of America. It was Denver and I flew out of Denver And there was something like whatever flight it was and I had to appear in the Frankfurt book fair day that was when I stopped And I'd said, I'm not sure about this because the time chang and I't I wasn't sleeping as well. I've always been an intermittent insomniac and at that point I was lucky to get four hours a night didn't sleep very well on planes. So I was like, I don't know how this is going to work because I'm at the end of this tour all the way across America and you're often zigzagging every day. you're flying every day. It's not glamorous it sounds glamorous, but it's really not glamorous. So I'd gone from Denver at the end of I think three weeks and then flown to Frankfurt and there was a big publishing lunch for me with lots of my international publishers. And I remember No I didn't even know where I was at this point. And then sitting at this lunch and someone told a joke and I started to laugh and then it became tears and I couldn't stop crying and everyone was completely horrified. and I felt mortified. You know, I was a forty something year old woman weeping at a table full of people the height of my success. like what did I have to cry about? but I I got home and my best friend rang me and I didn't sleep for about three nights because my body clock was so messed up at that point and she got really angry with me and she just said You have to learn to say no. You have to advocate for yourself and I didn't I learned the lesson a bit But if I'm honest I didn't learn it properly because then My mom died. And o ye that was it. I did learn soorry this is such this is going to sound so humorous, but I thought after that I thought, okay, I'm going to take a year off done o, I'm going to give myself that rest. and I thought I'm going to travel a bit, and I'm going to hang out with the kids and I'm going to do some horse riding and I'm just going to have a lovely time. I'd moved to a new house, which I loved. I had all my dogs, I had loads of rescue animals, horses, you name it. My kids had absolute freedom to kind of bom around and do whatever they wanted And that little crack upp had happened in october twenty nineteen And I thought, right, twenty twenty is going to be my year of rest rest and relaxation. And instead, my mum died U I got divorced and we had a pandemic. I never got my ear. I'm And then it was just Survivalv I was going to say it's survival. We all went ont to survival. We like losing a parent, losing your mum and you know, losing a marriage and a mum at the same time. That's a lot of Grief It was a lot of change Yeah It's huge. It was that So huge. And I don't think I realized at first. And I remember saying to this doctor I don't know what'song with me. I can't stop crying And she said, All right to meet like I would be introduced. I remember meeting the script writer Sarah Phelps and I and shook her hand and then I just burst into tears and went, I'm sorry, I'm not normally like this. And she just looked at me like, okay, you need to see a doctor. She's a very capable woman saw this doctor and she just said, talkalk me through what's going on. and I told her And she said, I think you have a completely understandable depression. Like it's a completely natural reaction to everything that you're going through. Crect, C I ask you something? Yeah, Per wereere you perimans that I didn't know it at the time? And I wish with hindsight that instident of antidepressants I'd been given HRT. because I If I'd have been talking to you I think I said this is I don't I think the vocabulary changed Well they don't and also you know, GPs and it's not their fault, but they don't learn about it in med school. So no what is it they've given one? Well they don't they don't even have to do that if they don't It's an optional but yeah. and so you can learn more about it if you want But the college the Royal College of Psychiatrists have just made a mandate that a midlife woman or a woman in her forties, mid forties I mean if she presents with low mood she needs to be told about P menopause, menopause, that HLT is a good option. to go and speak to somebody and not be routinely prescribed antidepressant. Yes Did the antidepressants work for you? They did. They did, but I then read up about coming off them a couple of years later, and that was very scary because it can really send you haywire I was very badly advised by an online GP that I should take a couple of weeks and actually I took nine months. I came off them super slowly at a kind of extraordinary slow rate. I am really grateful to not need them anymore, but I do take HRT because that's what. s me I don't know, trucking, I guess. How did you meet Charles? Thatt work? Yeah, I was his boss strictly speaking because I became news editor. in the late nineteen nineties and He was the technology correspondent of science and teechnology and I just So, o He's a good person, he's really smart there was a huge round of redundancies going on So it felt like every three months would be in the pub saying goodbye to a bunch of people. and then we kind of built our relationship from there being drunk and saying goodbye to people, which was kind of how most people in their nineties started their relationships. Everything changed, you know, as, you know. It is a Even if it's done amicably, which mine was, it is such a dislocating. thing to live through because it's a shift of your identity. And there is something to do with walking into a room and people knowing even if he's not there that you are a a wife or a mrs or you know, you are a partner to somebody And then to go in by yourself is somehow really hard and there's some people who find it very difficult. that you've done this and so I was sort of quite shocked by some people's ions And that's always a funny thing is it? Oh yeah, then people's reactions to your divorce is such a. especially if you are a woman who works hard and is visibly successful because it's automatically down to you. It's It's your fault for not being more present or for not working harder and The one thing I All I can tell you is that I work hard at everything. relelationships, you know S things just And And you know, nobody needs to know more than that by You know, we discussed earlier on that you and I shared a divorce lawyer Yeah one of my proudest possessions is the email she sent me after I got divorced, saying I wished all couples could handle it with the grace and kindness that you two showed each other. And my ex husband is still my friend and we speak every week and he has Christmas with us So I would really like to just ask for your You know, it can be three, it can be four, it can be five, whatever. Yeah U bits of advice for anybody watching this who is getting divorced Yeah. because You never hear that. pulls It' often it might start, oh, we're going to be amicable and then it's not And you've done it. Yeah How did you do it? OkayK. The very very first thing is never marry a man you wouldn't wantan to be divorced from Wait Book So Are they a kind person? Do they treat people with respect? Do they talk badly about their exes All these are key indicators of how that person is going to be about you once you're no longer Can I say something? Gon literally blow my mind I have never heard that Don't marry a man that you wouldn't be prepared to be divorced like or you wouldn't want divorce from. Like like I don't mean that like you know I know about divorce. You're notinking about divorceet but it's like if you were in conflict with this person How do you think they would be? Yes, that is the most Because that is who they are at their core, right? Are they a good person? is what you're saying? Yes. And my ex husband is a good person. That's amazing Okay, so the second biggest one is just It's actually not about you, it's about your kids. You've made a decision that is going to profoundly affect them. Even the best divorce is going to have a negative effect on them and you have to acknowledge that and So even when your ex you might want to kind of stick pins in a dolly or you know, you kick the wall or whatever. you don't do it in front of the kids. Nothing. they get none of it. Absolutely n of it. Get some therapy, get a best friend, punch a pillow, whatever. None of this is going to your kids because even if you are lied and polite about your ex. they will feel it. They pick up on every vibration So I would also say pick your battles. Does it really matter? I mean, I had dinner with Catherine Bedford this divorce lawyer and she was telling me about how Some people will literally bankrupt themselves over who gets the guinea pig. and you have to just say Do this really matter does it matter? And one of the other really important things was when we divided up the things in the house Although there were things that I loved that I let go of, and we'd agreed that any family heirlooms should stick with you know any I wanted the kids when they went into his house to see things they recognized and to feel like they were at home. I wanted them to be comfortable and I think he felt the same way. So we were generous with each other at every point M that sounds very healthy Yeah, I'm not gonna to say it was fun. No, off course, but every want to go get married if it was. Yes, you know what I mean? Yeah yeah yeah. It's meant to be fun. But you did do it in a because as a good man, we were able to talk honestly and at a point when Some lawyers were advising me not to be honest with him. I was honest with him and trusted that he was still essentially the person that I'd married twenty two years earlier And so it was. And so now we talk about stuff all the time. and you know, not just the kids will'll still check in with each other and we buy each other birthday gifts. He is part of my family. I'm not married to him anymore, but he's the father of my kids. I want them to be able to come to me if they've got concerns about something that's going on with him and not feel God can't talk about dad And and yeah, he he has been Yeah, he's someone who will always be in in my life and I never have any regrets about having married him because he gave me the three best kids in the world. And I'm not sure I would have had the career that I had without his the way he was with me and my career if I'm honest. I want to ask you about dating in midlife because there will be men and women watching who are R You are like We didn't have apps, no, like what like what do we do L that was frankly terrifying. Yes and I didn't do it. Uh I I don't I don't think I could No, I ain' I came out of my marriage. We ended up living together for fifteen months because it was COVID and because it was more important to have the kids the kids stability and U And then I was on my own for a year and I was completely unprepared as a very independent person for how lonely I would feel. Really? you felt lonely Yeah. and also because I Huggy kids for a long time and then suddenly they were gone or mostly gone Or certainly not andly want hug. Yeah And I really missed just that physical touch. Yeah in a way and, you know, I've always had dogs and I had horses so There was a lot of kind of hugging of animals, but it's not the same And then I found that I quite anxious going into social situations as well. So I H you been like that before? Noope But I think it was a combination of M There was a brief period where I was recognized And I don't know how you do it because I was very bad at it. I did not like, you know, I like being a name on a spine. I don't reallyally I'm not very good at being visible And so I found that I would be totally hopeless at proper fame because It's that thing when you have a conversation with someone you don't know, and you suddenly become aware that you're becoming material to them, that anything you tell them is going to become an anecdote for somewhere else And so you stop being a human being and you stop being yourself. Kind of thing Yeah. And I had a few occasions where I'd go out and you'd And you must have seen it for the last however many years, but it's that thing there's a slight change in expression and And my level of fame was that compared to say yours because I'm not a visible person, but I was so bad at it. and I'd had a few occasions where I had had those sorts of experiences or I went to a book launch where I could hear my name being whispered behind me as I walked and it was really discomforting and I'm just built for it. I'm just not built for it. So I went to a party was my friend, best friends party and I said to her, I'm going to come for two hours and then I'm going to go. and she knew me and she knew how I was at that point. and she just said, that's totally fine. and I was quite sad, I think, at the time as well. I I was kind of fine on the outside, but I'd go home and try a bit. It's just adjusting as well. isn't it? You're used to having a unit and suddenly I was not part of a unit. I was sort of rattling around by myself. and And I bumped into someone I'd known A friend of my best friends I'd known him in Paris sort of thirty years ago. W. someomeone I'd had We'd had no interest in each other at all, like not each other's type. It' funny, isn't it? Yeah, And I knew he'd been through a lot of stuff because I'd heard on the kind of group grape vine And he just he's a very huggy man and he just said, Oh, come and give me a hug. your life's been a shit show or something kind of And he gave me this hug and I just remember thinking, Yeah. And then we agreed we would check in every hour and have another hug And we've been together ever since And that's beenah, six years Now a big lesson there I feel and I need to really point this out to people. G on So we were in our fifties I I was fifty. Yeah. Yeah. Oh you too. and You know, if you'd have seen him on an app in your thirties You would have swiped. We had nothing like nothing and nothing Not your type. I don't know if we would have got together at any time up until We were the same. Yeah. like just not not looking at each other like that at all So forget type. forget apps. they're just too light. There's no Also, I think the things you're looking for are very different at this age. I don't need anybody else's money.. I don't need anybody else to get married to. I don't need to have children with somebody. There is no tick list of things that I'm working towards. All that matters is Does this person have a good heart Do they make me happy and John has a heart as big as kind of Northumberland. and he canere did Northumberland come? I don't know. That's r. I love that. It's just sort a heart as big as Northumberland, but possibly not slow. I don't know know. But And I'm not going to say it's all been easy. It hasn't. It's involved therapy discovered you know, when you've married for a long time, you settle into certain groups of behaviour. So I had There's habits. Yeah, ways of being, ways of arguing, ways of handling conflict or disappointment or vulnerability. and you just get used to how you're doing it. And then suddenly You're with someone else who is a completely different cat of fish and they don't play by your rules. And it's healthier, would you say, because you are examining things, that you are behaving in a way where you like yourself more. Oh gosh, that's an interesting question Um Sorry, the thing that's just making me laugh is when you get together with someone you knew when you were essentially a teenager There is a large part of you that remains a teenager. so there is part of our relationship that's really childish and stupid and fun. And fun, yeah I think I am a lot more mindful about how I show up And I think he is too. And one of the reasons this has worked is because He is that unicorn of a thing, a man who is prepared to do the work on himself and that I know from a lot of my girlfriends who are my age who might be navigating similar situations. is actually quite rare and I'm really grateful that he does the work too. and so it sounds so kind of Americanized and such an awful phrase doing the work.s There is a reason why a lot of second relationships fail statistically and it's because you're coming in with Children, baggage you know, habits, behaviours that are quite ingrained and and having to navigate quite tricky situations and it requires a lot of Being a grown up and sometimes we don't want to be grown ups. we want to just stamp our feet and go, I don't like this. And you can't. You have to just brring your best self to the table Yeah. And sometimes it might take me twenty four hours to locate that best self. I'm getting there and I think the difference is I'm grateful. I'm really, really grateful to have a second chance. and and to have somebody who really loves me in as kind of huge away as he does to be by John it's quite an extraordinary thing because he has no inhibitions about saying it or showing it whatsoever. it's all out there. In fact, you know, he jokes that I was hilarious for the first year because he would always say, I love you and I would just go Okay you go don't panic, I love everybody. It's all kind yeah. yeah So I don't take anything for granted, you know, We're here and it's good and that's all I ask for. So last year was another kind of reassess. Can you tell me about that? Yeah. twenty twenty was my anacerebalis. It was just terrible then had to rebuild So I moved to London, which was the place that I'd grown up in. and U I some hobbies Which was something that wait, women never do. Oh, my God, I really want to talk to you about this. Isn't it interesting Men have golf? Yeahen What do we do? We don't do anything We' bad happen I remember this therapist saying to me, it was her who made me do it. She she said What do you do when you're not working? And I was say I, Well, I'm with my kids. And she said And she said, Yes, but what do you do for you And I said Well, I walked my dogs and she went, nope, that's walking the dogs. And I went okay, well I do training. like no, that's to stay fit and wow I said, I love a hot bath and reading a book. She was like, No, that's just self care. That's not And I really thought about this and then I was asking my friends, what do you do for you? And they were doing the same thing. And I suddenly thought This is really strange. Why are women so bad at doing things for ourselves So when I moved to London, I took up pilates, which I know makes me an absolute North London cliche, but I really and I've always loved horses, but I used to do what my husband called hacking and yacking, which was just getting lost in the woods and talking to my daughter or with a friend And so I took up Classical dress are, which is really neat Really ridiculous has no purpose in life beyond what it is. So I started competing again, which was the first time I went to a competition, I didn't sleep. I think I was awake till four AM. and And I think I won the first one. It was only very low level And I really love it. So I have lessons every week B I go away to Portugal to train a special place there and they That has been an incredible thing for me. I go by myself. W. sometometimes and I So it was so interesting, you know, we talked about depression I carried it over for a long time and in the mornings were my hardest time. So I used to get up, walk the dogs, walk it off, and then I'd be in a good place And I called John from the first time I stayed at this place in Portugal, and I said, somethingomething really weird has happened. And he said, What? I said, I'm not depressed in the mornings And he said, Oh, like he said, is it ' I'm not there? and I'm like, No, no, I just I think it's because I'm basically being fourteen I'm being fed, looked after. I don't have to worry about anybody else and I'm getting to learn the thing that I absolutely love And it occupies my body, it occupies my mind, it occupies my emotion, it's given me a community. And I really think it's important for women, especially when they're older to claim something for themselves, whether it of advice. I don't know. fishing or you know anything anything L doing a mathi level think is brilliant I've got this lovely list that you talked about. doing in twenty twenty five or the things you did. Okay twenty twenty five and I'm going to read it to you because this is so joyful and anybody watching, men or women just know that you could go and do Anything you like, Yeah Oh no thanks aboutar know what you're going to say now. So This is what I've done in July instead of writing Got three piercings Yeah I had to get one gone because I couldn't wear a buds with it my daughter adopt a half tailed cat? Yes, Stanley Ridden a horse in fancy dress in torrential rain Yeah, I was dressed as a potato ed with an eight year old's four hour birthday party. That was a lot. Not even your eight year old peopleople like just an eight year old I turned my garage into a gym. I did, well done Had some business meetings. Yeah What my dog's eight hundred times, w. had a mammogram. Yes Import. self care. Can you make your machine softer one day, please I agree with that here here Read some books. Yeah. chatted to servers at my local cafes. I love that because I know you're a little bit of an introvert. like you're not a natural No, I'm not I to every got it, but I really love Being somewhere where people know you. I used to live somewhere where and didn't see people for days at a time. but London. I love it. Yeah. ye. it changed your life Yeah down some diseased hedging Yes, looking after Yeah, Nature Stayed up late That was one of my favorites on my deathbed Am I going regret not getting eight hours of Solar sleep every single night? No. No am Im going to be happy I stay up late sometimes. You are But it's just going to take you four days to recover. get over it. Yeah. Yeah. Went swimming in Cornwall. I didly. Gorgeous. Accidentally opened a neighbor's bill for semen storage. Oh Godd. I did. And then I didn't know what to do because I didn't even know that was a thing I may have got rid of the letter. I'm sorry. I think that's illegal probably just admitted to a crime. I was so stunned by the word seemen storage that I didn't know what to do Sorry Made some new friends. Yes, so nice Continued my unbroken forty five day duolingo run of Portuguese. ninetty seven days. Yeah. A Gora U Portuguese is str It difficult. and well done. Can I just tell you I learned about day two hundred that what I've been learning is Brazilian Portuguese rather than European Portuguese. so it's pretty much useless. But I'm still going. Yeah, well when you go to Brazil it's I're going go back to Brazil I failed to paint my toenails. Wh is that so good? Beuse'm I don't think it matters. Great Um And I just want to say U thank you Oh for that list. It brought me personally such joy U it was a beautiful thing and I also want to say and this is your latest book. It is. And it is out now and it's out now in paperback It is And it's called We All Live here and it's about a lot of the things that you and I have been discussing. aboutb women carrying everything and trying not to fall apart of the seams and having a laugh while they're doing it And ain't that what we all want to aspire to do and be And I think reading it in words is thought provoking for women, our age because if we're not doing it but we read about people who are even in fiction It's inspiring. I think because see oursel We see ourselves. Yeah, exactly. And thank you for seeing us. Oh my God. Well, thank you for having me. have been such a deight and I'm so rel I brilliant. Oh I love you. Oh I love you. So just in case you miss this episode here U If you love this episode, I know you're going to love that