Other Inreviews -
for the grown ups too! Michelle was
recently interviewed for the Book Trust Website
< click on the
image to read the interview.
In August, Michelle
was interviewed at the Edinburgh Book Festival
2008
click on the image to hear the
interview.
with
Michelle Magorian
By
Kate Agnew
Susan
Elkin THE
STAGE
- December 1998 - 'Silver Spoon'
Interview
with CAROUSEL October 1998
Interview
from IN BRIEF magazine - Winter 1994
'Searching Under the Cushions withMichelle
Magorian'
TOP
An
Interview with Michelle Magorian By Kate
Agnew
My Childhood Home
Where were you born?
Southsea, Hampshire
What was the nearest town and what did you like best about it?
Portsmouth. In my late teens I used any excuse to go into the King's Theatre there. It was a large Victorian theatre; Henry Irving and Ellen Terry performed in it. I even sneaked into the auditorium and sat in the dark watching a new company set up. They had pre-London shows. I saw Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park with Daniel Massey and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie starring Vanessa Redgrave. Although painfully shy, it was a wonderful refuge for me. It's still there.
Who did you get on with best?
I got on with both my brothers. I was both very bossy towards and very protective of them.
Were any animals part of the household?
My brother Jeremy once had a pet bantum, but it kept waking the neighbours at five am so we drove out to a farm and left it there. Then he had an aviary but a cat got into it. He was so devastated he wanted to have the dead birds stuffed.We had the odd visiting cat, which we had to shoo off as my mother was terrified of them! In Singapore, where I lived from the age of three months to three, I had a dog called Chunky, who used to sleep under my cot but I can't remember him.
My Family
What did your family consist of?
Mother, Father, two brothers, Jeremy and Simon, born when I was five and ten-years-old. ( And briefly, Lee Kim who looked after me when I was a baby and toddler.)
Did your grandparents play any part in your family?
My Irish grandmother died of TB after giving birth to her ninth child in fourteen years. My father was the eldest - he was fourteen. My grandfather then had five more children by a second wife. Aged ten to eighteen, I saw my Irish grandfather for two weeks a year and I have lovely memories of him.
My Welsh grandfather died when I was a baby. I have 'inherited' some of his traits: an unconventional clergyman, he loved Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolstoy and worked on his sermons by pacing up and down. We saw my granny on Sundays. She used to give wonderful high teas with Welsh cakes, ginger and chocolate cake. She had long white hair with a blonde streak in it and collected rainwater in a bucket to wash it in. She used to wear it in a bun. It was fascinating to watch her do it. She had a place for everything and everything in its place, but the order made a refreshing break from the chaos of home.
Was your childhood happy?
I had some wonderful times and some unhappy nightmarish times. Aged ten to eighteen was the worst.
What is your best memory of it?
Wandering around an empty local theatre which was booked for our annual dance performance &endash; I'd arrive with my costumes in a suitcase well before anyone else arrived and drink it all in. Sleeping in a tent and listening to the rain pattering on the flysheet, warm inside my sleeping bag. Hanging around the King's Theatre in Southsea. Saturday morning cinema in Australia (aged nine). Seeing snow on our sloping rooftops in the middle of the night. I had a friend staying over and my father must have taken it for granted that we would still be awake. He got us out of bed and lifted us up through the skylight window and it was magical.
I also have memories of standing on my father's feet and him dancing with me. My father had a wonderful singing voice. He'd sing old Irish Ballads and Victorian songs. I loved hearing him sing. I wished he'd sing more often. I loved hearing my mother laugh. She would cry at the same time. It was so infectious that it would have other people collapsing around her and it would escalate so that I'd beg her to stop because I'd be laughing so much that it hurt.
The other thing I liked was my mother 'finishing off' dramas on the television. If it was one which left you in the air she'd say that this was going to happen to one of the characters and they would meet such and such, and then, etc… She would always take the time to listen to my stories and if the teachers gave me low marks for them she'd tell me that I deserved more!
What made you sad?
The last day of the summer term, knowing I had two months at home to get through.
What were your first words?
My first words were, 'The boys were very rough, weren't they?' aged three years, when my father was tucking me up in bed. I hadn't said one word before then and my parents had been worrying.
My Schooldays
What was your first school like?
Very caring. It was the junior part of a convent. I went to two schools in Australia. (We lived there from when I was seven to when I was nine and a half.) I had nightmares at first and was moved to Kilbreda College in Mentone where I did very well but was a little naughty.
Who was your favourite teacher?
My dance teachers and elocution teacher and a visiting teacher who brought history alive.
Who was your most hated teacher?
I didn't have one.
When did you learn to read? Was it hard?
I can't remember, but I won a reading prize when I was five. I picked it up very quickly.
What was your secondary school like?
Wonderful; a convent school in the country with nuns who loved us and nurtured our individual talents.
What was your favourite subject?
Drama and English.
What was your most hated subject?
Geography.
Who was your favourite teacher there?
Mrs Kent; in Form 1 she called me her dormouse because I seemed to wake up in the summer term.
What was your best subject?
English.
What was your worst subject?
Geography.
What was your handwriting like?
Like now, swings from indecipherable to neat.
Did any teacher think you might become a writer?
I think Miss Quinn &endash; my geography teacher!
What are your first memories of reading?
Being frightened by my reading prize, The Tale of Samuel Whiskers. I remember breaking out into a sweat the first time I read it to my elder son.
What did reading mean to you?
Escape and, later, discovery.
What did words mean to you?
Access to a world outside my own and insights into areas where I was confused.
Were you shy or talkative, solitary or sociable?
All four, still am!
Who was your favourite children's author?
Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome.
When did you start reading adult authors?
Aged about sixteen; plays by Terence Rattigan, the poems of Wilfred Owen and I loved Neil Simon. The war poets had a tremendous effect on me. When I was a student, someone introduced me to Tolstoy and I went head over heels. I remember walking on my own in Paris in the snow and imagining I was in Russia. I also loved plays. I read Barefoot in the Park by Neil Simon in the library and had to leave I was laughing so much. When I went to College I had a craze for American playwrights, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams. I would save up my grant money so that I could go and see a matinee.
Did you read poetry?
Yes, World War 1 poets and, later, the Liverpool poets.
Did you read non-fiction?
Yes, psychology and Stanislavski.
What was your favourite non-fiction book?
Tricky! In my teens, An Actor Prepares or Preparing A Character by Stanislavski, and a tiny 1930's book on introducing psychology including full explanations of introversion, extroversion, regression, etc.
What sport did you like?
Trampolining.
What music did you listen to?
Musicals, popular classics, the Beatles and pop music.
Was music important to you then?
Yes.
Is it now?
Yes.
What music do you listen to now?
Stephen Sondheim and other musicals, some classical.
Did you enjoy painting?
Yes, but hardly did any at all.
Do you enjoy painting now, or looking at paintings?
I like looking at paintings. I really admire the ability to draw.
What part did cinema, drama and television play in your life then?
A lot.
What part do they play now?
I don't have much time as a single mother; I haven't been to the cinema in years, but I've started going to the theatre again.
Who was your favourite film or TV star then?
Jerry Lewis &endash; he made me laugh when I was eight or nine.
Who is your favourite now?
Judi Dench.
What is your favourite film?
I Know Where I'm Going, a 1940's black and white film with a very young Wendy Hillier
My Career
What did you do when you left school?
My further education was at: The Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, 1966 &endash;1969, and at L'Ecole Internationale de Mime, Marcel Marceau in Paris, 1969 &endash; 1970. Getting into Drama Schools when I was eighteen was pretty wonderful. I got into three. I didn't audition for any more after that. Two of them accepted me at the audition. The first time it happened I rang my mother and after I had told her she said, 'You mean they're going to write to you?' and I said, ' No! I've been offered a place now!' My parents weren't keen on the idea of me going into the theatre but after that they had to give in.
What was your first job?
Rumplestiltskin for the Argyle Theatre for Youth.
Why did you decide to do it?
It was touring (I had itchy feet), it was my first Equity contract (difficult to get), and it was a big part.
How long did you stay in it?
For the Autumn.
What did you do next and why?
There was a job waiting for me at the Q20 theatre company in Yorkshire. It was a wonderful opportunity not only to act, but to write dialogue and songs, to sing and leap around. There were lots of wonderful talented people in the company and we did everything &endash; sewing, painting &endash; a huge variety of work.
After my contract finished in the summer I was offered a year's work with the Orchard Theatre Company in Devon. Again, it was a chance to do an enormous variety of roles in a touring company which lived and worked together in a very committed and caring way.
I then stopped touring. I suddenly wanted to stay put. I was offered a job at a repertory company where I only had to act! I continued working in repertory theatre in Perth, Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Worcester, Northampton, Basingstoke, Watford Palace Theatre, Windsor Palace Theatre, Shaftesbury Theatre, the Young Vic, Colchester. I did half musicals and half plays acting 'character' parts and leaning towards comedy.
I also did my quota of hairy creatures, Orinoco Womble, Paddington Bear and the Monkey Wife in the musical of that name.
My Career as a Writer
Did you write as a child?
Yes &endash; stories. While I was training to become an actress I wrote masses of very sad poetry, and some funny poems for special occasions like people's birthdays.
When did you decide to become a professional writer?
In my thirties. I joined a novel-writing class and the tutor Dulan Barber, who was also a writer, persuaded me to send my manuscript of Goodnight Mister Tom to the agent Pat White, who loved it and sent it to a publisher.
How and when did you start to write?
In 1970, scripts and lyrics in Q20. I carried on writing odd lyrics and poetry and I kept journals and dream diaries, and wrote short stories and a novella. I also wrote a couple of plays at college.
Where did you get your idea for your first novel?
Goodnight Mister Tom began as one of a set of short stories about colours, based on a song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I was sitting in the launderette thinking about green and brown, and I began to think of leaves and trees. Brown made me think of earthiness and stability and green made me think of youth and vulnerability. I thought of a young beech tree with a slim trunk and suddenly I saw a picture in my head of a small, thin, frightened boy standing in a graveyard. I knew he was an evacuee because he had a label. He became William Beech.
My mother had been a nurse during the war. I remembered her telling me two stories, one about a boy who curled up under the hospital bed; he had never slept in a bed before. The other was about a boy whose underwear had been sewn together. His mother was furious when she realised that my mother had unpicked all the stitches.
The tenth story in the collection was about the paint box that Tom Oakley had hidden in the cupboard. I wrote about Tom and his young wife Rachel and their idyllic days together. I couldn't get Wiliam Beech and Tom Oakley out of my head. I wanted to know what happened to them next. I spent years working on it and I couldn't contain my excitement when it was finished but even then I had no intention of sending it to a publisher until I read a chapter of it aloud at my novel- writing class and the tutor persuaded me to send it off.
Where did your next novels come from?
Once I started researching for Goodnight Mister Tom there were so many more questions I wanted to ask. I came across a photograph of a group of English children on a liner returning to England after living in America for five years. I remembered the problems I had had returning to England after just two-and-a-half years in Australia. And these children had been separated from their parents. The photograph wouldn't go away and eventually became the beginning of Back Home.
I was born in the terrible winter of 1947 and I suppose I wanted to go back and find out more about the period. There is a theory that some people like to write about the time just before they were born. The period chose me really.
I'm interested in the theatre in the 1940's; people working then are still alive and I wanted to bring it back to life. I met a director who had started by doing odd jobs for the theatre. He'd been evacuated for five years and wanted to stay in the country. He wanted to be a farmer but his father insisted on bringing him back. He started doing an apprenticeship and in the evenings he did work for the local variety theatre. It got into his blood and he was hooked. He ended up being head of Drama at a University. That was the seed of Cuckoo in the Nest.
When I came to A Spoonful of Jam. I wanted to develop the characters more. I wanted to know more about the incident where Elsie had to be rescued, and I came across an interview with a grammar school girl who went hop-picking. She had to leave early to go back to school, unlike her cousins, and she didn't really feel part of either life. I was fascinated too by the cold winter of 1947 and the hot summer that came after it, when I was born. I researched the weather; one time I went into a newspaper library and just looked at the weather forecasts. It was a mosaic really; I started to daydream little bits here and little bits there.
Who encouraged or dissuaded you?
My mother liked to hear my stories. My teachers, however, were not so keen. One teacher used to tell me off for writing stories.
What, if any, writer influenced you?
I don't know if he influenced me, but I admired him &endash; Tolstoy. Even when a minor character appears only on one page he seems able to make them a fully rounded person and so vivid. One can see them scratching their nose and leaning against a mantelpiece. But I love Neil Simon too, and Ackbourn and Michael Frayn. I love Michael Frayn's stuff; he's funny and intellectual as well.
Do you like being a writer?
Yes.
What do you like best about writing?
Writing dialogue.
Can you help being a writer?
No.
Is it an obsession or a compulsion?
Compulsion.
Is it a lonely profession?
No, because you have the company of your fictional people and you meet people when carrying out research.
Do you find writing hard?
I have excruciatingly difficult days, and days when I can't write fast enough for my thoughts.
Did you start with habits that you've since changed?
Can't think of any.
How long does it take to write a book?
If I'm not doing anything else, two years. Goodnight Mister Tom took me four years &endash; three years to write the first draft, a year to re-write it. During the first three years I was writing it, I was also working in repertory theatre which involves working six days and six nights a week, rehearsing one play during the day, performing another at night. I wrote on Sundays and in between acting jobs. A Little Love Song took six to seven years from start to finish, but for two or three years of that time it was in the loft.
Do you have any rituals that you do before writing?
Scribbling a few notes.
Is there a pattern to the writing day?
Not since having children.
Do you rewrite?
Lots.
When your story is finished, who reads your manuscript first?
I used to read it aloud to my ex-husband. Also, I hand it over to a young person in case some of my research background is too obscure.
Do you listen to criticism?
Yes. I also disagree with it sometimes.
Why do you write for children?
I'm not sure why I write for children. Maybe I like looking at life through a young person's eyes. Perhaps I want to articulate what they're feeling. I'm not sure.
Where do your ideas come from?
Ideas come from photos, questions I want answered, overheard snippets of conversation, daydreams.
What kind of research do you do?
Reading, interviews, newspapers, films.
How important is imagination?
Vital.
Do you base your situations on real life?
Not consciously.
Do you base your characters on real people?
No, but real people have sometimes snuck in.
What matters most &endash; the story or the characters?
The characters. Their relationships with one another create the story.
Who do you write for?
Me.
Which of your books is your favourite?
I don't have one.
Which is your favourite character in your own books?
Zach, Charlie, Elsie, Jessica, Rose, Miss Hilda, Dot &endash; I have many favourites.
Are pictures important in your books?
I write mostly for older children who I hope can create pictures from my words.
What gives you most satisfaction as a writer?
I love getting lost in another situation and having the dialogue between the characters taking off, almost out of my control, and being surprised with what they come out with.
What do you dislike most about writing?
Sitting.
What do you hope to achieve through your books?
I want to connect readers with different kinds of people; I want readers to enjoy and care about the people I've invented, to be carried away by the story, to be watching a film in their heads.
Why is fiction important?
Fiction is important because it expands people's boundaries. It makes people feel less isolated when they can connect with the people they're reading about.
Will it still be important in the new century?
Of course.
Do you think TV can complement reading or be a substitute for it?
Complement
Which book, either children's or adult, has influenced your life?
So many books have influenced my life; Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, Six Bad Boys by Enid Blyton and Arthur Ransom's Swallows and Amazons.
Which book comforts you the most?
At the moment, Life and How to Survive It by John Cleese and Robin Skinner.
Kate Agnew
Telling Tales &endash; Mammoth 1999
Republished by Egmont Books Limited ISBN 1-4052-0467-2
Kate Agnew works part-time at the Children's Bookshop, Muswell Hill, and as a children's book consultant. She is co-author of Children at War, a book about children's fiction set in war-time, and has been a Smarties and Whitbread judge.
Other authors in the series:
Enid Blyton, Theresa Breslin, Gillian Cross, Anne Fine, Jamila Gavin, Michael Morpurgo, Jenny Nimmo, Jacqueline Wilson, J.K. Rowling
Interview with CAROUSEL - OCTOBER 1998
As well as being a prizewinning writer, Michelle Magorian is also a professional actress. She has appeared in numerous theatres throughout the country, including Scarborough, where she was directed by Sir Alan Ayckbourn, the Northcott in Exeter, the Watford Palace and the Young Vic. She gestured towards the foyer of the National Theatre, where we had arranged to meet to talk about her writing, and said with a smile, "But not here. I haven't reached these heights." She tours with her one- woman show The Pact, about life in the 1940's, and has recently compiled another called Food and Love, PlayOn!
MICHELLE MAGORIAN - ACTRESS…WRITER
"At school, Michelle took elocution lessons, which prompted a nun to encourage her to go on the stage. " She prayed for my success. Nuns and Brothers," she added in an aside, " like Drama." Study at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama and in Paris with the great mime-artiste Marcel Marceau was followed by rep., where she, a tiny lady discovered height did not matter but that she could act, sing, dance with the best. Her 'inside' theatrical knowledge was subsequently used to good advantage in her books - particularly Cuckoo in the Nest and the latest novel, A Spoonful of Jam.
A considerable part of her childhood was spent in Singapore and in Australia, where she lived for two-and-a-half years. "I still feel slightly Australian," she said, which gave her valuable insight into Rusty's experience in Back Home, returning home after five years in America. Michelle's father was in the Navy and so, back in England, home was close to sea and ships. Today, after a long period in London, Michelle lives with her two sons on the Isle of Wight, and boats and the sea are powerful influences in her book of short stories, In Deep Water.
At school, at college, in rep, during periods of 'resting', in every spare moment, Michelle was " scribbling away", learning how to write. " I always dabbled with writing - but for myself, not showing anyone, not making it public." When she was appearing in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat she began writing ten stories, one for each of the coat's colours. One story - about a boy evacuee and an old man &endash; demanded further consideration. " I just had to get these two characters off my back," she said. " I thought, ' If I can write ten short stories, I can do ten chapters!'" The "scribbling away" continued, in secret, accompanied by doubts, until she joined a novel-writing class and eventually summoned up enough courage to read a chapter aloud. " I was sweating buckets," she recalled. " The room got quieter and quieter…Next week I read another chapter." The completed manuscript was sent to an agent who requested a meeting with the writer. Michelle asked, " Are you going to be my agent, then?" " I won't let you leave this office until you agree!" the agent replied.
Goodnight Mister Tom, first published in America, won the Guardian Award and the International Reading Association Award, and is regarded as a modern classic. It has been made into a musical by Michelle herself, and has now been filmed by Carlton.
"I love researching," Michelle admitted. I spend hours in the Newspaper Library soaking up period detail… Speaking to people, hearing their reminiscences… When I was researching Back Home, a lady I met sent me a tape recording of school memories in the United States in the 40s. This gave me the idiom." This awesome depth of research lends a rich, resonant, never spurious, authenticity to her compelling, involving novels &endash; hence the vivid evocations of wartime and postwar Britain which are an integral part of Goodnight Mister Tom, Back Home, A Little Love Song and Cuckoo in the Nest.
The latest novel, A Spoonful of Jam, is also set in the 'Age of Austerity', when streets remain bombsites, fathers returned from the war are regarded as ' strangers', bread and dripping and fish paste sandwiches form regular dietary items, Peter Cheyney novels are devoured, Dick Barton and the Saturday Night Thriller on the ' wireless' are listened to avidly, and hop- picking in Kent is the annual temporary escape for the women and children. The book is about Elsie, younger sister of Ralph (from Cuckoo in the Nest), her expanding experiences, both theatrical and more mundane, and her growing awareness of her individuality and potential. These are common concerns in Michelle Magorian's writing for teenagers (she has also produced two books of poems, Orange Paw Marks and Waiting for My Shorts to Dry, for younger readers). In Elsie's case self-realisation begins when she steps back from a constricting friendship, deciding that It was better to be alone and not feel guilty for being happy, than to have a friend who wanted you to believe that all life was awful.
Though relatively shorter than her previous novels, written in "leaner prose", a reflection perhaps of her preoccupation with writing lyrics for a musical, A Spoonful of Jam proves once again its author's enviable talent for creating and evoking &endash; in the rapturous hop-picking episode, for instance &endash; an enthralling, all embracing fictional world."
Chris
Stephenson - Carousel Oct 1998
DECEMBER 1998
Silver Spoon
Michelle Magorian has moved from the boards to books. The award-winning children's writer tells Susan Elkin why the theatre features in her novels.
"Like all actors, I needed a second string to provide a purpose while I was resting," says Michelle Magorian. So she took to writing children's novels, the latest of which, A Spoonful of Jam, launched late last month. Appropriately enough the setting for the launch was the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon.
In Magorian's delightful novels you can see that the theatre - which creeps or strides so frequently into her plots &endash; was once the author's life. Now 51, she trained in her youth at Rose Bruford and then as &endash; as Mikki Magorian &endash; for two decades trod the boards in repertory all over Britain.
Her best-selling Goodnight Mister Tom, often hailed by children and teenagers as the best book they have ever read, was published in 1981. It won the Guardian children's fiction prize. There has been a musical version, and then in October it was dramatised for ITV with a screenplay by Brian Finch and John Thaw in the title role. Almost 14 million viewers watched it.
Magorian is a tiny vibrant figure - like her bespectacled character Elsie in A Spoonful of Jam and Cuckoo In the Nest, to which the new book is a sequel.
Her accomplished, actorly reading of a passage from A Spoonful of Jam at the launch can have left few listeners dry-eyed. Elsie, a working class child who has won a grammar school, is badly victimised and bullied by a bigger fearsome girl and her gang. So she dare not walk out alone. That is why she has taken refuge in the local theatre - based on Watford Palace - where her elder brother is a trainee ASM. Playing Eva in Pink String and Sealing Wax during the summer holidays keeps Elsie, to her relief, quite literally off the streets. But on one occasion she has to go home by herself.
In the early nineties, Magorian started a family - she is the mother of sons aged nine and five - and more or less gave up acting. She now has six children's novels, one volume of short stories and various picture books for younger readers to her name.
Most of her writing is firmly rooted in the forties. Goodnight Mister Tom is set in 1939 when Willie Beech was evacuated. The events in Cuckoo in the Nest take place in the bitterly cold winter of 1947, while A Spoonful of Jam covers the scorching summer which famously followed it. "I got the records from the Met Office and made sure I got the weather right on every date I mentioned," says Magorian, a meticulous researcher who self-deprecatingly described herself as "very nosy."
For Cuckoo in the Nest and Pink String and Sealing Wax are just two of the plays which feature in Magorian's novels. The Years in Between, Granite, Saint Joan, Hobson's Choice, Arsenic and Old Lace, Madame Louise and other traditional mainstays of repertory all get a detailed mention. Magorian is, in a nostalgic way, sharing the greasepaint magic - and the hard grind - with today's young readers. She writes as someone who has been there and who knows.
But why the forties? " I was born in November 1947," Magorian explains. '' It was a decade of extraordinary events and great change. The effects of all that are fascinating." Several of her books deal, for example, with displacement. Back Home, for instance, is about the post-war problems of a girl who was evacuated to America for five years. And, like Goodnight Mister Tom, Back Home has been televised with a screenplay by David Wood.
Theatre is a recurring theme in Magorian's novels and her child's characters - or their relations are often involved with plays or entertainment. And because this is the forties, often it is ENSA.
Any stage struck child or teenager would enjoy A Spoonful of Jam for a Christmas present. But, like all the best children's books, it is not actually just for children."
Susan Elkin THE STAGE
CUCKOO IN
THE NEST INTERVIEW
from In Brief magazine - Winter 1994
Searching Under the Cushions with Michelle Magorian
Despite initially wanting to be an actress Michelle Magorian turned to writing to stop herself from starvation. Not actually having any idea how to write a book was just a minor detail to her, and, so it seemed to The Guardian Award panel of judges, who gave her the award for her first novel Goodnight Mister Tom.
Since then she has seven books for young readers including Orange Paw Marks and has continued writing for young adults. Her most recent novel is another Second World War drama called Cuckoo in the Nest about a young man's attempts to break into the theatre, struggling against a working class background and a domineering father. Ralph eventually manages to change his father's attitude and, at the same time, his attitude towards his father. So if you were wondering what Michelle's continuing fascination with World War Two is, read on and be amazed!
Many of your books are set around the Second World War. What attracts you to this period?
Well, I didn't mean it to happen that way. It started with my first book which originated from a short story. I was doing research into that when I came across other bits and pieces and a photograph of some children coming back from America in 1945, and I couldn't get the photograph out of my head. I tried to because I thought, " I have no idea what life was like in America in the 40's, and it was bad enough trying to research for England, but it just kept coming back and back and back! It was as if the children were saying in the photograph, " You're going to have to write about us, otherwise we're not going to leave you alone." In the end I started interviewing people and that became Back Home. I read about people coping after the war and families living together again. The children had gone one way, the husbands had gone overseas and that left the wives free, so they'd be sent off to a factory or be called up. Whole families would be split apart and then come back together having changed as people. The whole group dynamics had changed so much. And there was a terrible winter after the war in 1946/7. It was horrendous; twenty foot snow drifts, and there was hardly any fuel, so a lot of people just took to their beds - and nine months later there was a population boom and I was part of that boom. I was caused by that terrible winter. It's like going back into that time. There are still a lot of questions I want answered, and the people are still alive that can answer those questions. I didn't mean to start writing about the Second World War. It just happened.
What does setting your novels in this time allow you to explore that perhaps a modern setting wouldn't?
The Second World War threw people into situations they would not have been thrown into today. Women were working in factories making aeroplanes for instance. They were learning jobs that they previously had been told they as women couldn't do and I'm sure the same was happening with men. Men were going into the services with no education and different classes were being thrown together. My parents wouldn't have met if it hadn't been for the war.
You are clearly interested in exploring family life, which is often dysfunctional, and viable alternatives. Is it the drama of family life that attracts you or do you have other reasons for exploring it?
It's probably connected to my own life really, because up until the age of ten my father was in the Navy. Because of this, the first three years of my life were spent in Singapore, and I was looked after a lot by a man who was Chinese and a Buddhist, so I don't know what effect that had on me. Then, when I was seven I went to Australia and fell in love with the Australians. Coming back to England, I thought it was terrible having to be thrust into a load of Pomms. I spoke Australian. My history was Australian, and I had a very difficult time adjusting. So when I came across that photograph of the children coming back in 1945 and saw how Americanised they looked I thought, I had problems, and I'd only been away for two and a half years, and had gone with my parents. These children had gone without their parents and had been away for five years and I asked myself how did they cope? So I suppose, I empathised with them.
Is there a relationship between your acting and your writing?
I used to like writing stories when I was at school (it was very much discouraged) and I used to act as well. I didn't think of the two coming together, but obviously having played characters in a play it helped.
Class divisions come into your novels a lot. Does this just reflect the times or is it something you feel strongly about?
There are things you write that you're not conscious of. What I did discover is that I have different classes coming together. I suspect I wanted to redress the balance. My own parents argued such a lot and they came from different classes. I couldn't understand why there had to be all this friction. My mother used to say, " Oh, when I grew up we had maids and a gardener," and my father would say, " We had no shoes and it was bread and tea for every meal." I used to sit there at the table and mime it almost, and we had rows which came up again and again like carpets were nicer than linoleum and vice versa. They even voted differently; one voted Conservative, the other Labour. They didn't vote because they would cancel each other out but sometimes they'd threaten to sneak out behind the other's back in order to vote. As I said I think I've been unconsciously trying to redress the balance in my books. I've got Dot and Rose in A Little Love Song, then Zach and Willie in Goodnight Mister Tom. It's not so much in Back Home, although there is the American who's different. In Cuckoo in the Nest, I've explored that even further because you've got a working class boy who sounds to all intents and purposes middle class.
Your central characters are all caught in times of transition yet whatever traumas they have undergone, they heal and grow. Is there something special about the teen years that interests you?
I don't think about people's ages really. I think about the kind of people they are, because everyone constantly goes through transitions. Not just through your teenage years but even when you are very young, going to school for the first time. All the time you're going through transitions and changes. Some of them you plan and work towards, some just land on your lap and you have to cope with them.
There have been several years between your novels. You're obviously not a novel a year writer. Why is this?
I like to research and I like to have a gestation period. I like time to think and think and think.
When you are writing a book, are you thinking about other books or do you just concentrate on that one?
I usually focus on one book at a time. This is the only time, with Cuckoo in the Nest, that I've thought I might write a sequel and carry on with the characters I've enjoyed spending so much time with, and perhaps explore one of the other characters in more depth
So how long does a book usually take, if you include gestation time?
They're all so different. Back Home was the shortest - that was two years. With Goodnight Mister Tom, I had to learn how to write a book as I went along. It wasn't until I'd written about thirteen chapters that I suddenly thought, " Oh, I think I know how to write a chapter now." Even when I reached the end, I went back to the beginning and did a lot of rewriting. I just had Sundays to write between acting, which was six days and six nights a week. That's why it took so much time. It took four years altogether. With A Little Love Song I put it in the loft for a couple of years after I wrote it and rewrote it. That took seven years. Then I had my first baby, so I was writing short stories, lyrics and a couple of poetry books. I picked up my Cuckoo in the Nest , which I had been thinking about and carrying out research for, and wrote it while he was at playgroup. I managed to read out the last chapter on a Dictaphone for a friend to type, about a week before I had my second baby and was having practice contractions, so every now and then, I'd stop and say, " Hold on a minute, I'm having another contraction!"
Do you find some stories can't develop and become short stories while others can't be held in and turn into novels?
That's how Goodnight Mister Tom started. It began as a short story and I thought, " I have to know what happens next," It was like I had a weight on my back. I had to write it off. I don't think I've ever started to write a novel and it's ended up a short story, although sometimes I write a short story and when I've finished I think," Oh,that's a shame. I wish I could write some more about them."
So do you actually enjoy the act of writing or researching?
Both, obviously when it's going well and I'm writing dialogue I enjoy it very much. Sometimes it's like walking through porridge and it's hard to get yourself going. I have to do some kind of writing every day otherwise I've this feeling like when you've forgotten to clean your teeth.
How would you describe yourself as a writer?
I would describe my self as a writer rather than an author. I like to write different types of things, I get different kinds of enjoyment. When you're with a small child everything is in such a mess and nothing is finished but if you can actually concentrate and focus on a short story and complete it, it makes you feel really good. But then I get to a point where I think, " Now, I want something I can live with for a long, long time and have room to expand." That's what writing a novel gives you.
What made you decide to write about Ralph's desire to become an actor in Cuckoo in the Nest and the conflicts with his family this causes?
I was interviewing people who were actors at the time, and I found that it was incredibly difficult to get into the theatre if they didn't have money behind them. There was the odd scholarship at drama school but there were no grants. Unless you had some money behind you, or your father put down £100 and you were paid £2 a week out of that to be an ASM (Assistant Stage Manager) and did the odd walk on part and gradually learned, there was no other way. I kept thinking, "How on earth could someone like Ralph get into the theatre? That gave me a challenge and I do like a challenge.
Do you read other authors and have you a favourite?
I used to read a lot before I had children! I tend to have crazes on authors rather than have one favourite. I pick up a book written by somebody and I suddenly want to read lots of books by them and then I pick up another author and I read lots of theirs. For example, there's Cynthia Voigt who wrote Homecoming about this girl who's twelve or thirteen, and her younger brothers and sisters who try to get across the States to see their grandmother. Then she wrote Dicey's Song and explored the girl a bit further. So, for a while I just wanted to read Cynthia Voigt because I was curious to see what she did next. And then I read a novel by Rosa Guy who's a black writer, and then I wanted to read another Rosa Guy and another. Way, way back I read Leon Garfield and Joan Aiken. When I find somebody, I just want to read more of their books.
When you were younger, was your ambition always to be an actress or writer?
An actress. I didn't think of myself as a writer because I wasn't the star pupil of the class. I spent a lot of time day-dreaming and was probably a teacher's nightmare, except for the drama teacher. I assumed that writers were people who went to university. I wrote because I needed to write. Mostly I wrote either comedy stuff or angst-ridden poetry - I swung from one extreme to another. Then I got bored with me. I wanted to invent people and situations. I wrote a short story which turned into a novella and at the same time I was reading children's books, ones that I hadn't read when I was a child - the classics - and then the contemporary ones and I thought, "These are wonderful. Maybe one day, when I'm eighty, I could write a book and I could get into Puffin." It all happened earlier than I expected. A tutor pushed me to send my manuscript to a literary agent. Otherwise I wouldn't have done anything with it because the people I looked up to were people like Tolstoy and D.H. Lawrence, and I wasn't in that league at all. I was in his novel writing class and every week, two people would have to stand up and read something they had written, and the interesting thing was that everyone had a different voice. They didn't write like Tolstoy or Dickens but they all had a worthwhile voice, so I thought, " Well, maybe my voice is worth listening to as well."
How did winning the Guardian Award for your first novel affect you?
I was very hungry and in debt. I used to search under the cushions for money to go out and buy vegetables. I had no pride. I'd say. " I've got 43p this week. What can I get?" and they'd say," Oh, half a cauliflower and three carrots." I was just so hungry the only thing I could think of was, " Will I get any money from it?" So it didn't really hit me at first. In fact the book was out of print when I won it. It had nice reviews but the bookshops wouldn't stock it because it was a hardback and they didn't know me, it was my first book. When it won the Guardian Award they had to reprint it and then it took off. So, yes, it did make a difference because eventually I was able to eat again! I remember going into the vegetable shop one day and saying, "I'll have some apples and bananas and some oranges…" and they said, "Don't go mad. Don't go mad," because they'd never seen me buy so much before!
How did it affect you as a writer?
It was a bit scary because it was like having a public apprenticeship. If it had been my fifth book, it might have been easier because then I would have had all these other books behind me. Because it was my first novel I still wanted to experiment, and in a sense that is what my second book A Little Love Song was, which is why I put it away until after I had written my third book Back Home.
How would you like to be remembered?
I'm not particularly worried about being remembered. I'd like people to enjoy what I write now, and forget about me after I've gone but then I suppose it would be nice if they enjoyed what I'd written after I'd gone too.
Sara Wingate-Gray - Durham High1994
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