Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S5 Ep1: Bookshelfie: Gabby Logan

Episode Date: March 30, 2022

Join this season’s new host Vick Hope as she talks to Gabby Logan MBE, sports presenter and former gymnast, about the three M’s – midlife, motherhood and her MBE.  Gabby is a broadcaster, prolific writer, podcaster and former gymnast. She became a familiar face on our TV screens in the 1990s, and since then has presented every major sporting event in the UK. In 2020 she received an MBE for services to sports broadcasting and the promotion of women in sport. Gabby tells us about the loves and losses in her life, through the books by women that have influenced her.   Gabby’s book choices are:  ** How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran ** The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ by Sue Townsend ** The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan ** This Book Will Save Your Life by AM Homes  ** Life after Life by Kate Atkinson Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season five of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors, kicking off with guest Gabby Logan. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women.   Don’t want to miss the rest of Season Five? Listen and subscribe now!   This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's definitely changed since the start of my career because I'll be honest with you, I felt it myself. I'd see another woman coming along in my industry early on and think, oh, does that mean

they're going to get all of my jobs? And actually, the men in my industry never thought that. No, no, they don't. They don't. The space of all of them, even if they all look exactly the same. With thanks to Bailey's,

this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices, and our perspective. all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I am your brand new host for season five of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them.

We have a phenomenal lineup of guests for 2022. I guarantee you'll be taken away plenty of reading recommendations. Hello and welcome to today's episode of Bookshelfy. I'm Vic Hope and I am absolutely thrilled to be joining you as your new host for Series 5. Let me start by reminding you that this year's long list is out now and the 16 brilliant authors and their books can all be found on our website wwwwomensprivedfiction.co.com. Today's guest is broadcaster, writer, podcaster and former gymnast, Gabby Logan.

Gabby's amazing career trajectory started back in 19. where she presented on the radio before moving across to TV. And here she has become a household name, presenting every major sporting event in the UK. In 2020, she received an MBE for services to sports broadcasting and the promotion of women in sport. She is a prolific writer, a podcast host. She works hard for a number of great charities.

And if that isn't enough, she's also a mother to twins. I'm struggling to work out how you had any time amongst all of this to join me today, but I am absolutely thrilled that you have. Welcome Gabby Logan to the podcast. Thank you very much for having me. Well, I think what you said at the very beginning, 1992 tells you how fitted all that stuff in. I've been around a very long time. I'll tell you what, we was talking to the producer just before Gabby and, you know, before we get any guest on this podcast, we asked them some questions about the books that they've read, what they love, and, you know, a little bit of information would be great.

Often you've got a chase, but with you, you were on it. You came with every, everything we need and more. And it's that energy and that proficiency that I just admire so much. I've got to ask you, how do you stay so fired, so fired up all the time and move through life with such intention? With something like that, I always think about the person receiving the information. So I think about myself working and I know it's so much easier if people get back to you with information that you need. And, you know, I kind of really love it when somebody, you know, is responsive to what I'm trying to do. So I always think like it's kind of paying it full. isn't it? And you just kind of want to be treating people how you expect to be treated. I think that's one of the things I've learned about in this industry that I have always had a lot of energy. And sometimes, in fact, my 16-year-old son, who might be wiser than he looks, said to me the other day, Mum, I think you work on a really high level of stress and you don't realize a lot of people can't work on that level of stress. But he said, but you don't kind of like appear to be

stressed, but for other people. I think that's probably, there's an element of truth in that, that I've always worked at quite a high kind of pace. And sometimes you've got a remember not everybody wants to work at that pace. So, you know, cut some slack. Do you manage to find time amongst all of that to read? Are you a big reader? I love reading. And when I find something that I love, that's it.

I'm in and it's finished very quickly. I do need space in my head to read. So flights, you know, are brilliant for me, trains, transport. I'm not so good at reading novels in a car, but I can read work kind of. of documents and things like that. But I'm lucky in that respect. People always say to me, I can't believe you can work at a car, you know, and I can type and write and everything, but I can't immerse myself in a novel. Holidays. I mean, I can do five in a week on a holiday. Oh my gosh. Has your attitude towards reading and your approach reading, has it changed as life has gone on?

Kind of like a lot of things in life. You know what you like as you get older. And so I suppose I'm less willing to venture into something that I don't think I'm going to like. So when I joined a book club a few years ago, I had to read books that I maybe wouldn't have picked up. And that was really good for me. I pulled out a book club for a few months because I was finishing off my own book. And I just said, guys, I haven't got time to do everything and read these books and give them thought. And so I think I'm going to go back to book club because the women in my book club definitely read different kind of areas and genres to my normal books. And I think that's healthy, isn't it? In life, to look outside of your own kind of tunnel and

vacuum. To escape to new worlds, I feel like especially of the last couple of years and we have been quite confined to our four walls, the opportunity to escape to places that we couldn't even dream of going is so stimulating and so important. And then you put it on paper as well with your own book. What was that experience like? It was some days I felt really great and positive and I came out of my kind of writing den feeling brilliant. And then other days I felt quite down and sad because it depends what I was writing about. And I'd go into the kitchen at the end of the day. It was during lockdown, like a lot of people where I had that space.

And my kids were 15 at 14, 15. So they were on Zooms all day long. And we'd all come to the kitchen at about 4 o'clock. And sometimes the kids would say, was it a hard day to day? Because they'd just see my face looking really kind of down. And other days, I just loved the process, though. I absolutely kind of reveled in that routine. I'm quite a routine type of girl.

So I like the idea that I'd do a bit of exercise, have my breakfast. And then I was in, I was writing. and some days I was like, no, you've got to go to the toilet. You've got to go to the toilet. You've got to go to the toilet. But I just couldn't stop. You've got to go to the toilet. But I just was loving the writing. And then other days, I was that classic procrastinator, you know, kind of, are you sure we don't need to fold some more laundry or maybe you need to be, I'm needed somewhere in the house? But I loved it because it's what I've always wanted to do. I've started so many times to write and thought I had an idea and then not got through with it because of life getting in the way. So, yeah, it was a joy.

And you've created your own podcast as well, Midpoint, which is a place where you interview celebrity guests and experts about midlife, offer advice. What are, out of curiosity, some of the biggest misconceptions or stereotypes about midlife? And what can we all be doing to avoid playing into them? I think we're really lucky my generation because I think a lot of people in our generation have just gone, right, okay. I want to say, I'm not including you because I know you are a lot younger than me. I mean, us kind of late 40s, mid-40s people have decided that actually we're not going to stick up,

we're not going to kind of like adhere to those stereotypes. We're going to do what we want to do and carry on being ambitious and, you know, carry on with our goals. I think there was a kind of an idea that when you get into your 40s and 50s, you're settling somehow. And that is the biggest one for me. It's this idea that you should settle for things. And whether it's being in the wrong job, the wrong relationship, You know, settling with the fact that for some reason you just can't get fit or you don't want to, you know, just breaking and shattering those kind of ideas that people get stuck with, whether it's the plasticity of their neural pathways or whether it is just habits that have really enveloped them. I love meeting people and talking to people who've said, no, that's not for me, actually. I'm going to do the thing I've always wanted to do. And it's, you know, there's an element of that kind of Shirley Valentine about it, you know, of just throwing away your kind of drudgery. But there's also, I think for me an important thing is about we're all going to be working a lot longer than

generations before, you know, the way the economy is, the way that, you know, we're all moving. It's like, we're going to be working into our 70s. So you want to do things that you love. And that might not be the thing that you loved at 20. And it's this idea that you're allowed to reinvent and actually you're going to have to reinvent. So it's been a lovely that has been a really lovely self-serving podcast. Obviously, I started it off because I. Yes, absolutely.

Well, talking of dispelling stereotypes, let's get straight into your first bookshelfy book, which is How to Be a Woman by Caroline Moran. This is multi-award winning, it's honest, it's witty, it's a memoir written with the intention of making feminism more accessible for women. And in doing so, Katlin Moran shares the stories of her life struggles from being bullied at age 13 for her androgynous style in a lack of motherly guidance through puberty to a hilarious rant about the joys of pubic hair. Katlyn makes a point of dispelling the stereotypes that all feminists are angry, man-haters

and addresses the smaller issues within the home that feminism wants to fix. What did you love about this book, Gabby? I read this book about a year after it came out, and I'd started working with Katlin about probably five or six years before that. We were columnists at the same time on The Times. I'd met her at a few dinners and things like that and thought she was incredible. I loved her writing. And when I read the book, I remember I was in New York actually working when I read it.

And I just remember thinking, when I have a 16-year-old daughter at the time, my daughter was seven. I thought when she gets to 16, I want her to read this book because I wish I'd read a book like this at that age. And all those things you just said there, you know, it's humorous, it's got depth, it's very honest. And she's a searingly honest writer. And she really shares so much of herself. And I know she's a funny woman. I've spent time in her company. So her voice was perfect.

You know, it was just I could hear her. And I feel like there was nothing before I'd ever read, or I'd never really read a memoir that had that level of, as you said, a kind of a reboot and looking at feminism in a way that wasn't scary. Because my generation's kind of mums, my mum is without realizing it's a proper feminist, right? She's always worked. She's had her own businesses. She's taken charge of the house.

But she had this idea that if you said you were a feminist, it meant you didn't want the door holding open for you. Yeah, and you're better. Yeah, exactly. And she was like, oh, I like it when a man opens the door. I said, well, you can like that, but you can also like equal pay. And it's okay. And so I was kind of brought up with her as an example

and all the women in the matriarchs in our family, clearly being feminist, but not realizing that they were. And so I kind of was a bit confused and, you know, didn't understand kind of how. how the modern world was, you know, that role was going to evolve and how feminism was going to involve. And that for me was what she did brilliantly. It's funny. I think we all remember that moment where we realise that there isn't just one feminism but many feminisms. And it depends on your walk of life as well.

Learning about intersectionality was such a huge thing for me and a lot of the young women that I know. What kind of role has feminism played in your life, especially working in such a male, dominated industry and frankly for one of a better term smashing it well i think you're so right about feminism is so different depending on kind of where you come from you know what socioeconomic background you have what ethnicity and ethnic group you you kind of come from and how your families kind of arrived wherever they are my family on both sides were very very working class and the women worked out of necessity and they didn't work for careers and then you know you read kind of kind of about women in the 1920s who went to I met a guy the other

day who family owned a mill in Yorkshire so he was obviously from real landed gentry type kind of background and all the women had gone to Cambridge but none of them worked or had careers and that is like this juxtaposition of kind of like yeah because of course when they finished their degrees they were clearly really clever they were expected to get married and become you know the ladies of the house and and so you've got these kind of weird that were at the same time my grandmother was working five jobs, you know what I mean? And none of them were very good and they weren't classed as careers. And so, so feminism, I kept saying to the kind of women in my family like my granny, you know, you are, you know, you've worked your whole life. You are a feminist.

But what they didn't demand, I suppose, was equality in lots of areas and whether it was pay or, you know, maternity leave. And those things are really important to me. You know, it's not just about kind of saying, I've got the opportunity to be a woman football presenter, but it's about parity in lots of areas. And when I started working in the industry, I work in, there weren't many women who were doing it. But I didn't honestly, Vic, I didn't really have a great awareness of that.

I just was getting on with it and doing it. And it was then being put to me quite a lot. Oh, you're the only woman doing this. And then you start to feel a certain sense of responsibility about lots of things in your industry and actually wanting to see not just more women in front of the camera, but behind the camera. and in positions of power and authority,

because it's no good just having a load of women on camera if all the bosses are men. Oh, if it's tokenistic, yeah. And you're not going to be telling those stories authentically if from the top, it's... You're just being their kind of mouthpiece, you know? And that was really important to me that we kind of could be part of a change in that respect.

Part of that change is supporting one another. And I don't know about you, but I've often felt like we're pitted against each other, even if there are very few women in the room, you're supposed to be in competition. And that's something that has had to change and is changing. But do you think it's changed enough? It's definitely changed.

It's the start of my career because I'll be honest with you, I felt it myself. I'd see another woman coming along in my industry early on and think, oh, does that mean they're going to get all of my jobs? And actually, the men in my industry never thought that. No, no, they don't. The space of all of them, even if they all look exactly the same. But look, I know if another mixed race or black woman walks into the room presenter, I'm like,

are they going to take my job? Because I know that a lot of other people are looking at us as comparable when, in fact, we're unique and different and special and we're allowed to all be there and we're allowed to all actually uplift each other. Absolutely. Yeah. And that's, I've definitely subconsciously probably at first and now very much consciously, I've made sure that that is not, certainly not on my radar in terms of feeling threatened, but also making sure you help people who are coming.

through. And that's also feeling kind of more confident in yourself, I guess, as well, isn't it? And thinking, you know, nobody's irreplaceable in whatever you do, obviously. But equally, your experience and your confidence and your assuredness, you know, has to stand for something because you've been there for such a long time and you know stuff. But I don't want to be doing this forever. I want young women coming through and young men. And I want, you know, us to see people from all kinds of different backgrounds. You know, I've mentioned, you know, kind of socioeconomic class. I mentioned ethnicity. It's not just about, you know, having parity with men and women. It's about opportunity for anybody who wants to do it. And I mentioned it in your intro there. You received your MBE in 2020

for services to sports broadcasting and crucially the promotion of women in sport. Can you remember how you felt where you were the moment that you got that news? I can. And it's quite a funny story. I was working in Manchester. I was about to do a football match live that night. And I was in the hotel and my agent rang me and she said, I've just had the home office on the phone. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, I had this wonderful Polish cleaner, Margo and I was thinking, have I done something wrong with Margo? Do you know what I mean? And I thought about her. I thought, oh no, she got to go back to Parliament for some reason. Because that's the only thing I can think of. And she said, apparently they wrote to you a month ago asking you if you would accept an MBE, but you haven't

got back to them. And I said, I haven't had a letter. And she said, well, you've got an MBE. And I never did get the letter. It got lost somewhere. And it was only about a week or two away from them actually announcing the list. And apparently they liked to have asked people before they announced the list. So I was thrilled, you know, because I was, and the thing that you just said then about services to women in sport, that was the thing that really got me. Because I thought it was to do with charities that I've worked. I've been, you know, ambassador as president of various charities, chairman of charity. So I was just really thrilled that it was connected to that. And yeah, it was a secret I kept until it was announced on the 28th of December and I got such lovely messages

for people and it was great. I really enjoyed it. Let's move on to your second bookshelfy book, which is the secret diary of Adrian Mole, age 13 and three quarters by Sue Townsend. It is iconic featuring the most famous teenager in literature before the birth of Harry Potter, of course. The book is the first of many in a series of novels made up of diary entries. They capture the life and the worries of Adrian Mole, who is a typical teenager, as he navigates love, the future and acne. How old were you when you read this book? Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I was working that out, actually, because he was a bit older than me. I think I was probably about 11 or 12, because Adrian was just that bit older. And at that age, actually, those two years are enormous, aren't they? Oh, huge. You changed so much. They're so positive. But there were so many things I could relate to that he was going through. and I just loved, it was the first time I'd read anything, I'd read diaries before, I mean, I'd probably

read Anne Frank before this, I'd read diary books, but I hadn't read anything that was so humorous and so alive, like it came off the page, this kid was like boys that I knew, he had issues going on that I felt I was going through, you know, even just the kind of whole kind of the way he was, he was, he had his affirmations, you know, about things that he wasn't going to do, I'm not going to smoke. And I remember at the time I was being pressured by people to smoke and things. And I was like, I'm not going to be a smoke. And I really felt this. And yet he was the nerd.

And he was also clearly not cool. And there's a bit of me fighting it going, I kind of like him, but he's not cool. You know, when you're reading a book as a child and you're thinking, is he somebody I want to be friends with or not? And I just loved, I loved the whole his family issues, his love interest in Pandora. And it kind of, I suppose it was the first time I'd read something that funny. I realized halfway through that it was actually funny. You know, when you start off and you go,

well, this is quite serious, he's got all these issues. And then as a child, you start realizing there's humor in it. And I think I must have read it again. I remember picking it up again about a few months later and it already matured enough that it meant different parts of the book related in, you know, slightly different ways to me. So, yeah, I followed Adrian all the way through to the prostate years. You know, he's been, he's been a pal all the way.

And it really, I started writing diaries because of Adrian. and at the time we were going through a slight kind of, well, it sounds really now as if it's kind of the parallel to where we are at the moment. Obviously, it was the end of coming up towards the end of the Cold War and there was nuclear weapons were a huge thing and there were the women of Green and Common and were we going to have, you know, was there going to be a nuclear war? And I remember writing all my anxieties about this. But at the same time, I'd throw in something like, got some new genes. They were fantastic. You have all these kind of how children are. You've got these huge global issues,

and then you've got these domestic, tiny little domestic issues going on, and then friendship problems. And diary writing, I think, as a teenager, is brilliant. It's so cathartic. All through life. I remember during the first 100 days of the pandemic, and I know it was 100 days because I label every single diary entry. I kept a diary.

And it's that same thing you just described with the macro and the micro together. It would be like thinking about my ex. Boris Johnson's just gone into hospital. And you don't know what's going to happen or where things are going, but sometimes when your mind is so jumbled, it just makes life a little less insurmountable to put it down, to articulate it, to get it on the page.

I'm getting a sort of insight into you as a child, Gabby, and I know that I've got a little bio here. I know that you are so involved in so much at school and at uni, high jump, rhythmic gymnastics. I mean, what were you like? Were you one of these kids who's like, I've got to do it all? I'm extracurricular.

I was a joiner in a, yeah. I mean, I went to very average, below average, probably state schools that didn't have a lot to join in, to be honest. I mean, we never had a debating society or, you know, any kind of academic extracurricular clubs, unless you were kind of perhaps needing extra support. You know, there was nothing to push you in that sense. So anything I could join intended to be sport or shows, you know, like musical theatre, depending on which school I was at. And so anything I could join and I did. And I think that was probably my moment. mom who, she didn't push us in the sense that she just, remember her saying to me when I was about 11, if you ever want to go to university, you need more than just good exam results. They like to see. And she'd never been to university. And nobody in my family had. So I don't know where she got this from, but it was quite good advice. And she also quite liked us just being busy. I think it was quite clever parenting. She wanted us to just be busy. And then that way we wouldn't be hanging out on the streets, I guess, you know. So we all joined in lots of different things. and sport was, as I say, the thing that was most bountiful in the school I went to.

We had quite a good reputation as being a school that produced footballers and we were always quite good at netball. So I just played what I could and did what I could. Do you feel any pressure from your father being a sportsman, being a footballer himself, to get involved? No, it wasn't that. And he didn't really, you know, he's of a certain generation where he couldn't understand why I was spending so much time doing gymnastics because it wasn't going to be a career. because for him, sport was a way out of his background and a way out of, you know, growing up in a

council estate, he couldn't see how he was going to get out, you know, and sport gave him that way out. And so he was thinking, like, why is she spending so much time doing a sport? She's not going to have as a job because that for him was a bit odd. And, you know, women didn't do sport, really, professionally. You know, when I was a kid, you could be a tennis player or a golfer, really, and earn some cash. And neither of those were options for me. So I had to do it because I loved it. And that was more important to me than anything. And I think there's nothing, healthier really when you're a teenage girl than doing sport and appreciating your body for something other than a thing of aesthetic beauty. You know, it's a powerful thing to know that your body can do

all these things. And I had quite a good relationship with it because of that. So, sport kept me quite sane, I think. And also, I gave me so many experiences outside of my small bubble of leads. You know, I was travelling all over the country doing gymnastics, meeting girls from all over the UK with very different backgrounds. And that was wonderful. You know, that was a really, a real eye up, and gave me a sense of Britain. You know, I'm amazed I meet people even now who've never left the South. You know, they've never been to Scotland. They've never been to Yorkshire. And I kind of like, why have you not travelled in this amazing country? So I was so lucky to be able to do that at such a young age. Bayleys is proudly supporting the Women's Prize

for Fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women. celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Look in for a treat to pair with your favourite book, Bailey's is the perfect accompaniment to enjoy either over ice or over coffee. There are no better friendships than those formed around brilliant books. And since you're listening, we're guessing you love books as much as we do. The Women's Prize has created an exclusive community that gives you a bookish backstage pass, offering surprises and freebies plus unmissable reading recommendations and book chat from our friends,

including me, Vic Hope. Search for Women's Prize friend to become a friend today. We cannot wait to meet you. Gavi, your third book is The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan. It was first published in 1988. It's a novel composed of the stories of eight women and is rich with both Chinese and American history, life and traditions. It's centered around Jingmei, an American-born daughter to Suyan, who is the founding member of the Joy Luck Club upon her mother's death. Jing Mei is asked to replace her at the club's meetings.

And here, she's tasked with fulfilling Suyan's greatest wish to reunite with her twin daughters. But there is one problem. Jing May doesn't feel she knows her mother well enough to tell her sisters about the mother they never knew. why did you feel so enthralled and so connected to this novel? It's interesting. It came out of my absolute love of reading Wild Swans, which was a book which was about the main character that was growing up. Well, the writer Yongchang ends up talking about her life,

but she goes back two generations and talks about her grandmother, who was a concubine and worked for the Communist Party and then her mother growing up in the Cultural Revolution. And my interest and really kind of, I got really engrossed in China at this point in the early 90s was partly because when I was a kid, we went to Vancouver to live. And Vancouver had the second biggest Chinatown in the world next to San Francisco.

And so I would, there was this kid from at Time Coventry and we would go to Chinatown. My mom loved it. We'd go there all the time. We'd go there to eat. We'd go there to shop. We'd go there just. And it was busy, bustling.

incredible. I had a Chinese teacher at school who was from the Chinatown and she was amazing. And she used to give me Chinese proverbs and books of Chinese poetry and stuff. And I wouldn't have ever been exposed to that kind of level of Chinese lifestyle and, you know, the Chinese ways of doing things, Chinese New Year, had we not lived in Vancouver. And then when I read Wild Swan, it kind of made me understand a little bit more about the history of these women who'd come to Vancouver. And of course, the biggest Chinatown is San Francisco outside of China. And that is where obviously the Joyluck Club is set. And so that would then, once I'd read Wild Swans and somebody told me I should read

the Joy Luck Club because it kind of then almost took the story on in a way because you've got those women who then found themselves in America and how, and I guess it applied to so many different cultures who, you know, come to America, the land of dreams. And this is where you're going to, you know, all these people from different backgrounds. But naturally people tend to concentrate themselves in their communities and you tend to find the same, you know, whether it's our best. or whether it's people from Ghana, they kind of like tend to like go to the same restaurants

and hang out together. And those communities become rich with the storytelling of those generations of how they've got there and the struggles that they've gone through. And that is what the book is all about, but it's also about mothers and daughters. So it's got those kind of layers of relationships which can happen in any, any culture, in any environment.

But perhaps they don't happen in quite the same way because we get more disparate when you've, you know what I mean? Yeah, when you haven't got, that you're not kind of coming together in the same way. So yeah, so it was kind of a, I suppose, the DNA of my interest in it comes from living in Vancouver, really, and wanting to know more about those women. And I just, yeah, I loved it. When you read this book, you can't have known that you would go on to become the mother of twins yourself,

Rubin and Lois, who are 16 now? Yeah, yeah. Is there anything you took from the book that now resonates more with you? that's interesting. I probably need to reread actually. It's funny, when I was younger though, I kind of always, I always saw myself having twins. It's really weird. Yeah. I, because I remember one day lying in bed thinking, and I was about a child thinking how ginormous pregnant woman must be with twins. And I was like, and I think an auntie was pregnant. I was thinking, and then that became me carrying a space hop around. And I kind of envisaged myself having two children of the same age and what they go through and how, you know,

they're so different and yet they have the same experience and you know those and actually in there's quite a lot of books that I've read funny enough um that have had twin relationships in do you know along the way yeah you know what the women's prize fiction long list last year I think it was like four or five of the books on the long list were all about twins it's mad it's just a rich fertile environment for for yeah well then the last one was hamnet I think obviously as well that's you know and I nearly chose having it. And yeah, so no, at the time, I could never have known that I would become mother of twins. And I always say to people, it's the great human experiment, you know, because you have these two people that you have from day one, you feed them the same, you love them

the same, you know, you give them the same opportunities. And they have a completely different take on life and totally different interests. And yet they come and go with each other through their lives, you know, and they kind of come in and out of each other's lives. And I always remember when I was pregnant, a friend of my mum's who was a twin saying to me, when you're a twin, you're never, ever alone in the world. And that made me cry then and it kind of made me, you know, because this person knows you more than I do. You know, I've carried you, but you knew them before you knew me.

And I think my daughter really buys into that with her brother. You know, there's this sense of kind of protectionism and just being, you know, just being there for him, even when he treats her terribly, you know, She's there and vice versa. I can see his affection and his warmth growing as he kind of shakes off the shackles of being a teenage boy. They are on such a unique and beautiful journey together. And looking back at your journey, they were born of IVF. Were there any things that you wish you had known while doing IVF?

Well, IVF is an interesting kind of position to find yourself in because you never think you know, when you're a kid, if you fantasize the idea of being a mother, you never think it's going to happen through such a scientific process. And, you know, I think back to all those years where in my 20s, I was hoping I wasn't pregnant. And the irony that then I spent so many years at the end of my 20s thinking, oh, God, no, I'm not pregnant again. And it's that switch that you know, something you so desperately want. And when we were told as a couple that they couldn't put their finger on why we weren't getting pregnant. There was no reason. It was the most frustrating bit of news I've ever had. I wanted to fix something. And so eventually we were,

kind of directed towards IVF. And we treated it with both ex-sports people. And we kind of treated it like, right, okay, we've got to attack this like sports people, you know, and not almost emotionally detach yourself from that first period because we thought, well, we could be doing this six or seven times. This could be something that we have to keep going through. And obviously, it's emotionally very challenging for the woman because of the hormonal imbalances and changes. And luckily for us, it only happened once and we got pregnant. So I'm very grateful to that because when I thought I wasn't pregnant with Ruben and Lois, because the morning I was due to have my first proper test, I actually bled and I thought I'd lost them. And that hit me then, how hard it must be to keep going through that.

So I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell my own mother. I didn't tell anybody I was going through it because I didn't want to share the grief almost. I didn't want to keep having to go back to them and saying it wasn't working. And that I think I probably would, with hindsight, maybe have shared a little bit

because that's quite a lot of big burden to kind of carry around on your own. Yeah. It's a lesson that you can pass on to your kids as they grow older as they go through life. Are there any lessons that stand out to you that your mum taught you over the years? Oh gosh.

My mum's got an incredible sense of positivity, I think, that is, you know, she's suffered what I think is possibly the worst thing that can ever happen to a mother and she's lost a child. And my brother died when I was 19, he was 15. And obviously, when he died, she was a shell, you know, she just almost for a month, hardly moved, hardly showered, hardly washed her hair. And I didn't know if this was going to be her forever.

You know, was this, was my mum gone? And then she kind of woke up one day almost and decided like to get on with life. And her old positivity and her passion for life came back. But in spite of that, you know, enormous kind of just the worst thing that can happen to, you know, a family and a mother, she's never lost that positivity and energy. And I think as she gets older, she's 72 this year and she's a very young 72. And I think that is because of that positiveness and that energy that she has. And that for me is a big lesson in how not to get old.

You know, and I don't mean that aging. I don't care about wrinkles and I don't care about grey hair. It's your attitude, isn't it? And that's keeping your mind open to things, new possibilities, new opportunities, and not letting the past define you. Gabby, we're moving on now to your fourth bookshelfy book, which is this book will save your life by AM Homes. affluent but isolated

55 year old Richard Novak lives trapped in his riches and cut off from the rest of the world save for his nutritionist, his personal trainer and his housekeeper that is until an attack of pain and an inconclusive hospital visit forces him to recognise his self-made exile and sure of who he could contact in his moment of need

he eats his first donor and we witness the first step towards Richard's radical change of life Richard begins to understand how he became so lonely and can then eventually rebuild relationships with his family. Gabby, did this book save your life? I got a pile of books given to me by my wonderful agent, Holly Bot, when I was recuperating from an ACL injury in 2018. And I had to lie still for a week, apart from about 10 minutes a day where I was allowed to walk. And this was unheard of. Nobody in my, you know, my world could

understand, how is she going to do this? They were kind of all like, she's not going to be able to do this. Of all people. And do you know what happened? I got these books and I just got myself a place in the house where I was going to stay. And I reveled in it in the end because I kind of cut myself off everything. And that book in particular was one of the books that I absolutely adored. Because what he's done, Richard has done, is cut himself off feeling. And he's cut himself off being connected to life until this fateful day that the book kind of starts with sinkhole and everything that happens that takes him out of his house. And so there were kind of weird parallels there. I was cutting myself off at the same time. I was reading a book about a man not. And I started

to hear the noises of life, like the life of the house and everything in a different way, because I realized that sometimes you're just so kind of in the moment of, well, actually not in the moment, you're so on the treadmill of life that you're not in the moment and you don't hear the things that are going on around you. And so it is absolutely not a self-help book with the title suggests that I'm sure a lot of people are kind of fooled of picking it. And so, and so it is absolutely it up and thinking, oh, this is some kind of, you know, psychiatrist's written this book. But actually, of course, there is an element of that because this is somebody who's reconnecting with life. And I love the whole setting as well with it being in LA. It was the kind

of juxtaposition, you know, this kind of the guy that's got everything, but actually he's lost everything, really. He's lost his existence. And it was funny and very rich. And I can really, it's very, you know, you know, when your imagination kind of goes there. and I was lying on my sofa in Buckinghamshire, but I was in L.A. with him. And it was, I strangely, I kind of like being reminded of that time, even though I was recuperating from an operation because it was the only time, I think, in my adult life,

I've sat still for a week. It puts a lot of things in perspective. And perspective is one of the most important things that we can have in life. I always say that books teach you empathy because you walk a day in someone else's shoes or in many, many people's shoes. and that's how we learn to be kind. That's how we learn kindness. Yeah, I love the kind of pay it

forwards type philosophy of doing something that, you know, because it feels like, doing something good feels good. And, you know, so if you want to be, you know, say it's selfish because it actually makes you feel really nice. No, it's fair enough. It's better than not doing a good thing. Yeah. And, you know, I don't think anybody is nice to somebody because it makes them feel terrible, you know, And the more you do it and the more you think about other people, the more you want to do it because you see, you know, how how it affects them and tiny little things that can make a big difference to somebody. And that, you know, that for me. And those examples when you become a parent are really important as well because you want your children to learn everything they can from you, obviously before they go out into the big wide world themselves. And if they can see you doing things for other people just because, not because you want something back, apart from a nice kind of warm glow inside, feel. feeling good at, you know, that was, that was, fair enough. That's, yeah. And I think, you know, let's be honest about it. You know, I mean, I spoke to a very well-known,

um, a kind of comedian actor who, um, has speaks a lot about recovery and he was an addict. And he said to me, he was trying to help somebody I know. And he said, oh, don't get me wrong. He said, I'm doing it because it makes me feel good. And, and I, and I, I've really liked his honesty about that. And I think that's, that's the, you know, kind of one of the messages of the book is actually, you know, you'll, and I know, and I know people go, oh, it's calmer. But actually, if you do nice things for people, nice things will happen for you because your energy is better, you know. And I'm a big believer in that kind of how contagious good energy could be. Well, you've done so much charity

work currently a patron of the Disabilities Trust, the Princes Trust, St. John's Catholic School for the Death, at Great Ormond Street Hospital and Newcastle United Foundation. So very close to my heart where I'm from, as well of, of course, as actively appealing for the Daniel your appeal to raise funds for the treatment and detection of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which your brother very sadly passed away from. You talked about how that changed your mother. How did that change you? When you're 19 and you're already going through kind of quite a big period of change in your life, it's really hard to you look back kind of 30 years later and think, how did it change me? Because who was I going to be and what was my life going to be like?

And actually, I think it probably, I became a more exacerbated version of myself because I was already somebody, as I've just said before, as a kid, it was a joiner in and I wanted to do things. And then I went off to university after Daniel died and I just didn't want to waste a minute. You know, I was probably a really annoying person to be around because I was just so kind of like, let's do this, let's do that. But also I went through a period where I kind of felt like I'd had some enlightenment and the actually, that doesn't matter. That's trivial. But you can't do that to your people. years when you're 19 because for them it does matter, you know. You've seen this kind of, you've had this big life lesson that a lot of people haven't had. And so, you know, you could lose friends very quickly if your empathy burns away for things that they see as important, but you've suddenly decided a trivial. So I had a kind of a few years where I had to rebalance, recalibrate almost. And, and of course what happens to the family is, is very devastating. You know, eventually my parents divorced and that really kind of the seed was sown around that time because of behaviors that, you know, they both adopted to cope and some were negative and some were positive. So

it does change you and hopefully in the end you look back and you take so many positives from the experience. You have to try and take positives from the experience and think, right, okay, it changed me because I obviously had to, it was sink or swim, you know. I had to, I had to grow up very quickly and I had to decide, almost decide the person you want to be. You know, and everybody, as I say, has their own time frame. Everybody does things differently. And that's the same for my siblings. My siblings were very different to me.

But I think it was a very hard and very tough lesson, but it was a life lesson. This book will save your life is, it's steeped in metaphors for just how fragile life can be, just how fleeting it can be. And it sounds like you decided to live each day and make the most of it to make sure that nothing is wasted, to make sure that it is rich and beautiful and full of joy. And I guess from that, what advice would you give to anyone who is trying to navigate grief? Is that the approach that you would suggest would be best for them? Everybody is so different. The one thing I realized is time does, you know, the perspective of time,

you look back and you realize I'm better than I was last week or I feel, you know, that didn't hurt me in the same way that I thought it would two weeks ago. And so you start to kind of get yourself into, you know, the norms of life. You go back into kind of the world and you don't feel compelled every time somebody asks you a question. It doesn't have to be the thing that you, you know, you answer them with because I felt guilty saying that I only had two siblings or I'd feel you need to know this because this I'm changed now. Do I not look different? You know, and all those things start to get better. And so the phrase time is a healer is true. You know, it is, it sounds trite, but it is true and you will get there. But I think also don't be scared to share, you know,

people want to talk. And also don't be scared if you're the friend of somebody who's going through a really hard grieving process to ask those questions because actually you want to, if you adored that person and they were an amazing person. You want to share them and you want to talk about them and keep their spirit and their memory alive. You want to shout it from the rooftop sometimes and then also sometimes you just want to curl up and it will come in way. And that's okay. That's okay. Gavre, your fifth and final book this week is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson. In November 1930, Ursula Todd has a pleasant lunch with Adolf Hitler as you do. That is until she pulls a gun out and shoots him.

Set during World War II, this book follows the many lives of Ursula, who's reborn again and again into the same circumstances. So in one instance, she's strangled by her own umbilical cord. In another, the doctor cuts the umbilical cord with scissors and she lives. After regularly experiencing deja vu, she becomes obsessed with trying to control her and her family's fate until her brother's life is saved without her intervention. She realizes to live a happy life,

she must let go of control. Why did this book make your list? Oh, it was a really surprising book. You know, one of those, because it's not the kind of book I would have picked up necessarily. And I had a makeup artist I worked very close with,

had read it and she said how much she loved it. And I kind of like wanted to, she was saying, you must read this, you must read this. And I was thinking, it's not for me. It's not for me. I read the back, it's not for me. And then I read it

and couldn't put it down. And I think, the element of releasing control is really interesting to me. And I've recently done a show which was called Frozen and Fearless with Wim Hof. And actually that highlighted to me kind of how much I am struggling to lose control of various things in my life. How did you find Wimhaw? Oh my gosh. He is incredible and everything that you were, everything that you've probably seen on social media about him just times that by about 100.

He's incredible. He's larger than life. But control, I wouldn't say I've got control issues, but when you, you know, when you have something happened to you, like Daniel dying when you're 19, there is a need inside you almost to want to get control back in your life and being, you know, try and control the things that you can because you know that there's so many stuff going on in life that you can't. And so that part of Ursula's journey was interesting.

I loved the way Kate Atkinson wrote about the war years and I'd not really read that many novels, which were set during the war. And I loved that. And I just loved the moral choices that, you know, the conundrums, the way, because Ursula was always somebody I was rooting for in championing. And even if she made decisions that I, you know, perhaps wouldn't have made myself. And there was a consciousness to living and to being alive. And again, it goes back to what we were just talking about, how, you know, being present

and making those decisions and being aware of how you make decisions. I think sometimes that gets lost, doesn't it? And we're perhaps not owning our decisions in that respect. It's that serenity prayer, isn't it? About accepting that which we cannot control, but also, you know, if we can, then we can do something. You know, life might be precarious, but that doesn't mean that we live it precariously.

Yeah. We can live in the present. I actually literally just found this poem that, feels like it resonates so much with this novel called Could Have by Wieslava Simborska. It could have happened. It had to happen. It happened earlier later, nearer, farther off. It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first. You were saved because you were the last. Alone with others on the right, the left, because it was raining because of the shade, because the day was sunny. You were in luck because there was a forest. You're in luck because there were no trees. You're in luck. A rake, a hook, a beam, a break, a jam, a turn, a quarter inch, an instant.

So you're here. Still dizzy from another dodge. A close shave, a reprieve, a reprieve. one hole in the net and you slipped through. It couldn't be more shocked or speechless. Listen how your heart pounds inside me. We could all just not be here, but we are. If you did have the chance to relive your life and things changed,

would you do anything differently, Gabby? Gosh, that's, yeah, that's a really good question because having written just recently written about my life, there was one episode that I said, you know, at the time I like to put this down to kind of, you know, never regretting mistakes and that life is about learning, but sometimes actually, you know, that's an excuse, I think, for bad decision making and that I could have done things differently. But I have to believe that I made the right decisions at the time with the information that I had for the right reasons. And then learnt through those experiences.

Perhaps next time I would, you know, consider somebody. else's feelings more or I would think about, you know, the repercussions more. And that, that is about growing up, isn't it? And I see that with two teenagers. And, you know, all these books are kind of weaving their way through to kind of, you know, it's interesting that having, you know, that experience of mothering 16 year olds and trying to back off and not be in control, letting them make mistakes, because they're going to learn from them, seeing, you know, kind of whether or not they're putting those things into practice, all those things that, you know, you just want the very best for people around you, but at the same time, they've got to learn. And so I'd say not, you know,

I'd say that all those mistakes and the things that I did kind of led me to where I am now, you know, and what I'm doing. And I'm not disappointed with that. But of course, if I've ever upset anybody or hurt them, I'm sorry. I really can't see how you could have done. I'll be honest. I don't think you have. One, final question for you, Gabby. If you have a had to choose one book from your list as a favourite. Which one would it be and why? Oh, gosh. That's really hard because they're so deliberately I try to do very different books.

Yeah, but it all sorts of very different purposes. Yeah. And so just to have one, I think this book will save your life. Why do you think that one? Because it weaves a lot of the stuff that we've talked about together actually. And I think the lessons are so relevant to us to us all now. It's not that old the book anyway. But I think, you know, we do sometimes kind of for various reasons,

whether we're protecting ourselves against loss in the past or whether protecting ourselves because we don't want to be hurt in the future. We sometimes detach ourselves from life. And actually, I always say to my kids, you know, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger. And actually, you can't experience the joys of living. if you don't experience some pain and some loss. And I don't mean that it has to be as tragic as my childhood and losing my brother.

But those things give you the light and shade. And we're not meant to live on one even keel. You know, we're meant to have those highs and lows. And my son had his first kind of heartbreak a year ago and he was properly bereft and crying and kind of like in bed going, I can't get up. I've got a space where my heart used to be. And I kind of loved that he had that because I thought,

know, that's such a rich experience to go through his age and he expressed it so beautifully. I was going, go write some poetry. And he said, I'll trust you. And I'd say, I'd be writing poems. He came back from school and he said to me, every song I hear on the radio is talking to me. And I just, I love that because I remembered my own first heartbreak. And nothing is quite like that. Is it ever again that first time you have your heartbroken? And I think what I'm trying to say is, I think feeling and being, and living is what we're here for. And so a reminder, perhaps sometimes that, you know, those things are so important is what that book gave to me.

If you have the capacity to feel that pain, it also means that you have the capacity to feel such intense joy. And you've got to go through it to get through it. But he'll get through it. Oh, he did. Oh, he did. Of course. I know that feeling where all of a sudden every heartbreak song on the radio makes sense.

But then, you know, you've got to, you've got to feel that. because then one day when you're in love, every love song makes sense. Exactly. I remember when I met my husband, I was working on a show on ITV, and my co-host was this ex-footballer called Barry Venison, and he could see that I was massively in love. And he said, and he was married and been married for like 20 years, and he said, I'm so jealous.

And I said, why? And he said, because you're going, what you're going through now, he said, you probably won't go through again, because I think you're going to marry this guy. And he's, yeah. And he said, but I can see this period, this absolute kind of joy. that you're, you know, because you're falling in love. And he said, and I just remembered what it was like.

And I, and a bit of me was sad because I was thinking, oh, no, you mean, you know, it doesn't feel like this forever. And he said, no, you just have to kind of like ride different situations. And it was this feeling of, you know, him just almost tapping into my joy. And I see that now with, you know, younger people who are falling in love. I kind of want to be around their aura when they're, you know, experiencing it. Oh, and it grows into different forms and that's okay as well. Absolutely.

Oh, when a piece of literature can draw out that pain, but also that joy. It can give you escape, like you said, but it can also remind you of the beauty that is there right in front of you in the world. And you've reminded us of that today, Gabby, so thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you very much. I'm Vic Hope, and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today.

The Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.