Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S8 Ep23: Bookshelfie: Clare Balding

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Broadcasting legend Clare Balding tells us why the Celebrity Traitors’ castle was the perfect place to finish writing her latest book, how the author of a ‘bonkbuster’ that was banned from her school became the person who got Clare into novel-writing, and the animals and women in literature who have captured her imagination. Clare grew up in the countryside surrounded by horses and dogs, reading everything from Jilly Cooper to Henry James. A keen rider, she competed as an amateur flat jockey during her teenage years, winning Champion Lady Rider in 1990. She is now one of Britain’s leading broadcasters, receiving the BAFTA Special Award and RTS Presenter of the Year Award for her expert coverage of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and is an ardent campaigner for better coverage of women’s sport. Clare hosts her much-loved Ramblings series on Radio 4, taking her across the British Isles exploring its landscape and its storytelling. She is also a bestselling and award-winning author of numerous books and children’s novels, including her autobiography, My Animals and Other Family, which won the National Book Award for Autobiography of the Year. Her debut novel for adults, Pastures New, is a love letter to the countryside and the kindness of small communities, told with Clare’s characteristic warmth and wit.  Clare’s book choices are:  **Black Beauty by Anna Sewell **Riders by Jilly Cooper **The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid **Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus  **Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season eight of the Women’s Prize’s BookshelfiePodcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is the biggest celebration of women's creativity in the world and has been running for over 30 years.  Don’t want to miss the rest of season eight? Listen and subscribe now! You can buy all books mentioned from our dedicated shelf on Bookshop.org- every purchase supports the work of the Women's Prize Trust and independent bookshops.  This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

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Visit cfir.com. She paid me the biggest compliment. Oh my God. I was so submitting with her. I thought she was great. But she said to me one day, she said, you look, you look like a rich lesbian. And I was so thrilled. I was like, oh my God, let's patent the website, richlesbian.com.

That's all I want to look like. That is the best thing anyone's ever said to me. This is the Women's Prize for Fiction Bookshelfy podcast supported by Bayleys. Join us in celebrating women's writing from around the world in the third. 30th anniversary year of the Women's Prize for Fiction, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives. I'm Vic Hope and I am your host for Season 8 of Bookshelfy, the podcast that asks inspiring and brilliant women to share the five books by women that have shaped them and their lives. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you should be adding to your

reading list. Today I am joined by the brilliant Claire Boulding. Claire grew up in the countryside surrounded by horses and dogs, reading everything from Jilly Cooper to Henry James. A keen rider, she competed as an amateur flat jockey during her teenage years, winning champion lady rider in 1990. She's now one of Britain's leading broadcasters, receiving the BAFTA Special Award

and RTS presenter of the Year Award for her expert coverage of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. And she's an ardent campaigner for better coverage of women's sports. Claire hosts her much-loved rambling series on Radio 4, taking her across the British Isles, exploring its landscape and its storytelling. She's also a best-selling and award-winning author of numerous books and children's

novels, including her autobiography, My Animals and Other Family, which won the National Book Award for Autobiography of the Year. Her debut novel for adults, Pastures New, is a love letter to the countryside and the kindness of small communities told with Claire's characteristic warmth and wit. Claire, welcome. It's such a pleasure to have you here today. Thank you, Vic. And you know, when you said Paralympic Games, you smile because you've worked on the Paralympics and you know how massive they are and how important I think they are to the world in general. It's a great sports event, but it's more than that. I think Addie said when we launched the Paralympic Games in Paris, he said, we're watching the world

changing. And that stayed with me because that is exactly what it is. We've been ships that have crossed in the night, to be honest, because we don't actually get to see each other when we work on these things. No, we were on different shift patterns, weren't we? So I was sort of working afternoons and evenings and you were in bed by then. Well asleep. Yeah, and we also did crafts together. We did. But again, we hardly saw each other then. I know. I was roving, giving CPR to a dog. As you do. That sort of stuff. Yeah. It's all good. But now we get to talk about books. Exactly. And what a lovely thing to talk about to share. I love reading, don't you? love it so much, whether it's an escape or whether it's a grounding, whether it's to help me

lose myself or find myself. And do you still read the physical book? Always. Yeah, so do I. I understand that obviously audio books are becoming more and more popular and I've actually read all of my own books and I treat it as the last big proofread is me doing it for the audio book, which sometimes is too late to correct things. But I really enjoy doing it and I enjoy giving voices to my characters, although they tried to talk me out of doing accents. I did with Past just knew I did give Gwen quite a strong Welsh accent because I thought she needed it. Go on. Well, it just is a lilt and there's a friendliness to it as well, but there's one bit where she

swears and I bet not do it here. But it's great and Will. Oh my God, it's fantastic, yeah. You know that's when it works best? Yeah, exactly. And she can really target somebody. Anyway, no, I won't do it now because I have to be in Gwen's head. And Gwen's such a lovely character.

The landscape to me is really important as well. And I think the landscape in books that are set, you know, in a, very clear place. I think the landscape itself becomes a character. And for me, that was writing about Monmouthshire, but I think about other books. I've read like Where the Cawadad sing. That hot, stifling heat in Savannah, Georgia, you can feel it. That humidity.

Can't you? Literally turning the pages thinking, how come the glue's not melting? It's so hot. You sweat. You sweat with it. Yeah. Where do books take you? Where does reading take you? Why is it important for you? Is it that grounding or is it that escape? Which do you need? I think a bit of both. I think nonfiction. It tends to to be grounding. Fiction tends to be escape. I'll head off on holiday with, you know, five or six

books and just read, read, read. And Alice, my wife and I will swap books and then discuss them. And, you know, if she's read it already, I try and get there in terms of if there's a big reveal. I try and anticipate it before she has done. So when did you get it? Page 103? I got it on 88. Never not competitive, you know. But I love, for example, Leanne Moriarty, Australian author, many of her books have been turned into TV series and films. I just think her characterisation is so clever. And although it's not on my short list, apples never fall. I mean, loads of her books, big little lies I think is terrific. I mean, I would recommend Leighamori to anyone, frankly, just if you want a really good, fresh, funny read, I try and

read authors that I love while I'm writing. So when I was writing My Animals and Other Family, I read a lot of David Sedaris, who writes really sharp, very witty, sometimes edging on the cruel stuff about his own family. And I wanted to make myself braver about writing sharp lines, you know, get it right. If you're going to characterize your grandmother, who was a very tall, overbearing, quite intimidating woman, get that right. And don't be afraid to exaggerate a bit. And the fun thing about writing fiction is with Pastors New, I can take people I know. or an amalgamation of people I know, and make them bigger, make them funnier, make them, you know, meaner, the mother Isabel is really mean. She's really stingy. Make her even meaner than anyone you know. I love writing as a chance to be brave. I think that's a really great way of putting it. And I can't let you talk about the landscape as a character and the twists and the turns without touching on the traitors. The fact that you've just been on the celebrity traitors.

An amazing thing to be involved in and you see they've announced a second series So you know now all the speculation is really rife As who's going to be in it next But that castle is such a great setting And it inspires in you a sense of awe And it's so exciting to drive up to it And you're seeing it for real

Because it's that character as well Yeah absolutely I'm standing in the kitchen with Joe Marla And he's like this is the kitchen The Tracer's kitchen Touching everything And you know Yeah and I'm walking into the billiard room

for example, or the library or the dining room where we have breakfast or the bar or most famously the roundtable. And that room, it really does give you a sort of sense of doom and dread and seriousness. So even though really funny people there, you don't, you try not to laugh when you're in there. You said that filming the traitors was actually a really concentrated time for you to work on Pastures News. Yeah, we weren't allowed access to the internet or anything, but somebody, and I don't know whether it's, I know Alan, was writing. Stephen might have been writing as well. Nick might have been writing. All of them might have been. But they'd asked for word processors. So I had a word processor. And I took the final edit of the book up on a memory stick. And I worked really hard on, you know, because if you're

not filming, you're not allowed to socialise and mingle. So I had concentrated time to reshape the last section of the book. And actually, it was much better for it. Because when you're, you know, if I'm writing at home, I'm so easily. distracted. You know that suddenly you find yourself cleaning every screen, you know, every TV screen in the house, sweeping up the leaves, you know, suddenly you've got to jet wash the patio. I'll polish the forks. Yes, exactly. I put my pants in color order, anything to not write. When you're forced, and I can see why people go and writing retreats, and maybe that's something I should do the next time. Hopefully I'll write a sequel to this. And it maybe is something

that would be worth doing. Because when I am focused, my brain works really fast. I just have to get into that zone where you're doing it and nothing else. And there's no phone to look at. And there's no, you can't suddenly open another tab to just do a quick search for blue jumpers. You know, because you suddenly got an urge to buy a blue jumper. It turns out that the Traitor's Castle is the perfect place. I think as well being surrounded by other people who are maybe also writing their books, there's something quite motivational about that too.

Yeah. And also you're, there are characters around you that you think, gosh, this would be fun to write about it. You start taking notes. And, you know, as Nora Ephron once said, everything is copy. Everything is copy. It comes up on this podcast a lot as we delve into the books that have shaped your life and so vice versa. So let's talk about your first book, Shelfy Book, which is Black Beauty by Addisul. Black Beauty is a classic children's story told from the perspective of a handsome, sweet-tempered horse with a strong spirit.

As a young colt, he is free to gallop in the fresh green meadows. But when his owners are forced to sell him, Black Beauty goes from. a life of comfort and kindness to one of hard labour and cruelty. Bravely, he works as hard as he can, suffering at the hands of men who treat animals badly. But Black Beauty has an unbreakable spirit and is determined to survive. This is a formative book from your childhood. What are your memories of reading it?

I do have this beautiful first edition of Black Beauty, green cover, gold writing, prints in it by Cecil Alden, so beautiful pictures within it. and uncut pages. I mean, it's a really stunning physical thing. I mean, it's so beautiful, pride of place on the bookshelf. And I think, therefore, in my head, it's so much more than just a book that I read and enjoyed. And Anna Soule, who wrote it, was the only book she ever wrote. It was published late 19th century. You've probably got a date there. I'm going to guess 1887, something like that. 1877. 1877. And she wrote it to raise money for the RSPCA, which had just been established.

She lived in North London and I think I'd noticed cruelty, particularly towards dogs, a lot of strays on the road and cats. And she felt very strongly about kindness to animals being a key part of what makes us human. And I've, you know, I've written a lot about animals that wrote a series of children's novels based around a racehorse. I wrote a book called Isle of Dogs about our relationship with dogs. And I think we could argue that dogs have helped domesticate us rather than the other way around. and they can give us so much in our lives.

But with horses, if you think about them through literature, you know, even in Gulliver's travels, the Whoonims are a race of horses who are really dignified and honest and trustworthy. Michael Mopurgo's war horse, heavily influenced by Black Beauty, that idea that these beasts, which are, you know, weigh half a ton,

don't have to do anything for us. And yet they are, by their nature, are so gentle and willing and, you know, trustworthy and you can have a bond with a horse. And I think because I grew up surrounded me, you know, my dad was a racehorse trainer, surrounded by horses,

had ponies, you know, a Shetland pony when I was a child that I would try and take into the house all the time, that I had big conversations with horses, with ponies. At really important times. Yeah. And I really believe that they could, they would listen to me. And I obviously do both sides of the

conversation. So Frank, my pony, who totally understood me he was really good he gave me good advice that's what you want to hear yeah and you can vent you know we all have moments where we have to vent our frustration in different ways or we feel hard done by it and for me it's always been talking to animals to me makes more sense and is something more logical in my head even than you know it's a form of therapy isn't it and i i understand why just talking about things get it out there have that conversation even if you know the animal with whom you're having the conversation can't necessarily reply they can give you a hug they can give you a kiss you can gallop off into the you know with the wind blowing in your hair that sense of freedom and and i felt like i had a really good understanding with with horses i was the one thing as a child and into early adulthood that i felt i can do this i'm i'm good at this it's not a particularly transferable skill i have to say i mean there'd be other things that might be more useful modern languages would have been a good thing to excel at. You can take that anywhere.

It's a sort of language, you know. Yeah, but I suppose actually, if I think about it, you know, when I started working in radio, racing was my specialist subject, horse racing. And so understanding horses and how they respond, how they react, watching races, not just from what the jockey is doing, but from what the horse is doing, is maybe that was a transferable skill. I'd say so. Would you? I'd say so, yeah. I'll take that. Back in 1877, when this was published, Anasol's publisher paid a 20, for Black Beauty. It's gone on to sell 50 million copies. What do you think is the lasting

appeal? Why does it continue to resonate? I think the connection that it offers the voice of the horse, I think is such a beautiful thing to try and imagine. And I think people want that dream. I mean, think about Dr. Doolittle, who could speak to the animals, right? And I remember there was Michael Bond, who obviously famously wrote Paddington Bear and Paddington speaks, right? You know, we love animals that speak. But he also wrote Olga de Polga, which is about a guinea pig. Right. And there's a point in Olga de Polga where the guinea pig can speak at midnight.

And all she says is, I love you. I know. It gets you. Yeah. And did you read The Art of Racing in the Rain? And the dog is a central character. Enzo, the dog is a central character in it. I really, I'm a sucker for animals that can speak.

So there's that. And I think that is a lasting thing. And I think the way it reflects good and evil in human beings speaks to all of us. I think horses in particular reflect our behaviour. So if you're kind and generous and consistent, a horse will do things with you and for you. But the trick is with you.

And if you're not, if you're cruel, impatient, inconsistent, they'll put the brakes on and say no, thank you. My husband once said to me that he believes it was his dog, the only pet he's ever had, that taught him how to love. And that that's how he was then able to go on and for us to fall in love. And if he hadn't learned unconditional love, the way he was being loved by the dog and therefore able to return it, it could never have happened. So I completely, completely agree with you. When Alice and I first got together, my big question ahead of everything. was can we get a dog

it's important you need to lay that ground because if the answers are not going to be aligned then this is not going to work sorry not no 24 years later

I'm glad she said yes we can get a dog on the where there's a will there's a wake podcast you said that you would have the black beauty theme tune

I would played at your funeral yes I would so you enjoyed the adaptation as well as the book I did yes and I think again that tapped into

you know all my ideas as a young girl growing up that feeling of freedom. And you think how iconic horses, and particularly horses that look like Black Beauty, have been in various adverts over time, like the Lloyds. Exactly. There's something that lifts us and we appreciate, even though horses aren't a day-to-day part of people's lives in the way that they would have been when Anna Soule was writing Black Beauty. You know, we don't anymore have horses through the streets of London. But I think there's something within us

that is very strong in that appreciation of their beauty as well as their functional ability and their, you know, as I say, their honesty, I just think they are very sound. Bailey's 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.

Bailey's is the perfect adult treat, whether shaken in a cocktail, over ice cream or paired with your favourite book. Check out Baileys.com for our favourite Bailey's recipes. We move on to your second book, Shelfy Book, which is Riders by Chili Cooper. Brooding hero, Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands, even the most difficult horse, or woman, is charmed, is driven by his loathing of the dashing darling of the show ring, Rupert Campbell Black. Having pinched each other's horses and drunk their way around the capitals of Europe, the feud between the two men finally erupts with devastating consequences at the Los Angeles Olympics. A classic bestseller from the much-loved late Dame Jilly Cooper,

riders takes the lid off international show jumping. Now, this is, I mean, it's obviously another horsebook, but I'm not going to say a different audience, it could be the same audience, a different time of their lives. Yes. So I was a teenager when I read this. Yeah, you can imagine. This shaped my teenage years, Vick. But that idea of the Olympics, it planted in my head that seed of I really want to go to the Olympics. And I wanted to go as a rider. I actually wanted to be an event rider rather than a show jumper. But, you know, I've now covered eight Olympic games and seven Paralympic games. And I love that combination of different sports. I love all the information that I've got to take in. But also, So I've watched Great Britain's show jumping team win gold medals in London and in Rio. And I've watched Nick Skelton win an individual gold medal. And I knew Jilly Cooper pretty well.

And the funny thing is, her daughter, Emily, was at the same school as me, a bit younger. And when we were at school, we're all reading riders. And it is, let's be honest. I've recommended something here that is, you know, you're genuine bonkbuster. So it is a guilty pleasure. it's jilly would never pretend that this is you know somehow high literature but i think there is a real skill in the way she creates plot and character fast moving action and that love intrigue a lot of those characters i have met in real life like you recognize i know them and i know who she was being influenced by

but at school we had a very formidable and rather brilliant her mistress called miss far and she decided to ban it. Oh, that makes you want to read it even more. Of course it does. Your classic Lady Chattley's lover. Yes, we want to read it. But Jilly came in to school and said, look, I understand that you've talked about banning my book

and she said, I really need you not to do that because if you ban it, I won't be able to pay the fees, the school fees. Anyway, Julie, I saw, she loved a day at the races and she was always the life and soul of any party. I mean, just such a thrill to have known. own her. I had interviewed her a few times and I was interviewing her at the Cheltenham Literary Festival and we're in the green room beforehand and she said, now I need to have a word with you.

She said, because you can write. I know. Wasn't that nice? And she'd read my animals and other family and she said, and I know you're writing novels for children, but I don't know why you're doing that. You need to be writing a novel for adults. Come on. Get on with it. And I said, oh, I'm a bit worried because I don't think I can write about sex. And she said, oh, just get on with it. So actually what I did is I ended up writing about love. I really did write about love. And I thought, I know love. I want to write about love.

But Jilly was, and I love the titles of her books. They're so naughty. Even Mount. Okay, so riders, you remember that iconic cover with the hand on the bottom. Yeah, exactly. But rivals, mount, jump, tackle, which I think was about football rather than rugby. I mean, just funny, clever, gregarious, encouraging, supportive,

just a really great human being and I think a terrific writer who I appreciate how much in her books is not easy to achieve, right? She really knows how to write or knew how to write a page turner. It's that braveness again that you mentioned

because you can have the braveness in the way you describe characters, but also the fact that you can put sex on the page like that. I know. Legendary. I know. And creates a character in Rupert Campbell Black, who is compelling and, you know, wildly attractive, but so flawed. Oh, yeah.

But everyone knows a man like him. It's what you said about populating the world with people that you recognise. Well, talk to me about why you recognise these people. So you went to an all-girls boarding school. What was teenage Claire Boulding like? What was life like around that time? I think pretty insecure because I never felt like I fitted in. You know, I went to our village primary school and you rock up at boarding school.

Everyone's been to prep school, right? They've lived in environments that are quite rarefied and privileged and they all went on skiing holidays. Right. You know, went away in the summer. We didn't. And we never went away on summer holidays as a family because my dad's busy time was through the summer with Epsom and Royal Ascot and Glories Goodwood and York. And, you know, my life was punctuated by race meetings. and my geography of the UK was entirely based on race courses.

I'd never been to Cornwall because there was not a race course there. It didn't. Yeah, where's Cornwall? But yeah, I think I felt out of place. And actually sport was the thing that saved me in lots of ways that gave me a place within a team where I was not being judged for what I'm wearing or what my hairstyle was like or what music I liked or whether or not I said words the right way.

I was part of a team and it was about whether I could catch the ball and pass the ball and I learnt then about making other people feel confident and getting the best out of them and that's something I really genuinely believe sport is such a great grounding for you know there's an emotional intelligence required

in sport as well as a really good organisational skill and that's the way I got through so sport was massively important to me It also meant I could just wear sports kits. It's just a lot more comfortable, really. I found fashion quite tricky. Still do, don't you? I mean, you're brilliant because you honestly, you always wear tipped top.

I wear what I like, though. Yeah. I remember at school dreading own clothes day. I actually really liked uniform. So we called it mufti. Muffty. Yeah, I hated that. Yeah.

I agree. It's very stressful. Yes, hugely stressful. You're thinking, why can't you just fade into a uniform? And I always think men are very lucky with the whole suit. thing and black tie in particular you can wear exactly the same thing every time we wear one thing and particularly if you're going to have a photo taking it you then can't wear it again well i'm as a huge advocate of sustainable fashion circular fashion wear it again come on what's the worst that's

going to happen i know but loved uniform because no one was then looking at what you're wearing as a way of defining you or what you're about what you're capable of what you can afford and i think we're very visual in our definition of people i think we make judgments from a long way off because of the way someone looks. Fashion's interesting. Oh, it's fun. And it can be something to hide behind and lots of people do. And my God, you know, someone like Paloma Faith who can create a different look every time. It's fascinating to see, oh, she's great fun. She's brilliant. And Ruth, Ruth, Ruth Cod, brilliant. I mean, her fashion sense is so one point. Kat Burns, what a cool dude. I mean, I loved what she paid me the biggest compliment. Oh my God. I was so submitting with her.

I thought she was great, but she said to me one day, she said, you look, you look like a rich lesbian. And I was so thrilled. I was like, oh my God, let's patent the website, richlesbian.com. That's all I want to look like. That is the best thing anyone's ever said to me. So when I saw her at the finale on Tuesday, I said, do I look like a rich lesbian? And what did she say?

Yeah, she did actually, but I think she was just being nice to me, you know. Well, on the subject of rich lesbians, we move on now to your third book. Is there a connection? Not really, but you know, you can find a connection in anything. The seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo. There is a very good connection there. Well, there we go by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Well, even in Hugo is a reclusive Hollywood legend.

She surprises the media by choosing an unknown reporter to write her life story. As she recounts her rise to fame, her seven marriages, as we discussed in the secrets of old Hollywood, it becomes clear that her life story is inextricably linked to Monique's own life. a complex exploration of love, sexuality, identity. The Seven Husbands of Ivelin Hugo is a mesmerizing journey through the splendor of Old Hollywood into the heart realities of the present day as two women struggle with what it means

and what it costs to face the truth. Evelyn Hugo is a character is so many different things and she is vulnerable, she's flawed, she's ambitious, she's pretty competitive and in a world where women were only allowed to be one thing and they had to be what generally speaking the movie industry wanted them to be so you're allowed to be beautiful and glamorous

and have many different husbands but actually you're not allowed to be who you want to be and I pictured in my head reading it I pictured someone who looked a bit like Catherine Hepburn you know wearing high waist trousers and Polonex and just being different I really loved it And I loved the twist and I loved that sort of two, you know, different generations of women, you know, one trying to write the story and the other telling her story and telling it honestly and being in control of it.

And we talk a lot these days of controlling your own narrative. I just thought it was so perfectly devised and written. And apparently when Taylor Jenkins Reid went to her editor and said, this is the book I want to write, they were like, don't think so, not sure, and took a long time to get this book out there and now it's been a phenomenal success. I think it was really compelling as a read. I loved it. I love the fact that as a heroine, you're still at the end of it going, I don't completely love Evelyn Hugo. There's a lot that she's done wrong, but I do love her because it's honest. It's like it feel, and I know that's weird to say fiction, but I just really enjoyed her layers. I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed that. And I like a, you know, a strong heroine who is many things and who is flawed.

I love that. It was a great link, actually, because the experiences of LGBTQ plus characters is explored in a very nuanced way, which we don't often or always get. Did this book make you reflect on representation? Yeah. And actually made me braver about what I was going to write about and who my central character, Alex, was. whether she was even honest with herself in who she might fall in love with. And that was something I understood pretty clearly.

But also we think we're so open-minded. We think we're so free to be ourselves now. And you know, Alice and I have really committed to making sure we're always open and honest. I understand that for lots of people, that's not an easy decision to make. But one of the reasons, you know, we do goggle box together, sat on our sofa at home. they were quite keen for me to do that with a celebrity friend if you like and I was like well if I'm going to do that

I'd rather do that with the person I watch television with at home in a really authentic genuine setting and there's lots of people tell me Alice is much funnier than I am so I'm much more intelligent and makes better comments I know yeah who do I want to sing next to me I think that is quite an important way of just saying this is who we are and we've been together a very long time

And I think that has a power to it, and I think writing about characters who aren't necessarily just one thing. There was a long time when every book you read had, you know, if a woman was bold enough to speak her mind or make a decision that might be controversial, she got killed off. And I love the fact that when you start looking for them, you know, Elizabeth's art in lessons and chemistry, another great example of a heroine who is many things and is flawed and is bright and is not. playing a game of, you know, making men feel fabulous about themselves all the time is doing her thing. I think there's a really important ways of just representing not just sexuality, but I think the many different things that women can be. And I enjoy reading about that. I enjoy writing it too. Well, you did say just before actually that one of the things you wanted to write about in Pastage New was the experience of falling in love. Because it's something

you know. You've been married for 20 years. How did you bring falling in love to the page? I was struggling a bit with Alex as my heroine and I thought, I just don't know who she is because she's not me and she's not Alice. She is her own character. But I'm like, how am I going to make her come alive? And part of it, she inherits a farm in Monmouthshire so she is immediately dislocated into a part of the country that she doesn't know at all.

And writing about that and I have a farm. friend who lives there that I can see that landscape. I know that landscape. I have walked that landscape. But I haven't walked it in Alex's shoes. So when I was struggling with writing, I would go on long walks and I would think about what needs to happen here. And I figured she needs to fall in love, not just with the place, but she needs a person to also discombobulate her, to throw her off sink. Her idea of success is having no responsibility. That's her idea. So she doesn't even have a house plant, let alone a pet, let alone a relationship. And I needed that to change so that she almost could realize if you, if you're going to have a life for that responsibility, a bit like you were saying about your husband, you have to learn unconditional love.

You have to know how to make yourself vulnerable, how to throw yourself into something knowing you could get hurt. But you can't, you know, you can't be loved unless you're prepared to love. Yeah? And knowing that it's worth it. And knowing it's worth it and trusting someone completely. So I think that was something I wanted to write about. And those things can get tested in many ways. I mean, gosh, in Evening Hugo, I think what tests her real love is society because it's unacceptable.

So it's very nice to live in a world where you can't be thrown in prison for it or lose your job. You keep setting these up on the subject of losing your job. and you mentioned Elizabeth Zott, your four bookshelfy book. Lessons in Chemistry. Oh, honestly, Lessons and Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. This is so, so brilliant. A multi-award-winning international bestseller,

Lessons and Chemistry follows chemist Elizabeth Zott in the early 1960s on an all-male team at Hastings Research Institute. Forced to leave her job, Elizabeth soon finds herself the reluctant star of America's most loved cooking show, supper at six. But as her following grows, not everyone's happy.

Because as it turns out, Elizabeth isn't just teaching women to cook. She's daring them to change the status quo. She's leading the revolution. I just love it. She's a great character. She's a brilliant creation. Bonnie Garmus, I've met a couple of times. She came to the boat race two years ago.

And I said, oh, because I think she writes television really well and that conflict between presenter and producer or editor. And what you want to say and how you want to say it. And if you're being brave enough to be detailed and intellectual about things and you don't want to just do fluff. Yeah. I love that. I think she's got that really, really well. Anyway, I said to her, do you want to listen to talk back? Because when we're doing sport, as you know, you're hearing a lot of instructions. You're on open talk back. Generally, in entertainment, people aren't. They're on switch talk back. So they're only talked to when necessary. Sport, for whatever reason, I don't know why we do this, just to make it more difficult. The voices in our heads. We are on open talkback.

So you're hearing somebody say, camera three, coming to you or pull, you know, can you just give me so-and-so on a close-up? No, I want the boat. I want the boat on the water. I want a shot of Patney Bridge. Pull out from Patney Bridge. You're hearing all of this. Sometimes I'm hearing, yeah, I'll have milk and my coffee, thanks. Yeah, there's that too.

Yeah, yeah. Gallery discipline. Anyway, I said to Bonnie, put the floor managers talk back on, I mean, a second set. I wasn't taking it away from my lovely floor manager. and listened to that and she watched me interviewing someone listening to talk back

and went after it oh my God she said I had no idea I said well I don't think with Elizabeth Zott in her era it would have been like that quite but there is definitely your brain is having to do many things and you know it's I always think it's like

somebody with six children having to listen but not listen and you hear the things that really matters so they scream in a way that suggests they've actually hurt them then you move but quite often the director or the producer is not necessarily saying things you need to hear but i love again a bit like even hugo you've got a spiky heroine yes she's brilliant what a protagonist oh she's fabulous and just as an example when she's packing her daughters

mad i love that and i love the fact the dog's called 630 i just love that there's so much humor in it But when she's packing her pack lunch, which is really, you know, advanced, complicated food, she puts little notes on it. So fuel for learning, Elizabeth Zott wrote on a small slip of paper before tucking it into her daughter's lunchbox. Then she paused, her pencil in mid-air as if reconsidering. Play sports at recess, but do not automatically let the boys win, she wrote on another slip. Then she paused again, tapping her pencil against the table. it is not it is not your imagination she wrote on a third most people are awful she placed the last two on top i love that

i love that there is so much of her that is angry and she has plenty to be angry about frankly but it's the way you fight injustice in the world i think can come in many ways and you can absolutely march with placards and it's pretty important that people do. Or you can try and have your influence in different ways. And Elizabeth Zott understands that through television, through a cooking program, watched by women, mainly at home, not working, she can influence them. And that dynamic, I think, is so interesting. And I still believe, I believe in the power of television. I really do. And radio. And the written word. Your influence can be felt in many different ways. You don't have to be a politician to change the world.

Or just change the little bit, as David Nichols writes in one day, change the bit of the world around you. Yeah. I'd say doing the Paralympics, it's storytelling, it's about people, it's sport at the highest level. But I really feel for colleagues like Alex Scott, a lot of female sports presenters who I've seen really go through it. And it's not right and it's not fair.

And there is a level of abuse. Yes. You know, and as we know from the recent case of Lucy Ward and any, Aluco against J. Barton, you know, there is a level of abuse that is thrown at women that is beyond the pale. And I just think there are lots of different ways of trying to handle it, but the fact that we have to handle it is hard. It's hard in itself. I'm not saying men don't get criticism. Of course they do. But again, going back to that thing of visual judgment, a lot of it is that. Yeah. How do you

help and support other women who are navigating that in the broadcast industry but also in sport i send a lot of messages when i think people are doing a good job and i and i would always say and also to let them know i'm there if they want to talk things through now that's not to say i've got all the answers because i haven't but i protect myself with a discipline bordering on obsession i do not look at social media when i'm doing major events so through the whole two weeks of Wimbledon through the whole two and a half weeks, three weeks of Olympics or Paralympic Games.

I know what's going on in the world and I will get it filtered in terms of knowing what's taken off and what hasn't but I do not need to see comments from people who don't work in television saying they don't like what I'm wearing or they don't like my hair or they don't like

you know if I've made a mistake and I will hold my hands up like pulling a lever two things I hadn't read the instructions or listen to them I will always put my hand up and say my bad I got that wrong and I think that's important you always say sorry my mistake but you know you're trying to do the right thing you're trying to do things and most of what we do in sport as you say is is enable people to tell their own stories we make an audience

care about the outcome of an event or a race or whatever it is making them care so they're invested emotionally invested that's what we do and we react and we respond hopefully with intelligence, but also emotional understanding of what it feels like to lose from a position of winning or to win suddenly and the bond that is formed in a team and how much that matters, celebrate, you know, with those that are celebrating, but also commiserate with those that are losing. But there's a professional element to what we do and that is based on training and skill and understanding and I think it's really important to focus on that if you're presenting and not on the incoming traffic of opinion. It's a really hard thing to do, right? It's

like giving up chocolate. You have to be really disciplined, but you don't need to be listening to all the noise. Focus on the voices that matter. And I think the other key for me is staying so present within the moment of what I'm doing so I love my job I love what I do and I love it because I get so involved and I really watch the event and I try and

help people at home feel it as well as as well as watch it Claire we feel it we feel it through the TV screen you have lifted the nation so many times around so many sporting events well there's athletes are the ones who are lifting them I'm just going why does this matter and this is why it matters and hope that people

come along with you for the ride. And I believe in sport. Like I don't do sport because I'm trying to do something else. I love sport what it is and what it represents. And it can be complicated and it's not always, you're not always dealing with people who are necessarily behaving right and suddenly you get something happens that really disappoints you in someone's behaviour or what they've, you find out they've tested positive for something and you're like, oh no, everything I believed in has just been destroyed. But that's part of the ride. You know, we are all, the world is not perfect and sport is a part of it and it's not always going to be perfect. Claire, we've arrived at your fifth and final bookshelfy book today. And I can't help

but feel you had a short list of more than five. Yes, I do. Yes. Yes. I saw your notes, but we have decided on a final one, which is raising hair by Chloe Dalton. When Chloe, a city dwelling professional with a high-pressure job finds a newly born hair endangered, alone and no bigger than her palm, she's compelled to give it a chance at survival, despite being the least likely caregiver to this wild animal. Raising hair is the story of their journey together. It chronicles an extraordinary relationship between human and animal, rekindling our sense of awe towards nature and wildlife. Their improbable bond of trust reminds us that the most remarkable experiences, inspiring the most hope, often arise when we least expect them.

It's another book about animals at its hearts with so much hearts. Raising Hair was actually shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Nonfiction. What did you love about it, though? I was sent this as a proof copy. So actually, I read it on my iPad before it was published. I thought it was one of the most beautiful pieces of writing and very self-revealing. Chloe, not dissimilar to Alex in Pastures New, that dislocation coming out of London, suddenly, you know, during COVID, into a very remote rural location and what she saw and understood and this leveret, you know, this hair basically coming in, knowing it's a wild animal and every day she's going to make sure it can go where it wants to go, but it keeps gravitating back towards her.

I just thought it was a really touching, very beautiful, almost, you know, more poetry than prose. I think every word is so carefully chosen and I really loved it and obviously off the back of it, she's got heavily involved in campaigning for more awareness of hares and particularly amongst farmers and I've written about the farming community and about leaving strips on the edges of fields and understanding when hairs need a bit more care. I love seeing them as well in the wild. I think hairs are extraordinary. It's been a very powerful campaigning tool

for the protection of hairs. It did also win the Wainwright Prize Book of the Year. You mentioned there using books as a way of talking about something that you're passionate about and actually having a bit of an impact. Yeah. She also touches on something and I try to do it in a slightly different way.

when you're living in a remote location, rural friendship requires so much more effort than urban friendship because, you know, we've got fabulous neighbours but I can literally walk down the road knock on their door and get sugar if that's what we've run out of or go for a drink or, you know,

go and watch, we watch Celebrity Traitors with our neighbour because she was so involved in it and the kids all wanted to watch it and we're all around and they're pointing at people and, you know, I'm just sitting there going, I haven't seen this episode, I don't know what happens, but it's a lovely easy thing to get on with your neighbours

I mean sometimes they can live a bit you know there are noise issues if you get neighbours that are very very noisy I have lovely neighbours there in the countryside people have to drive further and it's a more practical quite often it's a practical form of friendship they'll come and mend your fence

they mean actually mend your fence they're not just mending fences they're physically going to mend your fence and I really I really enjoy writing about that and appreciating communities where they do scoop each other up and look after each other and make sure you don't get too isolated

because it's really easy to do. I think this is a friendship and go right back to what we said at the beginning about that idea of talking to animals and finding your therapy through that communication, I think that's revealed really beautifully here in a very different way. I think it's a stunning book, I really do.

Claire, I do have to ask you, your question that is the one that has hated the most on this podcast. This is a beautiful book, but you picked another four that were also fantastic in their own ways. If you had to choose a favourite of the five that you brought today to bookshelfy, which would it be in why? I'd probably pick lessons in chemistry. Okay. Bonnie Garmus, I do think that is just, I mean, it made me cry, it made me laugh a lot. It's very revealing in the television industry. It's an intelligent woman railing against injustice and particularly challenging misogyny and doing so in her way. And I really love that. I think it's terrific. And I can't wait to read whatever

Bonnie Gamas writes next. It's been such an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast, to chat about books, to chat about life, to chat about sport and telly. You've covered everything. And also our listeners can go away with some great recommendations. So thank you so much for your time, Claire. Thank you, Vic. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Bootschelphie podcast, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you for joining me for this episode. You'll find all the books discussed in our show notes. If you've enjoyed it, please leave us a rating or review to help other readers discover even more brilliant books by women.

See you next time.