Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S8 Ep7: Bookshelfie: Charlene White

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Pioneering broadcaster, journalist and author Charlene White discusses the danger of banning books, dealing with grief and loss, and her interest in what home means to others.   Charlene began presenting ITV News in 2008 and in 2014 became the first Black woman to present ITV News at Ten. She’s also one of the presenters of daytime show, Loose Women, and helmed the show's first all-black panel special, which won a Royal Television Society award and was nominated for a BAFTA. In 2020 Charlene presented the award-winning ITV series IRL with Team Charlene - a mix of short films, animation and music dealing with racism in the UK, and how it impacts the lives of young people. She uses her platform to mentor aspiring journalists, and work alongside various organisations to achieve better representation in the industry. As a writer, Charlene is a regular columnist for the iPaper and has written for the New York Post. Her critically acclaimed debut non-fiction book, No Place Like Home, was published last year.  Charlene’s book choices are: ** The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allan Ahlberg **Forever by Judy Blume ** And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou ** Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams **A Life Reimagined: My Journey of Hope in the Midst of Loss by Jill Halfpenny 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 for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and continues to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of season eight? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

I remember our bookshelves at home were full of encyclopedias. Sorry, a classic house. Although it's same. I think if you have an Afro-Caribbean parent, your house is going to be full of encyclopedias. It just happens. Oh, yeah. 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 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'm joined by Charlene White.

Charlene is a pioneering journalist, author and broadcaster. She began presenting ITV News in 2008 and in 2018, and in 2014 became the first black woman to present ITV news at 10. Charlene is also one of the presenters of daytime show Loose Women, the show's first all-black panel special, which Charlene Helmed, won a Royal Television Society Award and was nominated for a BAFTA. She also presented the award-winning ITV series, IRL, with Team Charlene, which was a mix of short films and animation and music,

dealing with racism in the UK and how it impacts the lives of young people. Charlene uses her platform to mentor, aspiring journalists and works alongside various organizations to achieve better representation in the industry. As a writer, Charlene is a regular columnist for the I-paper and has written for the New York Post. Her critically acclaimed debut non-fiction book, No Place Like Home, was published last year. Charlene, welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me, Vic. I feel like there was a time when we used to see each other a lot more.

I used to work at ITN and I'm sure in the lifts we'd be passing. passing each other and at social occasions to be bump into each other. It's been a while, but it's really lovely to see you. It's lovely to see. You've given me some great advice over the years as well, for which I'm very grateful. Well, I'm just very proud of you.

No, do you know what? Because sometimes it's hard to take control of your own career and realise when people aren't always realizing how brilliant you are. And you realise that, and you're doing incredible things. Well, we were just talking in the studio before you arrived, myself and the producer, about how beautiful this podcast is.

Because I love books so much. I love reading. I'm a bookworm. And I always thought for a long time that I couldn't express that. But I didn't think that you could be a youth presenter and like things like books. Yes.

And this has given me such freedom and such love. And that's something that you instilled when you said, listen, you can follow your passion. Yeah. And I just think people assume that it can only ever be one thing. And I'm very much a believer in don't let other people control the path that you want to take.

you do the things that you want to do and you will fly. And I think a lot of the times we're encouraged to that older people who've been around a long time know better than you and know yourself better than you know yourself. And that's simply not true. Well, I want to get to know you through books. Okay. Shall I settle in, get comfy? That's what we do here.

Okay. But when do you get to do your reading? Because you are so busy. Do you manage to carve time out? Not as much time as I used to be able to, but I think that is because I've got two young children. And so when I get to the end of the day, sometimes my brain is just so frazzled. I don't necessarily have as much time as I used to be able to just sit and read. So the choices that I've made today, one of them is a children's book.

Because I do do a lot of reading with my kids. So that's how I, I don't know, express my joy of books is by wanting them to have a love for it as well. Well, I want to start with that book then, with the children's book, because I'm going to say we've had to caveat it by saying it's sort of cheating this one. We ask you to pick books by women. This is a husband and wife duo, but we will let you have it. It is The Jolly Postman by Janet and Alan Olberg. This much-loved rhyming tale, which has delighted readers for generations, helps children discover the magic of letters. The Jolly Postman delivers the post in fairy tale land.

You can open the envelopes. You can read the letters from Goldilocks, a postcard addressed to a giant beanstalk, and even a note for The Big Bad Wall. Now, you chose this book as one that you consider work of genius. It's a children's picture book. Tell us why you love it so much. Well, because it was a book that I grew up reading in my house, both me, all three of us. My brother, my sister and me, our parents read this book to all three of us.

and one of the first presents that my brother bought my eldest, who's now seven, was this book so that we could also in our house read it to both the children as well. And it's not just about it being an incredible book to show the joy of letters. You have to read it in a very specific way and it gets them used to the flow of language and also how you can use the rhythm of your voice to tell a story. If you read it straight, it doesn't really make a lot of sense. So you have to get into the rhythm. It's almost like a type of poetry almost.

So you have to read it to them and use voices and stuff like that. And they understand that stories are not written in just one way and they're not read in just one way. And they absolutely love it. And then they get all the letters. And to be honest, the bits and pieces that are in each letter, I think are scattered around my house somewhere. The joy they get from that as well is incredible. And there aren't many books that have been written like that since. And it goes back to, what, 1986?

and it's still such a beautiful classic. And for my kids, I want them to understand language. I want them to understand the joy of language. I want them to be able to be very eloquent and make sure that their voices are heard in a way that makes sense. And so this book is a very, for me, a very early chance to do that and get them to understand that. I remember reading this book and you're so right, the melody of it.

I remember my dad almost singing the words, of it to me and then we made our own version. Did you? Yeah. And he said, okay, imagine all the people that you would write letters to and then you can get your postman to send them. So I imagined all of these scenarios and all these people that I would want to talk to and feeling that I could.

It's sort of opened doors in that way. Do you feel like you're trying to open doors for your kids? Yeah. And actually, really interestingly, my youngest, my daughter, who's five, although she's only in the early stages of learning to write. She loves writing letters. And I sat with her last week because she was writing some apology letter

to a friend from school about an altercation that they had and an argument they'd had with another kid. And she was like, can you help me write a letter to Chloe, mummy? I said, of course. So he sat down and read the letter. She told me what she wanted to write. I wrote the letter to Chloe

and she folded it up, made her own little envelope and stuff and then took it into school the next day. And again, we live in a tech world where we write WhatsApp and text messages, but the fact that she just wanted to sit and write a letter, she didn't want to send a voice note, she didn't want to send a video or anything like that, she just wanted to write down what she was feeling

and then send it to her friend. And understanding words and letters and the joy of putting pen to paper, I want them to know and understand. And again, this is an early way to be able to do that because it's, as you say, there's so many different nuances to this book and so many different parts of it to love

and so many different parts that I want my kids to love and it's so many different parts that my parents wanted me and my siblings to love. And that's why I've chosen it because there are so many books that we can think of that our parents loved us to read and the fact that we can, well, I can do that for my own children and that my brother, my youngest brother, the baby of the family,

remembers that book as something that was important also in his life, just shows the power of words. What a gift to pass on. Yeah. Let's move on now to your second bookshelfy book. We go a little older now. And it's Forever by Judy Bloom.

Catherine and Michael met at a party. The attraction was instant and pretty soon. They were seeing each other. This is love. And love is forever, right? Well, when Catherine's parents make them spend the summer apart, forever begins to feel like an awfully long time. This is the ultimate coming of age novel for teenage girls everywhere.

Take us back to when you read this book. How old were you? How did this make you feel? So I must have been, I was trying to think about this yesterday, we changed buildings in my secondary school. And I think I read it when we're in our first building. So I must have been about 13, 14, I think. And I was friends with the older girls in school.

So it was an all-girls school that we were at. I was at. and I was friends with a lot of the girls on the year above and two years above me and they kept talking about this book called Forever. It's like folklore, isn't it? It's cool. It was all. Everyone wanted to get their hands on it.

It's like there's this naughty book that talks about sex. And they're like, oh, no. And it was one of my friends in the year above, Emma. She passed me her copy. And from the outset, I knew it wasn't a book that my parents would necessarily want me to read. So I sort of hid it at the bottom of my school bag and I'd read it in secret every now and then. And I could not believe what was in this book.

And I guess when I got older, I realized actually it's very beautiful. It's such, so beautifully written. But it covered a lot of subjects that perhaps, not perhaps, we weren't covered in school. And taught me a lot about boys and love and. sex and relationships. And I grew up in a household that was, you know, very strict in a lot of different ways. So I wasn't really allowed to hang out with boys as a young teenager. I wasn't allowed to have boyfriends.

I wasn't allowed to sort of go around to boys' houses or anything like that. So situations in which, you know, Catherine and Michael find themselves in was something that was just would blow my mind. And so I think I learned a lot from reading it. And what I love about this book is it says impactful then, and I was what, it was in mid-90s, but it was written in the late 70s. So for a book to still have an impact on me in the mid-90s,

to still being having, still having an impact now in 2025. And still all these years later features on lists of banned books in America is incredible. Because I think it really goes to the heart of what it is to be a teenager and the things that we ought to, know about but our parents are too scared to teach us about. Teachers don't know if they can teach us about. So all you really get this information from is secondhand from other girls in school or older girls in school or as a generation now tries to learn about all this stuff online

and isn't always getting the truth. But for me, I learn a lot about the things that I should have been told but learned about it through words instead. Well, Judy Blume has dubbed this a romance novel but with sex education because it is you know you're learning like you say about topics that you perhaps weren't learning elsewhere we know it's important for young women to have access to topics like sex

fiction is a brilliant vehicle for that but like you said it's been 50 years since Forever was published in 1975 it was being banned then in schools and libraries and it's still being banned now it's just like it taught us in some of our schools

not even my generation like generations of girls who've picked up this book have learned about masturbation, for example. And that you're allowed to enjoy it. And it's, you know, how many PSC lessons or whatever they call it now teach girls about masturbation and the joy of it and the fact it's not a wrong thing to do and that pleasuring yourself is okay and your own sexual pleasure doesn't have to come from another person. It can come just from yourself.

That didn't exist in any of the texts that we were reading at school. school. They didn't exist in any of the lessons that we were sat in in school. My parents certainly weren't teaching me about masturbation. And, you know, it's incredible that this book is still seen as something that's going to infect the minds of young people as though they aren't going to go through their own, I don't know, journey where sex and sexual attraction is concerned, as if they're not going to go through that journey anyway. So what's wrong with having a book, a book, that's going to hold their hand through them. And knowing that you're allowed to enjoy it

is actually key to consent. I mean, when people feel that book banning still feels like a solution, we've got to ask what's going on. As a journalist, why is it important that we continue to fight against censorship in literature? Well, we could see her for hours and talk about that. Because why are we so afraid of 85,000 words?

for example that's written in a novel. Why are we so afraid of that? It's about learning. It's about educating. It's about opening your mind to things that are happening outside of your own front door, outside of the bottom of your road, outside of your village, outside of your town. There's nothing wrong with that. And I mean it in terms of books that can be completely the other end of the scale that are hugely offensive.

It doesn't necessarily mean that those books should be banned either because it's about learning. and we learn more about the world and more about ourselves in that way. And I love the fact that here we aren't going through an era of sitting and saying to the educational authority that we should be banning books. I'm glad that we're not at that stage yet. I'm not saying that we won't reach that, but we're not really at that stage yet. But I think the dangerous thing about the United States is it's trying to keep women in the position that they were centuries ago, where they're not allowed to enjoy themselves. not allowed to enjoy their bodies.

They are there simply for the gratification and pleasure of men. And that's the situation that they are in at the moment, which is taking things, rolling things back to an era before you and I were born. We don't really understand what that era is like. But that doesn't mean that we should be stopped from enjoying the things that we do in life. And yes, you talk about consent, for example. If women don't understand their bodies, If women don't understand, you know, the joy that they can get from their bodies and the power that their bodies have,

then we end up going down a road where their bodies are used for other people in really horrible ways because they think that's what's supposed to happen. And when we have an era where young people are learning about sex and sexuality in a way that isn't controlled, and that is the internet, you don't see these people trying to ban the internet, but they'd rather ban books. Books you can control the internet you cannot, but books don't necessarily make very specific, powerful people a lot of money. And more powerful.

Well, talking of our agency over our own bodies, talking of our right to enjoy our lives. Let's move on to your third book, Shelfy Book, which is, and Still I Rise, by Maya Angelou. Yeah. An absolute classic collection of poetry by renowned author, poet, playwrights, civil rights, civil rights activist and memoirist Maya Angelou. First published in 1978 and featuring two of her most well-known and popular poems,

Phenomenal Woman and Still I Rise. This collection, which is lyrical and dramatic and exuberant and playful, speaks of love and longing and partings of Saturday night partying and the smells and sounds of southern cities of freedom and shattered dreams. Tell us more about why you chose us. Why was this such a formative book for you? I grew up on a diet of Maya Angelou and Tony Morrison and so many other brilliant black American women and writers

and black British women writers as well. My mum and my aunt, who were huge prolific readers, went to school here. They went to secondary school here. When they came here from Jamaica, they went to secondary school here. And their experiences of being in secondary school here really did have an influence on how they chose to raise us and my cousin, Marcus,

because the stuff they had to deal with and teachers assuming that they were stupid because they spoke with an accent and they didn't come from here really did determine the path that they took in life. And what they didn't want to happen was the same thing, the same experiences to happen with their children. And so they wanted us to read, especially the girls in our family, writers powerful women writers, black women writers, who would be able to show us that being powerful, being intelligent,

wanting things in life, understanding our beauty, that none of those things was a bad thing. And through the writings of Maya Angelia and Tony Morrison, I learned that. So I remember our bookshelves at home were full of encyclopedias. So we'd have an encycloped. Sorry, a classic house on those. same. I think if you have an Afro-Caribbean parent, your house is going to be full of encyclopedias.

It just happened. Oh, yeah. But tiny, I can't remember. It was like a red one that we had and was like a whole shelf just full of encyclopedias. It's like a younger generation listen to this. We're like, what? What's that? We had no internet. And all these just beautiful books and what they wanted us to do is just go to the bookshelf, get a book and sit down and read. and what my mum really wanted us to do is to read women writers that was her big thing you know there's a saying in Caribbean households

you know when your kids are just sitting around and saying they're bored or what have you? And I go, have you picked up a book since morning? And it's like basically have you done any reading today? Because that'll sort of thing.

Yeah, yeah. Don't sit there and tell me your board pick up a book and read which is essentially what I do to my kids. And it's just the beauty in Myers' words and I actually wrote down a couple of my favorite

lines from it if I can if I can read so still I rise and phenomenal woman as you say two of her most well-known poems from and still I rise and a few of the paragraphs from this did you want to see me broken about head and lowered

eyes shoulders falling down like teardrops weakened by my soulful cries does my haughtiness offend you don't you take it awful hard because I laugh like I've got gold mines digging in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words. You may cut me with your eyes. You may kill me with your hatefulness, but still like air, I'll rise. That's one of my favourite parts of it. And mine, female black joy is radical. And I get goosebumps every time I hear that poem. Because Maya Angelou

pave the way for so many of us to know that we could tell our stories too, that our stories were powerful and they are valid. And as well as being a poet, she was also a much admired memoirist. Most famously, of course, for I know why the Caged Bird sings. She actually wrote seven autobiographies during her lifetime. And I would like to talk about your debut book, Charlene, no place like home, which is also, of course, a memoir. I read that you had the idea whilst filming the documentary Empire's Child. So what was it that compelled you to write your story? I mean, the book is, what in the literary world?

They call memoir plus because only the first two chapters are about my family and the rest of it is telling the stories of others. So when I stood at the top of a mountain in Clarendon, which is one of the highest points in Jamaica doing this documentary, the genealogist took me to a patch of land that essentially my ancestors bought when they became, freed slaves. Now when you became freed slave you can either go at alone or you could continue working on the land of your now former slave master. But my family decided to buy a patch of land and

self-root and veg. And the genealogist explained that this patch of land because they'd chosen to go alone was the starting point for my family's decisions through generations and generations to go alone and want more from their lives, which is essentially how I've ended up. being born here. And it was a real, I felt this connection to this patch of land that I've been to Clarendon before, but I didn't understand how far back our connection to Clarendon goes. But understanding that this was the start of our lives as freed slaves really hit me and I felt a connection and it felt like home. Jamaica's always felt like home to me. I've been going there my entire life because my parents are from there and it just got me thinking about how we

see home as individuals and where home is for us. You know, I've grown up in an environment where historically if I say, well, yes, home is Jamaica and home is London, that somehow I wasn't fully British as a result if my heart doesn't completely align with Britain as opposed to being a part of something else as well. One thing my parents always wanted us to understand it is okay to be from two places and have a love of two places. You'll understand that. I don't understand, yeah. But it took a while to understand that. Did it?

It took a while to get to that point, yeah. Feeling not enough of either was a huge part of my youth for sure. Yeah. Because you're told you can only be from one place. Yes, you have your corner box. Yeah, you can only love one place. And it's not true in any shape or form, but racists still use that as a stick to beat people by if they're not visibly all white, for example.

And so in the book, I sort of talk to a guy who grew up in care about what home means to him as a result of growing up in the care system here. Very topically, as a result of what's happening with Ukraine and Trump at the moment, I also speak to a Ukrainian family. Mum, dad, two young kids about fleeing Ukraine and trying to build a home somewhere else and just how difficult that was for them and how they feel about being Ukrainian and living in London and raising their kids in London. And more specifically about what they chose to take from their home in Ukraine to bring with them to London just in case their home never exists again. So what home meant to them?

Exactly. And it's the idea that, and I don't think we always understand this narrative when you think about war, is that essentially someone's trying to make them something other than Ukrainian and they are so proud of where they're from. But how do you then move that from Ukraine to London whilst trying to keep elements of home, trying to make sure that your children still have a love for the country that they were born in but can no longer be raised in? And I also sort of talk to some people who worked in the armed forces as well because they have a really interesting connection with home, an idea of home because through the nature of their work, they may never return home.

So how do they feel about that? How are they able to continue in their work day to day when the work that pays their bills could mean they never get to go home to see their family again? So really fascinating. Talking to them was incredible. And also the joy of other people whose homes exist in two different places. You know, I speak to an Iranian, a woman who is part,

her dad's Iranian and her mom is Irish Catholic. And she says that she grew up in an Iranian household in Wales. and just sort of talking about, you know, how these different elements of home made her who she is. And I think you could speak to a hundred different people and you get a hundred different answers of where home sits in their heart. And I think it's a really fascinating thing to talk about. Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize 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 baillies.com for our favourite bailey's recipes. Well, on the subject of straddling to cultures, let's move on to your fourth book, which is Queenie. By Candace Carty Williams, yes. Queenie is a 25-year-old black woman living in South London, straddling Jamaican and British culture, whilst slotting neatly into neither, she feels. She works at a national newspaper where she's constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle-class peers

and beg to write about Black Lives Matter. After a messy breakup from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie finds herself seeking comfort in all the wrong places. As Queenie veers from one regrettable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, what are you doing? Why are you doing it? What do you want to be? Who do you want to be?

the questions that every woman today must face in a world that keeps trying to provide the answers for us. Now, this is a favourite at the Women's Prize. It was long listed in 2020. Why did you choose it, Shalene? So I remember picking up Queenie for the very first time, and I just devoured it. Yeah. Because, yes, it's incredibly well written, and the story arcs are amazing. And all the themes that run through it, as he say, connect with so many of us.

I thought it was beautifully written but for me it was the connection to South London so through reading it I didn't realise my connection to Candice at first obviously Candice is the writer but then there were so many like scenes in it

words in it shop names in it that was like this is somebody that lives in South London I love when you can recognise I was like this is so South London so then I looked into Canis and I realised I grew up with Candice's brother right He was part, there were like loads of boys in my 20s that I used to hang

with those girls were like hang out with and what have you and her brother was one of them and it was when I got to the back and I saw his name I was like oh my gosh but also because it's a real for me a real celebration of South London and you get books that are set in so many different places but when they're set in South London it tends to be like really gritty and like gangy and you know shows like the darker side of South London, which yes, does exist. Of course it does, but exists in so many other parts of the country too. But for me, it was a real love letter to South East London and that

will always feel like a blanket being wrapped around my shoulders and just sit and curled up on the safer and feeling safe. For me, the joy and beauty of South London will always be my safe space and my safe place. And the fact that Candice has managed to find that words to show that, I just, it just hits my heart every time. That depiction is just so realistic. It's so relatable. But not only that, Queenie, you know, is a South London who works a national newspaper. Now, you were the first black woman to present ITV News at 10.

And I would really love to know whether any of her experiences reflect your own as a broadcaster. Like, what was it like when you first entered that space? Were you made to feel welcome? So I'm one of the real lucky ones. so I did a year working in teley in Maidstone for ITV Meridian but then the bulk of my 20s were actually spent working at BBC Radio One Extra Oh yes so for those I don't know it's the BBC's black music station

and I started about six months after it launched and at that point it was I had never worked with as many women in senior positions I had never worked with so many God, minorities. I hadn't ever worked with so many working class journalists and producers before in my life at that point.

Through all doing work experience and what have you, none of the newsrooms that I worked in ever looked like that. I was then essentially raised in my formative years of learning how to be a journalist in an environment where I wasn't the only one. So I was surrounded by people who were incredibly experienced, knew their stuff, insanely intelligent,

who all had. happened to be black, Asian, who happened to be white, who happened to be gay, who happened, you know, like we were all connected by love of the music. And the thing about black music is the love for it and the understanding of the culture just straddled so many different cultures. And so as a result, I was never the only one. And I always used the example that there was a Caribbean restaurant in Soho then called Mr. Jerks. And at lunchtime, if anyone went to Mr Jerks and came back to the to our office, the response wasn't, oh, what's that smell? Which you may get in like offices up and down the country.

Instead, the reaction was, so you couldn't tell anyone you were going to Mr. Jerks. Yeah. So as a result of not being the only one, I was able to work out what kind of journalist I wanted to be without pretending to be something else. So I didn't have to hold myself in a different way. I didn't have to speak in a different way. I didn't have to turn my music down. I didn't have to, you know, subject people to all this hip-hop stuff. You know, I could just be me. And as a result of just being able to be me and do the stories that I wanted to do,

I could develop properly as a journalist. And that's why I'm the journalist that I am now. And that's because I was allowed in my 20s to just learn to be a journalist. Well, instead of learning to be a journalist in, say, a middle class, upper class sort of environment, I could just be me. And one of the things that I didn't have to fight for was to speak in a very different way, hold myself in a very different way. I didn't have to do those things because all they wanted was me.

And there's a joy in strength and power that comes from that. And so I continued being that person, evening grown up, telly, and grown up media, which didn't always bode well and always. environments but that's part of the reason why I decided quite early on when I moved into TV at the BBC I decided that it wasn't the place for me because I didn't want to be anything other than me whereas I realized that I was being moulded into a version that they wanted me to be so I decided if I jumped ship to ITV then maybe I'll just be able to continue to do it how I wanted to do it.

Do you think ITV is better for that? I think it's a smaller organisation and therefore it's a smaller pool to choose from. And you're less likely to be lost in, I don't know, there's like tens of thousands of people that work at the BBC. It's very easy to get lost in that. But I think at ITV you shout loud and you were heard. And, you know, I don't think I would be where I am now had I stayed at the BBC. and I realised that in my late 20s. And in my late 20s,

I made a very definite and very real decision that I wasn't going to let anybody dictate who I should be as a journalist. And I felt that that's what they were doing to me at that point. When I moved into grown-up news, they didn't want someone that spoke like me or the stories that I wanted to do or, I don't know, dress that I wanted to dress.

They didn't necessarily want those things. but I didn't see why that made me any less of a journalist. So when I jumped ship to ITV, I was able to successfully do the things I wanted to do whilst becoming a senior journalist. Did ITV give me more opportunities than I would have had at the BBC? Yes. Would I have read the BBC 10 o'clock news at the stage at which I did it at ITV?

Absolutely, no way in the entire world. But ITV have allowed me to keep my voice. I can present loose women and do ITV news. Like, there is no issue with that because I am a journalist and I convey messages. I tell viewers the key information that they need to know why it's important and then we discuss it. Why does it matter what platform I'm doing that on or how I'm dressed? People are so obsessed with women and clothes and women have to dress a certain way to be a certain thing and I've never believed in that. And I am really grateful to ICV for working with me to achieve the things that I wanted to achieve.

And I love that you're the same person doing both of those jobs. Yeah. Why would you not be? Well, exactly. Why would you not be? It's like it's a really like a posh way of looking at news. It's so stupid. It's like either you do news in like a today program way. You don't really have pretend.

I'm like, I'm not going on the news to act. Yeah. I'm going on the news as myself to convey the news. It's time, Charlene, to talk about your fifth. and final book, Shelfy Book, which is a life reimagined, My Journey of Hope in the midst of loss by Jill Halfpenny. It's a little bit of a change of pace here. Well, when Jill was four, her father died.

He went to play his weekly game of five-side football. He had a heart attack and he never came home. In 2017, in cruelly similar circumstances, Jill's partner Matt went to a gym class, suffered a cardiac arrest and never came back. Now these two tragic events frame Jill's story in a life reimagined. She explores how she dealt with profound grief as a child and then later in life as a partner and as a mother as well. With vulnerability and honesty, Jill shares the invaluable lessons.

She's learned from grief and how these lessons have helped her to find a path back to joy. Yeah. So yeah, this is my read recently book and the one that had a real impact. So Jill was on, at least women, not that long ago, talking about the book. So I read the book before she came on. And I think for me it's timing more than anything else, which is why it's so impactful for me. Because one of my best and oldest friends, Daryl,

passed away about five weeks ago. And he's a father of two. I'm a godmother to his eldest. And he was the one that was really there for me when my mum passed when I was 21. And it's almost like history. repeating itself, seeing what his kids are going through. But what's been amazing for me is just I have more of an understanding of what I went through

and my siblings went through as a result of seeing what his kids are going through, but how, but the differences in how we deal with children in grief, for example. So Jill talks about the fact that no one really spoke about her dad when he died. And because she was four, she doesn't have. as many memories as say her siblings have of him and how that then the impact that had on her later on in life because grief and loss doesn't that impact doesn't just happen as soon as that person goes the ripple effects can last an absolute lifetime and then when she talks about losing matt they got together in 2014 and he died in 2017 so then she was hit with a different

kind of but equally as awful grief in her life but as an adult. Now what this book really does really well is it talks about her journey. So rather than go, okay, I'm grieving. It's fine. I'm to go on with my life. She says, no, I'm going to do it differently this time round. So she seeks help. She goes to retreats. She talks to experts. And the book is basically sort of saying to people, if you think that you can deal with grieve solo, you can't, really. You have to talk to people. You have to get the skills that you need to be able to navigate it, but especially when you have children, because not talking about that person isn't the way to deal with it. And I think historically for parents, they felt that that's the best way to deal with it. If we just don't talk about it, then it doesn't upset the kids. And so she sort of says, no, you're honest about your own emotions. You say to your child, because she had a, a, son who and Matt was sent she had his step dad and so you see you know on days where the grief was just so big and so huge that she just didn't feel like she could dinner she doesn't lie about

that she says I say to my son mommy's not doing too well today it's all just a bit much for me to cook is it all right if we just go out to get something to eat and dealing with it in that way instead and I think it's a really good guide for any that's going through something like this, to have an understanding of there are so many different ways that you can deal with this. And it's not an admission of failure to say, actually, I need a little bit of extra help to deal with this because this is so much bigger than I can handle. And that's what Joel talks about in this book. And I actually gave a copy to Daryl's wife last week

and I said to her I'm not saying this is something you're ready to read now but I think it'll be a really good thing for you to read because she's doing all the right things she's absolutely doing she's an absolute rock star Amy's brilliant doing all the right things but that doesn't mean that she doesn't want a helping hand

going forward because their lives have completely changed and are devastated by this and actually she's like if I can just get a little bit of help from lots of different places, maybe I can get this right. And as a parent, when you lose the other person, that's all you want to do is to get it right because done in the wrong way can impact your kids in ways that I don't think people can always understand. Have you implemented any of Jill's lessons on grief? I talk very openly with my kids about losing their uncle Darrell.

But when I was reading through the book, I was like, okay, yeah, this was the right thing for me to do. So I talked to them about grief and loss and how, you know, when you love somebody so much that it's inevitable that when they go, you get upset. Because where does that love go? Exactly. It pulls in your eyes and not in your throat. Exactly. And I, you know, I don't want them to feel as though being upset about Uncle Dad. is wrong. I say it's a beautiful thing to be upset about him. And seeing me cry is a natural

thing that people do when they're missing someone and when they know they won't see that person again. And I sort of hope that by doing that, they have a better relationship with grief. Because I think it took me a really long time to have a better relationship with grief. And I think it probably took until I was pregnant with my first, that I finally was like, I need to sort this out. Because I cannot be a mum, when I'm still dealing with the grief of losing my own. So I did a lot of therapy when I was pregnant.

And that then helped me to be a bit more comfortable with grief and death and be okay with being a mum without a mum. And that's something that we don't, that to be honest, shouldn't have been left so late. I think I should have dealt with it in my 20s, but I didn't know that I needed it. So I think books like this, hopefully, makes people realise that actually we end up bottling up grief

so tightly in our hearts and our soul, that there are certain decisions that we end up making in life, not realising that those decisions are tied to, not successfully dealing with our own grief. because it never goes. I think people assume, oh yeah, I'm absolutely fine. No, it never goes.

You just learn to live more successfully alongside it rather than it overcoming and consuming you every single day. But it will consume you in moments and that's okay. What a privilege to have been able to have loved so deeply. Charlie, my final question to you is if you had to choose one book from your list of five as a favourite. And they're so different. They're all so different.

And I'm like so different. You know that. And that's exactly what we've been talking about. Don't put us in boxes. We can be everything as well as anything. Which would it be in what? As a seminal piece of work that I will hand down to my children as soon as I can, it would be Judy Bloom forever.

Because I want that book to still be having an impact in another 50 years. and no one else, I think, has matched it in terms of sentiment, in terms of educating, in terms of filth. And I also want my kids to understand the ridiculousness of calling a man's Willie Ralph. And on that note, and I hope you've still got your copy in case it gets banned so you can pass it down physically. Thank you so much, Charlene. What a pleasure and one honor to have had you on the podcast. I've really enjoyed it. It's been a joy to sit and break bread with you, Vic.

I'm Vic Hope, and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Bootschelphi 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.