How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S14, BONUS EPISODE! How To Fail: Kit de Waal

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

Our extra-special bonus guest today is the author Kit de Waal. Her debut 2016 novel, My Name Is Leon, told the story of a mixed-race nine-year-old boy and his quest to reunite his family after being taken into care. It won the Irish Book of the Year Award and has recently been adapted for TV starring Lenny Henry. Her second novel, The Trick to Time was longlisted for the 2018 Women’s Prize. A short story collection followed, and now de Waal has turned her gaze onto her own life. Her memoir, Without Warning and Only Sometimes, is out next month and tells the moving story of being raised by a Caribbean father and an Irish Jehovah's Witness mother who believed Armageddon was coming.Kit joins me to talk about how reading became her salvation, the experiences of being mixed race and working class, her failure to read enough women and her failure to adopt a child. Plus - and here's the big one - her failure to ride a bicycle.--Without Warning and Only Sometimes by Kit de Waal is available for pre-order here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/without-warning-and-only-sometimes/kit-de-waal/9781472284839--How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. To contact us, email [e-mail]--Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod Kit de Waal @KitdeWaal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger. Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned

from failure. When the writer Kit Duvall got a publishing deal for her first novel, My Name is Leon, after a six-way auction, she used her advance to set up a fully funded fellowship for a disadvantaged writer to do a two-year creative writing master's at Birkbeck College. As the daughter of an Irish mother and a Caribbean father who grew up in working-class Birmingham in the 60s and 70s, Duval knew how hard it could be to break out into the creative arts. Before becoming an author, she worked for 15 years in criminal and family law and used to advise social services on the care of foster children. The fellowship then

was her way of giving back, of extending a hand to those who, in her words, don't always get the breaks. It was a typically thoughtful gesture from a writer whose work is rooted in empathy and experience and who always seeks to give her characters a three-dimensional dignity on the page. Her debut 2016 novel, My Name is Leon, told the story of a mixed-race nine-year-old boy and his quest to reunite his family after being taken into care. It won the Irish Book of the Year award. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was long listed for the 2018 Women's Prize. A short story collection followed and now Duval has turned her gaze onto her own life.

Her extraordinary memoir, Without Warning and Only Sometimes, tells the story of a childhood of opposites and extremes. Her mother was a Jehovah's Witness who believed Armageddon was coming, and the only acceptable reading matter was the Bible. It took many years for Duval to find her way to books. When she did, she would discover a love of reading that changed her life and inspires her to this day. Kit Duvall, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you very much for that lovely introduction and it's absolutely wonderful to be here. I have wanted to be on this podcast for a very long time. Oh that's so wonderful to hear and we've wanted you for so long and thank you for your patience. It's taken a really long time to set up but I know

it's going to be worth the wait because I'm so excited to talk to you. I really am. And I just wanted to pick up on that last point, that idea that rather than the Bible, reading fiction was your salvation. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yes, I never wanted to read. I felt very forced to read a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses publications, of which there are many. We went to the equivalent of church three times a week. Each meeting has a different book associated with it. These are very thick biblical doctrine books, as well as reading the Bible, which I must have read cover to cover 10 times. So the idea of more reading absolutely not the minute I was away from school the minute I was out of the meetings there's no way I would read a thing and I only really started reading in my

early 20s and it was someone that you worked with wasn't it in the legal profession yeah tell us about him so I had had a really bad time mostly fueled by drugs and not eating and drinking too much and just completely off the rails and I had for various reasons decided to stop doing that and I had nothing to put in its place and I was working at the time at the CPS for one of the senior solicitors and I said said to him, look, for God's sake, just give me your top 10 books because I've got to have something to, I'd never thought about reading,

but I could not sleep. And I was awake two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning. So he said, right, take this down because he was giving me a dictation at the time, short-term dictation. And he gave me his top 10 books. He was a military man. So his top 10 books were Seat of Krishnapur, The Riddle of the Sand, Three Men in a Boat, War and Peace, The Red Badge of Courage, that type of book that dealt a great deal with men

and their exploits on the other side of the world but he also in that mix had Madame Bovary and Therese Raquin and I was like well I mean I've read it I've read them all but when I got to Madame Bovary I was like oh I see right so I went straight back. It just so happened I bought all 10 books at the same time. And all 10 books were Penguin Classics, Black Spines. So I know nothing about literature at this point. So I go back to Dillon's, as it was then before it was Waterstones, and I bought another 10 books with Black Spines because they were quite good so just buy another 10 book with black spines and I did that for maybe two years and just black spine black spine black spine then I had moved by accident into the I don't know if they're what classics they are they're definitely penguin but they're pale green spines pale green books so. So we're talking Graham Greene, Somerset Maugham, sort of 1890 to 1930 sort of period, demolished those, by which time I'd sort of got a little bit more discerning. And I knew what I liked. So then I started saying, oh, okay, I'll read him or her rather than just give me any old 10 books.

And you write so evocatively in your memoir about how reading gave you a sense that other lives were possible. Because as you mentioned there, you were in a dark place at that time. It felt like you were sort of trapped and you couldn't see a way out. And it was reading that offered you almost the power of imagination. And it's why I started the introduction with that fellowship that you set up. Because first of all, I thought it was such a beautiful act of generosity. I mean, I don't know of any other debut novelist who has done that with their advance. So thank you for that. But secondly secondly because I love the fact that I read

somewhere you wanted to call it the fat chance scholarship yes absolutely because I would say to other writers I've done an MA my MA wasn't that good but it was good for me because it confirmed to me that this is what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. And I also met some fantastic other students. And so even though it wasn't that well taught, it was hugely influential in my perception of myself and what was possible. So I would say to other writers, you know, why don't you do an MA in creative writing? And they'd say, fat chance. I've got no chance doing that. It's too expensive. So when I first set it up, I did really want to call it the fat chance scholarship because it was the fat chance for people that couldn't afford it but

obviously for various marketing reasons Birkbeck wanted to call it the kits of us scholarship so that's what it was called in the end and it includes vouchers at Waterstone so that you can buy your entire reading list and a bursary to cover travel costs to London. So it's a very, very well thought through thing. And I know having read your astonishing memoir, that that's very important for you because of where you came from. Can you give us a little flavour of your childhood in Birmingham? Yeah, so I was born in 1960. My father was from the West Indies, my mother was Irish, and we lived actually in a very nice part of Birmingham, but we were very poor. My father was determined to go home, what he would call home to the West Indies, conquering hero, buy a house there and return

as a somebody. He wanted very much to return to his paradise as someone who had the big adventure, gone to England, but came back with the goods, with the money, with the suits, this great guy. So that was his driver throughout our lives. He was very not invested in his children. Meanwhile, my mother was the Jehovah's Witness and paradise was also coming for her. But it was when God bought Armageddon and wiped away all evil people. So they had five children. What a mistake. And we just thought they were both mad.

You know, we just thought, hang on a minute. You're not feeding us. You're not clothing us you're not clothing us and you're both waiting for these separate paradises so we were stuck in the middle of these two sort of silent war like a cold war between them and it was chaotic I mean looking back I think my mother was probably bipolar I'd never have known that at the time. We did know she was mad. I mean, she did some very bizarre things, but we did just think that was her. And my father had just unplugged from the family completely. He was there, but he wasn't there.

They never sat at the same table. They never walked out of the house together. They never went anywhere together. They lived entirely separate lives so we grew up in chaos literally I called the book without warning and only sometimes because that was my childhood something great might happen but you'd never know it something bad might happen but it would be over so it was just one of complete unpredictability. Nevertheless, there were five of us and we were a tribe. And when my parents were doing their usual rants, and my dad used to rant about the white man, the white man this, the white man that, the white man that.

Bear in mind, we're half white. And my mother would come back from work and she would rant about the black nurses and how bad black nurses, black women were. And we're like, mom, we're black women here. So when they were doing that, we'd be kicking each other under the table going, listen to those mad parents of ours. We never internalized it ever.

We just knew they were extraordinary and we could not wait to leave. So I left when I was 16. You give a sense there and indeed in the book of the fragmentary nature of your childhood and I think that is also conveyed in the sense that your identity was fragmented right down to your name so tell us the story of your name. So my own name is Mandy O'Loughlin. So I was not Amanda, but Mandy. And my mother, who was very plugged into contemporary culture at the time, gave us the most horrendous names, all of us. If it was common, my mother would use it. So I'm Mandy. There's Mandy, Tracy, Kim, Dean, and Karen. You couldn't get worse names for these really quite bohemian children. But anyway, when I was eight, like I say, we lived in the most extraordinary circumstances

and I was standing on top of a little table that had casters and I was singing, I can't get no satisfaction. So it's 1967 probably. And I'm singing, I Can't Get No Satisfaction. So it's 1967, probably. And I'm singing, I Can't Get No Satisfaction. I fall off the table and hit my mouth. And I just thought, oh, that really hurt. My sister starts to scream and runs downstairs. And it transpires, I have bit through my tongue.

And it's hanging on by, you know, sort of half a centimeter. So I'm whisked to hospital where I have my tongue pulled out with forceps and sewn back on and shoved back in. And I can't speak for weeks. And I say to my little sister, give me a kiss, except I say, give me a kiss. And so I get called Kit then. I get teased and I'm called Kit for amongst the family for quite a few years and then I get other names I was called Skins from the time I was about 14 because of my prowess with rolling a spliff so just many many names I mean imagine if you published your books under Mandy O'Loughlin because now you have a different surname too yeah and i think it's very interesting

that people don't know where to place you yes and i wonder if part of that is deliberate that you like the fact that people can't do that yes i do like it because i obviously am a whole person and i have absolutely no problem integrating all the different parts of me i'm british i'm irish i'm african caribbean my origins completely are working class i describe myself as working class problem integrating all the different parts of me I'm British I'm Irish I'm African Caribbean my origins completely are working class I describe myself as working class I do not have a working class lifestyle both of my children would consider themselves middle class I married someone with a Dutch surname a half Jewish man with a Dutch surname so I've got the De Waal I'm Kit De Waal I'm Mandy O'Loughlin I was married before that to somebody called David Barnett. So temporarily, I was Mandy Barnett. So for me, I'm completely fine with all of these identities. But I do think some people may find it difficult to pin me down as to what I am and who I am. But that's their problem, not mine. And the 1960s and 70s in Birmingham was a time when the IRA was, you know, in the middle of

setting off bombs and Irish people got blamed for that. It was a time of racial tensions, rising racial tensions. And all the time that this is going on you're thinking well in 1975 the Jehovah's Witnesses say Armageddon's coming so that would be when you were 15. Yes. Can you just give us a flavour of the impact that that kind of background had on you? Yeah so we were very much brought up as Irish children we were much much closer fact, there was hardly any Caribbean relatives in the UK at the time. But we were very integrated into Irish culture. But of course, no one's going to look at me and think I'm Irish. So for example, on the night of the pub bombings, which was November 1974, I went to school and heard what the teachers were saying, what my pupils and what my friends were saying about Irish people. Dirty, stupid, terrorists should be shot. All these things, blanket statements,

very much as people do today about many Muslims. And they'd say in front of me, and I'm Irish, and I kept my mouth shut for the most part because I was so worried about being bullied. I'm already bullied in this very posh school for being black and being working class. Most children were middle class. So I stuck out like a sore thumb. There were three black children in the entire school, me, my sister, and another girl. And now I'm going to be victimized for being Irish. And also we were very poor and most people weren't very poor. So again, we had these three identities to deal with. And of course, I just sound English. You know, I just sound like a British person, a Brummie.

And I very much felt a Brummie as well. So it was a very difficult time. By the time I was 16, 17, very much exploring my black identity, very much identifying as a black woman. And of course, the riots happened in 1981. I was 21 when the riots happened. And again, you are put in the position where you have to work out what you think about that. What do I think about the riots? What do I think about Irish nationalism? What do I think about discrimination against Irish people, against working class people, against black people? There's a lot to fight against, but there's also a lot to stand up for.

And that's one of the great things about having these multiple identities. It makes you almost immediately empathetic to outsiders. I love outsiders. I absolutely, you know, if I meet someone and they're too normal, I find it quite difficult to have something, anything in common with them. But any kind of difference to me is fascinating. Anyone that's been broken, anyone that's been scarred, anyone that's had a hard life or sees themselves on the fringes of society for whatever reason, I'm immediately drawn to them. I'm not saying I'll get on with them, but I want to know, what is it about you? What's happened to you? And I think we can see that so vividly in your writing. And there's this beautiful quote in your memoir about how you

find yourself in this role of observer. And you write, so I fall into the role of seeker of truth and ask questions, why, how, when, and swallow down the answers for later when I'm home alone, and I can pick over the bones and make a meal of it all. So good. So good. I wanted to ask you because I came across an interview that you gave to the TLS, the Times History Supplement. And one of the questions they asked was, which author, living or dead, do you think is most overrated? And you replied, anyone who writes their autobiography before they're 40 years old. And even then, dot, dot, dot. So why was the time right for you, Kit? Well, I was approached to write it and I had not thought ever of writing my memoir, mostly because I think I'm really quite boring. You know, once I stopped taking drugs,

which was about 1982, I shop, I go to Tesco's, I look after my kids, I watch Say Yes to the Dress. I'm a boring person. There's nothing to talk about. I haven't got any wisdom. I haven't got anything to say. I am really so normal and straight. It's a shame. I always thought about your memoir being an account of your entire life.

Once I was approached to write an account of my childhood I was like okay now I know that was weird so I could do it then so it was really someone else's idea about writing about my childhood and then I thought I can do that also I had no and I still have no desire to shame anyone so I've been married twice I've been divorced twice both husbands have had an affair I would never talk about that I've got no scores to settle I don't want to talk about anyone who has ever wronged me I don't want to embarrass anybody I haven't done that in the memoir change some names for people who have done things that maybe they wouldn't want people to know so I've disguised them it's all true but they've been well disguised so I don't feel I've got any sort of axe to grind or I don't want

to do anyone down or shame anyone. So once it's my childhood, I cleared everything, sorry, that I wrote with my brothers and sisters. Before anyone saw the memoir, I sent it to them and I said right here it is you can veto anything in the memoir you don't have to say oh no I think dad did it like that you just say to me page 75 that paragraph and it goes there will be no negotiation from me so I said there's five of us so I sent it out thinking they could all veto 10,000 words and I haven't got a fucking book. Do you know what I mean? I was just, oh my God. So I wait for it to come back. And there were two words. One sister wanted two words changed. Everything else was fine. So for me to know that it is accurate, it is what happened. I haven't offended anyone. My brothers and sisters

know what I'm saying and agree with what I'm saying. That was more important to me than anything. And it made me feel so good about it and so free to say that story. Final question before we get onto your failures. Do you think that turning 60 in 2020 had something to do with your being at peace with the idea of exploring those years? No, because I'm really immature. So it might say. And you also look like 25. It's extremely unfair.

That's the thing. I feel 25. So I am really not 60. I know it says that on my birth certificate. But my children have told me for many years I'm 27. I am really not 60. I know it says that on my birth certificate, but my children have told me for many years that I'm 27. I am 27. I'm as immature, silly, and clueless. I mean, not saying they all are,

but certainly when I was 27, I was immature and clueless. And I just feel that's who I am. I just cannot imagine ever growing up and being sensible. I just don't think it's going to happen. I always feel 32, but I felt 32 when I was 18. It's just my psychic age. Okay, so let's get onto your failures. Your first failure is not reading enough women. This is such a brilliant one. We've never had it before. And you were talking earlier about that reading list that you first got. It was all men, wasn't it?

Yes, it was all men. Like I yes it was all men like I say they were penguin classics so I go back and I buy another 10 and I don't know any of these people apart from Dickens and Shakespeare I don't think I knew another author so I just go back and I literally do I like the look of that picture on the front? Yes, I do. I'll have that one. So I came back with just random classics. And, you know, I did that, like I say, for probably two years. Now, default mode is the classics are mostly men. So obviously in there, there's Pride and Prejudice, there's Jane Eyre, there's some women, there's Edith Wharton and a few more. But mostly they're men. And that formed my tastes if you like I love the classics absolutely love the classics and I was sort of by default reading a lot of men then of

course I go into the more modern classics and it's Graham Greene it's Somerset Maugham and Patrick Hamilton and all these people occasionally a a woman. Now that's completely and utterly my fault because I didn't go looking and I really didn't realize for maybe 10 years, I didn't even think about, am I reading women? I was just reading whatever I wanted to read. Then I had to make an effort to read more women and I still haven't put it right. I've never read Doris Lessing. I've never read Iris Murdoch, for example. There's huge, huge gaps of women I should have read at least a book of. I read a lot now, and of course, I read a lot of women now, but they're much more contemporary. Certainly women, post-war women, I'd say women writers from 1940 to 1980, absolutely appalling, my knowledge of women writers. It's shameful.

And have you chosen this failure because you feel it's a lack, not just in terms of your kind of academic reading list, as it were, but it's a lack in terms of understanding your selfhood, right? Yes. So for me, I'm reading about male view of the world entirely and how it was formed. Obviously, like I said, I've read the Bronte and done some reading, but mostly male view of the world. Post-war, women's thought about women's place in the world about the emergence of feminism about the response to the second world war and the first world war and this emergence of the new woman the woman that had more agency over her life wasn't perhaps going to get married what did women think of divorce at the time what did they think about being a housewife that I've missed out on I know a bit obviously I have done my due diligence as regards feminism but I haven't read the fiction of the day when these thoughts

were emerging when they weren't fully formed when it was more a vibe than a doctrine that's what I missed out on and have missed out on and of course if you go back now and read them some of them they're not fully formed if you like and so you have to put it in the context of well people were thinking this at the time and they weren't there yet it's almost a bit too modern to be old if you see what I mean but that's something I've got to do I feel it's a duty really as a woman to read women writers men do have generally speaking an easier passage as new writers or being taken seriously you know a man writes a book and it's oh what's he got to say about life it's so interesting it's the new American novel oh it's a statement on this a woman writes the same book on the same subject and it's domestic it's for women i mean i don't know if people still use

the phrase chiclet which is abominable but they might just say women's fiction oh it's women on women it's not it's covering the same territory probably in a better, more nuanced way, but male writers are taken seriously and they own that landscape of wisdom, the big overview of what's going on in the world. It's so true. And I remember speaking to Marian Keyes about just this topic. And my latest book has been called a domestic thriller over and over again. And I don't have a problem with it, because there's nothing wrong with being domestic and there's nothing wrong with being a thriller I don't think it is a thriller necessarily and it's not domestic I mean it's set in a house but it's like I can't imagine Ian McEwan being told that Saturday was a domestic thriller yeah but it's set in a house

and it's about the family but no that book is deemed to be saying something massively profound about the state of the country at a very particular time. Massively profound. It's a book I hated, by the way. Let me just put that out there. I mean, ditto. Terrible, terrible plot twist. Terrible plot twist. I mean, so bad. I could go on about that book. I mean, so bad. I could go on about that book. I read it for a book group and I was so horrified. I started marking the pages where there were things that didn't work as a writer and I shouldn't have done it really. I was a bit over the top. But then you would have, as you say, another book set in a house in a particular time. And then it's narrow. It's narrowed down to something that is really quite provincial in its outlook.

Really small, only pertaining to that family. And that kind of thing does drive me up the bloody wall. Really does. I honestly want to do a whole other podcast episode just talking to you about this because there's so many things I want to say. I should say I do also love Summey in McEwan novels. I love Atonement and I love Enduring Love. So yes, to balance it. Yes, exactly. This is quite, I suppose it's a question I've never asked before, but I'm so interested in what you're going to say that I want to ask it. How do you feel about being a woman? I absolutely adore being a woman. I've got a real fluffy side. The landscape of being a woman is, you know, at one end you have got fluff, princess, pink shoes, and yet makeup and what people perceive as ditzy.

And at the other end, you might have, let's just say, the woman that lives in the outback and has never worn makeup and is really quite quite quote-unquote masculine in her outlook and her job and if that's the landscape of being a woman I love it all I love makeup I love high heel I watch say yes to the dress which is a program about wedding dresses I've been married twice I've never worn a wedding dress I love that program and I don't love it ironically by the way I just love it you, I love it properly and I get into the dresses and the tiaras and all that nonsense. But I also love the other side of being a woman where you are strong and powerful and you don't go into that other landscape of being a woman where you're, like I say, you're strong and you're powerful and you might have what's deemed a masculine job. And you might be very, not that you can't be academic if you're fluffy, but you might be much more about ideas and thoughts than you are about, let's say, children and the domestic, if you like, cooking.

So I love knitting and cooking, baking, love baking. I love makeup. I love dresses. I love high heels. I love having my hair done and my nails done. I love ideas. I love academia. I love gardening and I like the meatiness of gardening and throwing things around. First of all all I'm going to watch say yes to the dress because I've never seen it before but it sounds right up my street I love reality it's really bad you know it's a great it's a bad program it's very niche it's quite silly and it has some very profound undertones to it but it's you know if you just want something that's nice you know you just want to watch someone buying their wedding dress and having a few tears and then mum gives them a kiss and they might wear her tiara from 1980.

It's great. Absolutely love it. You mentioned that you've been divorced twice. Yeah. How does it feel being divorced? And I ask that question as someone who has been divorced herself because you've done it twice and you've seen both sides of the marital coin as it were yeah how are you feeling about that now at this time in your life so free and so happy my children tell me all the time my god mom you're so

happy I didn't know you were like that I would never have said I was unhappy in my marriage I didn't know if you like that I was unhappy when my marriage. I didn't know, if you like, that I was unhappy. When my husband had an affair, it was a complete shock and I was absolutely devastated. And I really did think, I can't do this. You know, I can't be on my own. For two years, even though I was going, no, I'm fine. I'm absolutely fine. I'm great. I'm so happy. That was bullshit. I wasn't. But I was doing quite good impression of someone that had weathered it and come out the other side and was fine. That was five years ago, six years ago, possibly. And now I genuinely am fine. I mean, properly wake up sometimes in the morning and think, oh my God, I'm so happy. And I am genuinely really happy with where I am.

I would love to meet someone. I would love to have a relationship with someone I don't ever want to be married and I never want to live with anyone again ever sometimes I'm sitting on my own watching the telly and I would like someone sitting there or I'd like to go on holiday with someone I've got loads of friends such such good friends but I do miss I suppose being wanted I would like someone to want me and to want to see me and to send me little romantic texts I know and I have got quite a few friends that send me lovely messages on Valentine's Day for example you know not romantic messages but just I'm thinking of you so I'm very cool with In lots of ways, I do think I have failed at marriage. You know, even though I didn't have affairs, both of my husbands had affairs,

but I, you know, I'm the common denominator and I do think maybe there's a reason. Oh, Kit, don't you for a second think that. I think I do deep down. I think I do deep down. But that's probably because you haven't read enough women no it's probably because you've internalized that patriarchal narrative that makes us feel that it's our fault when something fails like a marriage even though you weren't the one who acted in the way that forced that to happen yeah I think you're wonderful I really do I want to set you up with a million different people. But have you ever met Benjamin Zafanaya? You must have done. I've been in a sort of drinks

party when he was there. I haven't met him formally. I'm just getting a vibe. I'm just getting a vibe that I think you two would be great together. Okay. Both from Birmingham. And he's just so, oh my gosh, I just interviewed him for this podcast and he's just so wonderful and wise and in touch with his emotions. Anyway, I'm just putting it out into the universe. Also very tall and handsome. your second failure is quite a gear change which is not learning to ride a bike so yes why did you pick this one well I've never wanted to ride a bike I mean my father banned us from having bikes because he was a bus driver and he used to say I always see accidents with children involving bikes so you're not having one probably his way of just not buying us a bike.

But that was his reason at the time. So I never learned as a child. Then fast forward to I've got two children. Let's say I'm 40. I've got two children, 42. And the children, oh, we want to go, you know, we want to go out on our bikes. And I'm like, well, I can't do that. And I tried.

Oh, my God, I tried to ride a bike and my then husband said look I'll hold the back you won't know when I let go yes I will know because I will fall down and scratch all my knuckles so I've tried maybe three times I cannot understand how people can do that thing it's impossible to me and now of course I'm an old bag so I'm a bit scared of falling I was not scared of falling when I was 40 now I'm an old bag so I'm a bit scared of falling I was not scared of falling when I was 40 now I'm thinking oh my god I might break my hip like a nana so I don't want to learn that but I can see the freedom I would love it I'd love to go on a biking holiday across the fields or the mountains or whatever but there's no chance it's going to

happen have you ever been on a static bike, like an exercise bike? Yeah, I hate those. I hate those too because my legs start to hurt. Probably because I never use those muscles that you need. So, yeah, it's not a spin class and all that shit. No, I can't do that. I'd much rather go on a rowing machine. I love a rowing machine.

I've just bought a water rower. Oh, beautiful. Have you seen the water rowers? They're beautiful. And they've got that whoosh sound as you pull the gears through the water. Beautiful. I love it. So I've got that in the basement. The thing about the rowing machine, I know we're going off tangent here,

but I really like it. I quite enjoy it. And I find it works me out, but I'm not exhausted by it yes but then I think maybe I'm doing it wrong no I don't think so I mean when I bought the rowing machine I got quite anal probably not a good word to use but I got quite anal about technique I was sort of had this video playing of these American rowing experts who were saying you've got to do this like this and I probably spent two weeks only doing five minutes a day until I got the technique right.

And so I know my technique is quite good. And I come off and I'm tired, but I'm not, you know, that dripping in sweat, I can barely speak. I'm not like that. And I don't think I'm doing it wrong. It's just a slow and steady exercise. It's probably like power walking where you're not dying at the end,

but you've had a workout. This is so interesting because I also YouTubed those technique videos and I don't think I'm doing it wrong, but I think there's something psychological in me that thinks if I'm even... Hi, I'm Matt Lewis, historian and host of a new chapter of Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hit.

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Mildly not hating a form of exercise that it can't be working. And I don't know what that says about me and my, yes, but actually. I'm the same. same I don't like exercise I really don't like exercise sofa or gym there is no competition I don't feel better after exercise intellectually I feel better that I've done it but bodily I don't feel better so I have to force myself which is why I got this rowing machine and put it in the basement so I have no excuse it is there I don't even have to get dressed do you watch say yes the dress while you're rowing now I haven't got that set up properly but that is going to happen because it's perfect it's half an hour yeah and I'm doing my exercise and looking at wedding dresses right so when I refer there to that idea that if I'm enjoying something, it can't be good for me,

I think that comes from a fundamental self-loathing trait that I have. Where are you at with the old self-loathing kit? I'm really quite good. I don't loathe myself. I think I'm a good person. I would like to lose some weight. I think I look better when I'm slimmer, but I really do quite like myself. I've never had imposter syndrome in my life. Never. I think I'm, I wouldn't say I'm great, but I'm good. I'm good to my friends. I'm a good parent. I try and be kind. I've got some horrible traits. I'm a bit lazy, but I don't loathe myself for that. I just think, well, you know what? That's your thing. And do you think you've had that all of your life because of that tribal solidarity that you got with your siblings? Yeah, I think that's a lot to do with it. So I do remember shame. I do remember feeling shame when I was young, that we were so poor and we had

terrible clothes and a terrible house. So I remember feelings of shame, but I've always felt I deserved more and I got more and I worked hard for more, mostly. I think I've definitely made mistakes and definitely learned from things. And also my parents, and this might sound really strange they're both very ignorant they liked their ignorance they didn't want to know about the world they were willfully ignorant they didn't want to explore anything they liked their life the way it was they had small horizons by some freak of dna and genetics they had clever children who were bohemian and wanted to know about the world and wanted to question and so I think having that tribal view of the world reinforced the sense if you like that we were special you know we weren't special but we felt special compared to our

parents and I don't think that's ever left me and we all have it it's not just me we all sort of go yeah I'm great and I don't mean I'm better. We all sort of go, yeah, I'm great. And I don't mean I'm better than anyone else. I'm just good with me. I'm very good with me. I love that. And it's the first time I've ever heard that kind of self-worth coming from sibling relationships. I think that's so beautiful. What happened in 1975 when the Jehovah's Witness predicted Armageddon didn't arrive? What happened to your mother? Oh, like many Jehovah's Witnesses who are still Jehovah's Witnesses,

they came up with a different scripture. So there was an interpretation of a few scriptures that got you to 1975. And then obviously, oh, okay, if it's not 75, it's 76. Oh, if it isn't 76 77 and so that went on till the 80s then they came up with another scripture that said it wasn't 75 but it was any day now now there's even other scriptures that say in fact I think it was 2021 now there's a different scripture so the scriptures keep changing my mother died two years ago and she died absolutely believing exactly as she had always that the end was going to come

any minute now and there will be Jehovah's Witnesses all over the world who believe any minute now and of course we all left from being Jehovah's Witnesses. But I would say when I left, there would have been four or five years, even when I'd left, and I thought it was still going to happen. Deep down, definitely going to happen. I might leave, and they might not be completely right, but Armageddon will happen, and I will die. I will be killed, because I'm bad. happen and I will die. I will be killed because I'm bad. You know, I'm not bad per se, but I'm not keeping the rules. You know, I had had sex. I had taken drugs. I had smoked. I had drunk, probably stolen. So I'm definitely a candidate for destruction. When did that leave you and how did it leave you? With work that left. I mean that that's me analyzing myself and analyzing the ridiculousness of the doctrine but there is a remnant of it you know I was definitely brainwashed and I can remember maybe 10 years ago I was in a city I can't remember I think it was Cambridge

and all of a sudden it went very dark that was just a cloud but it went it was the middle of the day and it went almost black and everybody to you know on this street looked up as if to say my god what was that and it was just hail hail was coming down so it went very dark and my gut reaction was this is Armageddon now I would never have said that I had any remnants any stain of that nonsense left in me. But it was interesting that that's what I thought. Oh, it's Armageddon. And then, of course, it's gone. But it shows the damage that that cult behavior and cult indoctrination can do to a child. I'm in my 40s and I've got responses, Armageddon's here. Even though I would say now, hands on heart on lie detector,

I don't believe it. There's something somewhere where the damage has been done. That kind of muscle memory. Thank you for sharing that. And talking of childhood brings us to your third failure, which is a big one.

And your third failure, as you've written it to me, is not adopting a particular child. Yes. Tell us about adoption in your life. I grew up knowing on some visceral level that I would never have children. But I can remember saying it and thinking, where have you got that nonsense from? But by the time I was 35, that was confirmed. So when I was 35 that was confirmed so when I was 13 sorry Kit how was it confirmed oh so I was married at the time we were trying for a baby we had all the usual investigations laparoscopy this that you know I don't know if anyone's had

it but it's a game you have no IVF I refused IVF there's no way I was going to have IVF so it was literally just the fertility investigations which were probably I don't know year and a half something like that but I knew I knew I wasn't going to be able to have children and I was so cool with it I was absolutely fine with it I'd been brought up in a family where we fostered we had children in and out. And I knew you could love children that weren't related to you. That was no problem for me. My then husband had a massive issue with it. I did not.

So we then decided to adopt Bethany, my daughter. And then when I was 41, we adopt Luke. But when we adopted Beth, we were approved for two children and I was sitting on the adoption panel at the time the adoption panel is the body of people who decide which children will get adopted and to whom so I was on the adoption panel and for quite a few months this child's case had come to the adoption panel and I do not know why that child completely got under my skin he was a very damaged boy a very damaged boy and I thought don't do it don't do it don't do it you are not the parent to this child this is not right but I don't know he got under my skin anyway he

got adopted by somebody else and before it could go go through, she got very ill and died. And he went back into the care system. And I remember speaking to someone on the adoption panel and saying, I think I should adopt that child. And she said, do not. You know you're not the right person. And I know I wasn't. I did not have the right circumstances for the boy. But I think about him all the time. I think about that boy all the time I sort of managed to track him

till he was about 16 or 17 I think and I don't know where he is now but it's not in a good place I should imagine but I do feel I did not have the right circumstances for this boy but he just got under my skin terribly and I think about him he would be 30 or 31 now do you think that that was your head saying I know I'm not the right person but your heart was saying something else and it was the two when you work in adoption there really is such things as a good match so you could have a child who needs for example a single carer with no other children because this child needs so much from you and they may have contact with their birth family they may have contact with other siblings and really they need exclusive dedicated care from one carer and

that might be a man it might be a woman and you absolutely intellectually know when you work in adoption what a good match looks like I did not have the circumstances for that boy and I'm not saying I wouldn't have done a good job because I would have done a bloody great job but it would have meant an enormous disruption to my daughter to my family to lots and lots of things I think there were better adopters out there I do think there were better adopters out there I mean quite certain he never got one and so that's my thing if I thought he'd been adopted by someone else like he was briefly by the woman that adopted him, that was going forward to adopt him, I wouldn't have the guilt,

but I sort of know he had a very turbulent time after I didn't come forward and adopt him. And I think, God, I could have saved him. Could I have saved him? Probably not. But I still think about him maybe every six months. If I hear a name, if I hear the same name on someone else, I go, oh, oh, what's happened? I'm really honoured that you've chosen this failure to talk about. And I wonder why you

did choose it. Is part of it because you want to pay tribute to this person who I know we can't name yes or give a name to but I imagine the care system it often might feel like individuals get lost and so as part of wanting to talk about this to ensure that doesn't happen no really really not the reason I want to talk about it the reason I want to talk about the reason I want to talk about it because I feel it's a thing it's a thing with me I'd find it really difficult to say tell me your three fail without saying that one because it's a major one for me if I ever got the opportunity to meet the boy and say to him look I could have adopted you he'd just be angry with me and I wouldn't blame him you didn't care enough if he's had a bad life which I suspect

and I said to him look you know it would have been really hard for me if I'd have adopted you and I don't think it would have been a good match he would have just said well you clearly weren't the right person because you didn't fight for me and you didn't fight through and he would have absolutely the right to say that because there should be when you adopt a child you don't adopt a child and think I'll I'll do a 98 job you adopt a child and you do 150 job the same way you do for your birth children I'll give you you an example. My son was really good at sports and he was on the cricket pitch once and I was standing next to the sports teacher and they were just marveling

at how fantastic he was at cricket. You know, he was, oh my God, Luke's so great. I said, yeah, but you know, my dad was really good at cricket. Now, my dad was dead, never met Luke, but so convinced was I in my heart that I had passed my dad's genes onto Luke because I forget he's not my birth child. And if you don't feel like that about the children you adopt, do not adopt.

You adopt a child that is so you, so inside you, so much that you forget that you're not related. It's not, you know, you should have no distance on your children. I used to look at a playground and see my children running around and think, but they're the best kids in the whole school. They're the best. Yeah, there's other children out there I know, but my children are the best. My children are special. That's what you have to have for your children.

That's what they deserve. Unconditional, special love that no one else can give them. And if you haven't got that, do not adopt them. Don't do it. And let someone else have that feeling for the child. Given that you grew up in a particular environment and you've spoken about your parents and how they were and how unstable elements of your childhood were how did you learn how to be a mother I was very juvenile I don't know how I learned I think I just loved the children so much and like anyone else

who has had a childhood that hasn't been good I tried very hard to not be my mom and to not be my dad so once I was determined that my children would never be hungry I used to come home with for example carry bags of clothes for my daughter who is so not interested because she's a haughty girl and I said Beth I bought you a red top okay mom she's like oh my god give it a break she had so many clothes so much of everything because I'm trying to put it right for me so Beth's going to have absolutely everything so I put that right they were never hungry they had beautiful bedrooms they had lots of physical shit they had loads of and every single day I love you for example both of my children what do you want

to be when you grow up oh I want to do this great you can do it you can do anything you can be anything whatever you want to be whatever and my mother being a fundamentalist Christian you couldn't be gay you couldn't have sex before marriage and you couldn't be gay absolutely not so when Beth was about 12 I remember saying to her she had a little friend and i said oh and she was really really keen i said you can have a girlfriend or a boyfriend beth we can have a girlfriend this week and a boyfriend next week we can have a girlfriend and a boyfriend she's looking at me like i'm 12 give it a break shut up you're embarrassing me but i was so worried that she might think she couldn't be a hundred percent

herself and I still say to my children who are both in heterosexual relationships that that's for now you can you've changed you've changed you can be anything you can be anyone you can change this you can change that I will always love you isn't it great let's just see what happens in your life because we had it so nailed down that I want my children to feel the expansiveness of the universe and the possibilities that they can be. That's so beautiful. So Beth and Luke, how old were they when you adopted them? Beth was two and Luke was one. They're not related at all. and Luca's one. They're not related at all. I think it's so important for listeners to hear this because I've spoken very openly about the fact that I've had fertility issues and miscarriage.

And yes, I hear you, the laparoscopy and all of that sort of stuff, all the things that end in oscopy. And I think it's so profoundly meaningful to hear about the hope that comes with adoption, because I think a lot of people are put off by the fact that it feels like quite a lengthy process, quite difficult to go through. But put us right on that. So what was your adoption journey to come to your children? because I'm a black woman, I'm a mixed race woman, and my then husband was white. So there are many, many, many more disproportionate number of mixed race children in the care system. So they were actively looking for adopters. But having worked in adoption, I know that a lot of people come to adoption after many years of IVF and fertility issues and loss and miscarriage. So by the time people come, there's been trauma there. There's sometimes a lot of desperation. I'll take any child,

I'll take any child, I'll take any child. Because people are desperate to give love and to be parents. I think I had an easier time than a lot of people. It is a lengthy process. I don't agree with all of the process I think it could be curtailed in lots of ways they now do concurrent planning which they didn't do when I was adopting which is where you are fostering a child with a view to adoption but were the birth parents to get their act together you would give that child back to the birth parents who would recommence parenting concurrent planning is a very special thing for a complete set of circumstances and I don't think it's good

for everybody at all. I would not have, never, never, never for me. If I'm going to adopt a child, I want to know if that child comes to live with me, it's not leaving because I just couldn't do it. But it is a route for some people. It really is a route for some people. And at the end of all the pain, and there's a lot of pain, and there's a lot of disappointment, and there's a lot of waiting, there is the most beautiful relationship with children who want to be loved, who need to be loved. I don't believe in children being grateful.

Children should not be grateful for being adopted. That's not the relationship you want to have with a child. It's that the children love you and they want to parent and you have the privilege of parenting these children. Me parenting my children is an absolute privilege for me. Nothing to do with them being grateful and being lucky. They're not lucky. They are beautiful human beings that I get the chance, instead of their birth parents, to have in my life and to have them love me and call me mom. That's incredible. How did your mother get on with them? her pretty mad phases for most of their childhood she loved them definitely but my mother had her favorite grandchildren that mine weren't I mean nothing to do with them being adopted but she just had her favorites that she used to sort of worship she loved them she was quite good with all children

but they weren't one of the favorites and also my children did think she was mad you know they weren't they weren't fighting to go to granny's house let me tell you I'd take them but they were like when are you going you said Beth was horsey do they read your kids do they like books no no they don't read they're not interested in books they love the fact that I've written the books and I think Bethany's listened to one of them on audiobook but Luke's got profound dyslexia and he's not interested. He's a car mechanic. He likes Call of Duty and cars. You know, they're really proud of me, but they're not readers.

They're not academic. And I could not care less, I have to say. They love me. They're proud of me. And that's enough. me and that's enough. And in a way, reading was your salvation because you needed all of those alternative lives and realities to believe that there was hope. Whereas you've given Bethany and Luke this hope and this expansive sense of the universe, as you put it. I think that's just so completely wonderful. And I loved this conversation. Thank you so, so much for sharing that. Thank you. I just wanted to ask you finally, I guess, about your literary heroine, who I believe is Becky Sharp. I love Becky Sharp. So do I. Tell us about Becky Sharp. She's so bad. So what I love about her is she's in desperate circumstances and she thinks what have I got what can I do

I've got my wits she wasn't the prettiest but she had her wits and she was quite pretty and she thought I've got to put these things to use and that's very much the working class attitude of like I have no advantages here what I have got is drive determination I. You know, in Becky Sharp's case, she's canny. She's quite unscrupulous. But I can see heart in Becky Sharp. And I think she fashions the world around her needs. She's not going to fashion herself around the world. She's going to make the world come to her.

And she's going to say, I need that from you. I need that, that, that, and that. So she's a bad girl. There is no doubt about it. But considering the constraints that she had at the time of class and gender she didn't do too badly I think although she wrecked some lives along the way I still like her so do I so this is Becky Sharp from Thackeray's Vanity Fair so it's sort of 19th century constraints that you're talking about but in so many ways the way that you've spoken about her, not her character necessarily, but the things that she contends with and the fact that she survives and thrives reminds me

very much of you. Oh, that's great. I like that. And on that note, Kit Duvall, you have been a wonderful guest, well worth the wait. And thank you so, so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you very much for the invitation. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently, it helps other people know that we exist.