How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S18, Ep5 Geri Halliwell-Horner on writing, grief - and what the Spice Girls taught her

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

On this week's episode, I welcome the all-singing, all-writing, all-dancing POWERHOUSE that is Geri Halliwell-Horner. She started out as Ginger Spice, in the most iconic girl band of all time (simple facts), the Spice Girls, selling over 100 million records worldwide. After the birth of her first child in 2006, she started writing while a single mother and released a series of bestselling children’s books - the Ugenia Lavender novels. Now, she returns with the publication of the young adult novel Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen, a mixture of fantasy and history carrying a message that we can all be our own heroes. Geri joins me to talk about her love of writing (and why an early mentor was none other than William Boyd), not applying herself enough at school, why the Spice Girls belongs to everyone, how she dealt with grief after the death of her father and why it's morally important to her to 'age with grace and power.' Geri is my second ever Spice Girl on the podcast (the first was the amazing Melanie Chisholm) and it is a podcast goal of mine to have them all on as guests. They were such an amazing and empowering part of my teenage life. Three more to go. CAN YOU IMAGINE? IT WOULD BE A DREAM COME TRUE. -- Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen by Geri Halliwell-Horner is out now and available to order here. -- I'm going on tour! To AUSTRALIA, mate! You can now purchase tickets to see me live at Sydney Opera House on 26th February 2024 or the Arts Centre Melbourne on 28th February 2024. -- How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted and produced by Elizabeth Day. To contact us, email [e-mail] -- Social Media: Elizabeth Day @elizabday How To Fail @howtofailpod Geri Halliwell-Horner @gerihalliwellhorner 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 car and 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. The protagonist of the new young adult novel, Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen, is a girl with red hair who gets sent to a fantastical boarding school after her mother dies. with red hair who get sent to a fantastical boarding school after her mother dies. One of the school's rules is to have courage to make the choice you fear the most. The author of the book just so happens to be a woman who is also famed for her red hair and who also lost a parent at a formative age. She is too someone who has made many courageous choices through an extraordinary career. Born in Watford to a mum who cleaned and a car dealer dad, Geri Halliwell-Horner shot to global fame as Ginger Spice,

one fifth of the Spice Girls and the best-selling female pop group of all time. She is known for Girl Power, for her Union Jack dress, for meeting Nelson Mandela, and for once patting King Charles, then Prince of Wales, playfully on the bottom at the height of her fame in 1997. The Spice Girls sold over 100 million records worldwide and had seven number ones. Halliwell Horner's subsequent solo career netted her four more. her four more. After the birth of her first child, Bluebell, in 2006, she started writing while a single mother and released a series of best-selling children's books, the Eugenia Lavender novels. In the years that followed, her life changed dramatically. She met and married the Formula One Red Bull boss, Christian Horner, became a stepmother and had a baby boy at 44. And now she returns to books with the publication of

Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen, a mixture of fantasy and history with a message that we can all be our own heroes. Ginger Spice, I'm sure, would approve. I try to have courage and work through it, she has said. I'd rather try even if I fail. Geri Halliwell-Horner, welcome to How to Fail. Wow, what an intro. It's all you. I can't quite believe that you're sitting opposite me and yet here you are. And we have just been chatting away before we started recording and I feel like I already know you so deeply. And you strike me as someone who is really a woman's woman and who is interested in others. And you can't always say that about people who became famous in their 20s. But is that something, have you always had curiosity about other people?

I like people. I think we need each other. I don't know, maybe it's because from where I'm from, but I think it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're the dustman or the duchess, everybody's interesting and everybody cries, everyone loves. We're more alike than different. Yeah.

And that idea of courage, which runs through this book and in many ways through your life, is that something you've learned do you think or were you born with it that's a really interesting question what makes us who we are what I will say you know for me courage doesn't mean that you you don't feel that you're not scared I think it's actually having courage is when you're scared I'm scared a lot of the time you you know, or I have those doubts like everybody, am I doing the right thing here? And sometimes I get it wrong. Sometimes I make

mistakes. But there's something inside of me that is always, when I really listen to that inner voice, that sort of pushes on past the fear. That's when I get it right but it does take courage sometimes to listen to yourself did it take courage to start writing the first time when you wrote Eugenia Lavender I tell you what it was interesting because before I was in the Spice Girls I studied theatre Stanislavski and I studied English literature I was doing really well I was getting A's for A level for my essays I was doing Sons and Lovers and I was really like excelling suddenly I was doing really well. I was getting A's for A level for my essays. I was doing Sons and Lovers and I was really like excelling. Suddenly I was really finding my place. And so I've always loved the power of word, storytelling. And, you know, throughout my career, I use that.

I love writing the lyrics in songs, in videos. I always loved the storytelling. In the movie, I loved that part of it, always. And it never left me. You know, for me, a song lyrics is like a poem, you know, and also having the power to move someone, to touch someone, connect. When I was in Los Angeles, I read this book called The Artist's Way. Because I was sort of in between. I'd released my third album. I think I was the solo album.

I felt a bit what am I doing and I always love I think creating I feel happy creating things and this book The Artist's Way it makes you do a series of challenges so to speak you know whether it's take yourself on a date by yourself write about the story that you fantasize to have in your own life just simple things like that and it sort of unlocks you know rooms in your house that you didn't know were there and then so I started playing again you know sort of being imaginative I like creating things like voice for the voiceless and so I always start with a little bit of trepidation but it's a mixture of I feel like the world needs this. The world needs this.

Make your creativity, your art speak to people, connect. And so that was the first set of stories that I wrote. I felt like, you know, this is going to really connect to that really younger audience, girls and boys, you know, so they can see something that they might relate to. That's always been in me. What do you think is the most powerful lyric you've ever written or the one that you're proudest of?

I mean, there are some lyrics that in the Spice Girls I wrote in my bed and then contributed because it's a, you know, collaborative. There's lots of people and you have to work together. But I've collaborated and given, you know, themes and lines that, you know, have been used for a top- line melody and then it's been built on. And then as you grow in confidence with that writing and I feel confident that I can do that, but I've never stopped writing music. And I thought I'm going to save it even when I'd stopped writing, you know, as a solo artist as well.

And I kept it. And there is a song that you can get in Rosie Frost you can just scan it and it's called it's a beautiful life and that song you know I wrote that and it's just me very reflective and after you've been through such you know hard stuff real stuff and sometimes you metamorphosize like a butterfly and the lyrics in that I'm really proud of I'm totally a lyric girl yeah well I want to say thank you because we're similar ages and I feel so lucky that I grew up with your lyrics and with the Spice Girls because you represented something so important that had real integrity and it was formative for me and as you know a whole generation of women and I look at teenagers

today she said sounding like a grandma but I sort of feel for them because they don't have the same clarity that I feel that you gave us and I just want to thank you there's no no question I just want to thank you thank you you know I was talking to my daughter she's 17 she said to me she feels a little bit sad for the younger generation that they don't have that sort of like the pop stars that you sort of really I don't know if it's healthy or not to sort of really connect with because there's such choice now but for her she had Katy Perry, Taylor Swift there was a few out there that you could like okay I'm backing her I'm connecting with there doesn't seem as that's what she said to me yeah I don't know if that's true or not having role models or just songs that we can all connect to or books,

you know, for me, and I've said this, my mother was out at work, okay. And so I was at home watching TV. And I watched American television, Charlie's Angels, The A-Team, and Rocky, those themes are like, you can do anything. They were infusing me with power. And the same with books at the time, the narrative, if I couldn't afford to go on holiday, I was reading a great book that's infused me with power. And so I think there's different ways to find it and connect it. Yeah. You start the book with a letter in which you write, even though you may recognise my name, I've never felt that special. In fact, I've often felt like an outsider. My dad died when I was

young. I felt lost. And at times I was bullied. I didn't know who I could trust. So what do you do when you don't know who to trust? Well, I turned to books. Can you take us back to that child who didn't feel that special? It's funny. I think no matter who we are, we want to feel included and we want to connect. You know, I come from a working class background. So at my junior school, it was fine. Everything, you know, it is what it is. You know, we didn't have a lot of money and we couldn't compare and despair. So there was that already going on my father was quite old so you know everyone thought he was my granddad coming to school we didn't have a lot of money so you sort of feel and I felt conscious of that and I got really lucky that I got picked out of this school

to go to a grammar school and it was an amazing school girls grammar but all those girls they would come from quite they they have very good families. And so I definitely felt the difference there, you know, that they had more money and come from a different background. So I always found comfort in movies and books and music. I had something not the same, but similar, where I grew up in the north of Ireland, never had the accent, felt like an outsider. My dad was a doctor, but it was assumed that he was military, but he wasn't. And it was just like a difficult time. And I think I came out of that feeling insecure and wanting validation. This does have a point in the story. I wanted validation

from as many people as I could get validation from. I don't know if that was your mindset but I can imagine if I then became globally famous in search for this validation that could be quite a sort of difficult place to be do you relate to any of that yeah I do I think and I would like to say to all my younger peers my sisters and brothers and whoever you are, I mean, this is a hard lesson learned that actually, if I'm looking for outside validation, ask ourselves, are we making ourselves more vulnerable? Yeah. So actually that inner strength, if you can have that self-confidence from a very safe place I think that would be more useful when I was younger my father was a broadsheet reader he's really clever he was the one that

had a stack of books like this you know behind an avid reader and interest in politics and the way I'd get his attention was if I suddenly was his Shelley Temple, right? And so by singing and dancing, I suddenly got his attention validation. If you wanted to unpack it and rewind and say, oh, is that what that was all about? So is it bad? Is it good? I don't know. But what I have learned, and I'm, you know, not perfectly is that if I can have that inner confidence in myself then I'm not a paper bag blowing in the wind yes does that make sense yes according to what that person thinks of me yes it's like the weather is going to change yeah hard lessons learnt definitely so to speak does it feel weird talking about the Spice Girls you strike me as someone who

doesn't like to complain about which is an admirable quality British isn't it it's very generational I think it's generational isn't it but it's also part of that about looking back and not yeah do you mind my asking about no I don't know okay no not at all I'm so mindful that it depends how you want to look at any situation isn't it yeah you know we can always find flaws in anything but we can also find beauty and gratitude in anything it depends what day of the week or that time we want to ask ourselves about it what our headspace but you know I'd like to think the Spice Girls belongs to everyone it's not just five members it's a generation to everyone it's not just five members it's a generation so for me I respectfully am so grateful to you know that whole tribe of people that connected you know in that moment of time and

beyond and only good things came from it well I know because we were again chatting before we started recording about our mutual friend Dollyerton, who we love and adore, who interviewed you recently for the Sunday Times Style magazine. And she asked you about 90s media pressure. And you said, listen, Anne Boleyn had it worse. And I thought that was such an amazing reply. It's so true.

Yeah. But every generation has their challenges. You know, I want to say about Dolly, okay? So I knew she was going to interview me. And I thought, okay, I really hope she reads my book and that's, you know, a demand of her time. Can I do the same for her? So I read her book, right? And it was her first book about love and what I know about love, everything I know about love. And what struck me, well, for me, I felt it was like the generational challenge of being 30 on steroids. Yes.

Right? And my heart broke a little bit for her because it was exactly the pressure of being 30. You know, all those tick boxes of job, weight, relationships, all of those things. Everybody's toothache is everybody's toothache. Do you know what I mean? It's just a different one, so to speak. And I think it also is easier to be protective about other people. Yes.

Does that make sense? Well, I find it easier to defend someone else than myself, maybe. So do you have more of an issue, say, the 90s media pressure on body image? You have more of an issue for your bandmates than you would for yourself? Yeah, I mean, you just feel protective of, you know, family and friends and people. You know, just in general, I think today everybody has pressures. You know, you can look at social media, but then social media is also a brilliant thing. will no one rid me of this troublesome priest this is a time of great foreboding these words supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago

These words, supposedly uttered by a king over 800 years ago, set in motion a chain of gruesome events and sparked cult-like devotion across the world. I'm Matt Lewis. Join us as we unwrap the enigma and get to the heart of what really happened to Thomas Beckett by subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. time. I mean, it's hard work being this opinionated. And correct. You're such a Leo. All the time. So if you're looking for a home for your worst opinions, if you're a hater first and a lover of pop culture second, then join me, Hunter Harris, and me, Peyton Dix, the host of Wondery's newest podcast, Let Me Say This. As beacons of truth and connoisseurs of mess, we are scouring the depths of the internet so you don't have to. We're obviously talking about the biggest gossip and celebrity news.

Like, it's not a question of if Drake got his body done, but when. You are so messy for that, but we will be giving you the B-sides, don't you worry. The deep cuts,

the niche, the obscure. Like that one photo of Nicole Kidman after she finalized her divorce from Tom Cruise. Mother. A mother to many.

Follow Let Me Say This on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new episodes on YouTube or listen to Let Me Say This ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Rosie Frost is also a kind of love letter to friendship. And you quote, I'd never come across this quote, and I have literally written a book And you quote, I'd never come across this quote,

and I have literally written a book about friendship, and I hadn't come across this quote from Oscar Wilde, that friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer. How beautiful. What do you think you have learnt about friendship in your life? I tell you why I've really valued friendship is because I didn't have relationships in my 20s or 30s I didn't find that sort of committed long-lasting relationship so I actually invested in my friendships very very much I always have I valued them and put that time into it and I'm really thankful for those friendships and you can make friends at any time we can make friends which is I think why not it's yeah I'm really grateful for friendships have you ever ended a friendship I'm not ended but I think someone said to me friendships can

be seasonal they can be decade you know for that decade or they can be you know they all have their time it doesn't give any less or more value to that friendship but it's you know sometimes I love it when you can not see a friend for long times and you can just connect straight away yes yeah so before we get on to your failures I just want to talk about your husband because as someone me who was never into Formula One couldn't understand it never watched it but it's the one program that my husband and I agree on, the Netflix documentary drama. And now I've become obsessed with F1.

So your husband is Christian Horner. You met and you got married and you had your baby. And he is on the record as saying that you're very different characters, but you complement each other well. Do you agree with that? Very much so. And it was actually Dolly who said to me she sort of flagged it up did you know that you could have a best friend who is your partner and I didn't

know that until I met Christian he's definitely my best friend that's so lovely yeah and it sort of really took me time to really know and trust that and From the off, you know, I think being your worst self, then you deserve the best of each other as well. You know, all of it. You can be your silliest self. So I'm very grateful for that. I think it's because I didn't have that relationship with anyone for a long time. So finding someone that you can be yourself with, whatever that is. I know exactly what you mean yeah and I live for your cameos in F1 drive to survive they're always my favorite bits really yes okay let's get on to your failures your first failure is the journey of writing so this was

about when you first wrote the book and your initial draft read very differently, didn't it? So tell us about that. God, I went through so many drafts, actually, is the truth. It took you nine years, didn't it? Yeah, I mean, it took me seven years. And here's the truth, is that I've never written a long novel before. And I found it quite tricky. And there's no right or wrong way to do it.

It's just my experience and I always love character because I think if you don't care about the character who cares if you climb Mount Everest do you know I mean who cares so I wrote the first draft the first draft I showed it to Jacqueline Wilson I mean again she was still an amazing quote by the way yeah she's seen the first draft and she's seen the last you know so she's amazing and she was giving these talks on Jane Eyre and she said come to that she was really encouraging really encouraging that's the first how did you meet her something to do with Battersea Dogs Home potentially so we both love animals I love animals I met her there she's so nice just really generous

and encouraging just as you hope and then I just kept on going and I just fell down so many times and then it got rejected and I thought oh yeah I've got it's getting better sometimes I get the visual in my mind before it's on the page I can see what it's meant to be and I thought yeah maybe the publishers will help me clean it up to a better standard so I showed it to some publishers and it got rejected this was about how many years ago hang on so it was before lockdowns about 2019 something like that and I was gutted it was only a few I only sent it a couple of publishers right to be fair and I'm then this sounds name droppy because I work for the Royal Commonwealth okay and one of the things they do is the literacy campaign and it's encouraging kids all around the world to

submit their stories it's brilliant always in autumn they have this essay competition the finalists and they invite everyone to come and so I was at Buckingham Palace and I was standing there and I was feeling a bit like you know I don't know it was like being at a party and you just think oh I feel a bit shy right or something a little bit and there was a man standing there you know he's an older fella and I said oh what's your name I'll speak to anyone and his name is William and I said oh you're right and he said oh yeah and I said oh what's your name I'll speak to anyone and his name is William and I said oh you're writing he said oh yeah and I said oh what publishing he said Penguin and I was like oh Penguin right I was really like hi and then I started telling him oh I said oh I've just been you know struggling is there any chance you could read my my first this draft I've got and he went

yeah no problem but what I didn't realize I am giving Humpty Dumpty to Mozart this is William Boyd who'd written Any Human Heart I'd read Any Human Heart it's amazing and he read it and then he gave me notes and he said to me okay the first thing you've got to do is you've got to rewrite the whole thing but not in the first person but in the third person and also in the past tense not the present tense you've backed yourself in a corner so I did it wrote the whole thing but not in the first person but in the third person and also in the past tense not the present tense you've backed yourself in a corner so I did it I wrote the whole thing again and that was the best advice I got they really helped it really really helped so two questions I suppose I also write books my first novel got rejected by the first five publishers that we sent

it to it's so gutting and my agent at the time just forwarded me the entire rejection email so I could see what they were saying yeah and I've never forgotten who did it either I can still remember their names but it requires a level of resilience to come back from that particularly with something that you care so much about yeah how did you it's funny okay here's the truth right so when I wrote Eugenia Lavender and that was for like for seven year olds okay I asked myself oh I want to continue writing again should I just age her up right that was my first thought and Christopher Little who discovered JK Rowling right he became my agent I I said to him oh shall I just age you out? And he went, no, start again. I was like, okay.

It was quite encouraging. But, and I thought, why am I doing this? Why am I writing? And I learned to first of all, write about what you know. Okay. And who are you writing for? There's two things. One is that I wanted to write for any person, whatever age, that if anyone felt

bullied in their life, right, bullied, and we can find that power through stories, through adventure, and it can be, and you can hide that vegetables in chocolate, I was saying, it doesn't have to be heavy, it can be light. And so that was the first thing. And I thought about that, I think it was yesterday, because I was thinking, you know, why am I out here, you know, in the public? Because if anyone feels bullied, I want them to or just want to find their power in their life. Read Rosie Frost. Right. That was for that kid or that older person. It doesn't matter for that reason. And then the other thing is I start to fall in love with the characters. I start to care about the characters. There's a kid in the story called Charlie.

And Christopher Little said to me, I think you should get rid of him and I was like no no way I love Charlie and you start to get attached to them like they're real people it's really odd and so I just felt compelled not to give up and someone said to me you know I think I just learned right from long back it's about stickability never give up you've had bear grills on yeah he always says never give up yes and you strike me as someone with a very strong work ethic have you always worked very much I think I got that from my mum yeah you know she was always working yeah sometimes it's wavered it hasn't been perfect but I think if you believe and care about something then you'll go for it so what are we here for as well yeah you know someone asked me this the

other day and I thought what am I going to do rest on my laurels and just get my nails done I think be of service to the world you know I've been lucky enough to be given opportunity. I'm not going to squander that. You know, I just think I want to empower and uplift everybody, whether it's through music or now it's through books. You will find it if you want it through what I've done. You spoke there about the advice to write what you know. Yeah. And there are many things that you know about in Rosie Frost and one of them you write very movingly about her mum dying yeah and for you it was your dad

at a formative age do you mind my asking how much of that you brought into the text and did you find it cathartic it's funny because I, grief is a strange thing and death. It's going to happen to all of us at some point in our life. We just don't know when. And what occurred to me when I was younger, that I didn't have the tools to talk about it. And I was just sort of left with this stone cold feeling of, I didn't want to make anyone feel awkward.

So I didn't have the right tools to express how I was feeling. And also, you know, that's a British stiff upper lip. And, you know, whereas in the East, they used to talk about it, they're much more, but it also gave me a sense of my own mortality. I wanted to put that in the narrative very subtly. So if you don't care about looking at that, you won't, but it's there if you want it. So if anybody's, you know, having grief, let's look what it looks like. You know, let's examine it. And Rosie is going through that. Not perfectly.

She's quite angry. If it can make you angry or cold, detached. So I wanted to put that in there. And the other thing, it was really interesting. I didn't know I did it until I finished it. Right. So I wrote the prologue and the first chapter last the publisher penguin the American because I had two publishers American

and British and they're both amazing but she said to me can you just give a bit more backstory of Rosie before she gets there you know before she gets to Bloodstone Island and where she came from and that's where the school is, Bloodstone Island. Yeah, Bloodstone Island is this school and we can talk about it in a minute. But before she gets there, she's at a different school, just an ordinary school. And you see what happens to her,

how she gets pulled out of school in the middle of a class and told that her mother is dead. That's what happened to me. But it was my father that was dead and I was studying Hamnet at the time. And after I finished it, and it wasn't until I looked the time and after I finished it and it wasn't until I looked back I realized I've written about what I know my own experience I

thought oh my god so it's really interesting that was naturally I think we turn our poop to fertilizers but so to speak yes I think you're gonna say pain into art but I much prefer poop into fertilizer yeah then it's useful. Yes. Everything is copy. Everything is copy. Everything is copy. And everything, I believe, can have meaning.

You can be in control of the meaning that you attach to something. Yeah. In the fullness of time. I'm so sorry, first of all, that you went through that experience. If you weren't talking about it, how did you get through the grief? And what advice would you give now to anyone who might be listening who is in the depths of that kind of grief? Just grief is a very strange thing.

And everyone, I don't have the perfect answer. That's for sure. What my experience is time. And it sounds like a cliche, but it's true. It doesn't make it better better but it makes it easier and just sharing I think with people that might know what you're going through I think that's helpful that's what I would say is you're not alone did your dad die before you were famous yes and I feel and this is the other thing there is one upside of losing a parent when you're young and I call it death energy I don't think I would be as driven as I was if I didn't understand

the value of life and I think we're losing a parent not only are you losing someone but you suddenly become aware of your own mortality because before then you think oh I've got my parents between me and my own death to me or even if I'm you know whatever I do I know my parents there and so when that is removed you're suddenly staring in the face of your own whatever's in front of you and the unknown yeah I call it death energy it's like a gas in my tank like I've got to get on with life what do you think you would have made of it? It's interesting because I think, you know, my father was, he was into like old Hollywood. He introduced to me so much music and literature.

And, you know, he tried to make me like into Shirley Temple when I was a little girl. So, you know, I'm sure he'd be very like pleased. I used to think, you know, think about him doing it for him. But actually, as I grew older, just time, you say, OK, why am I doing it and who am I doing this for? It's like any job that anybody's doing. What are you doing it for and for whom and why?

This is quite an odd question, but bear with me. I know that you are someone with faith and I wonder if you feel that you will meet him again that's so interesting I've never thought about it like that I don't know I'll think about it yeah have you ever dreamt about him not really no I haven't no think about it and come back come back when the second in the Rosie Frost installment is out I wanted to ask you about writing so we had this chat with William Boyd he was really helpful presumably you've stayed in touch yeah he's a lovely man isn't he he's amazing yeah he's so amazing like can you imagine he's got

awards for his books and his you know all the things that he's done he's amazing he's incredible and he started teaching me about structure and you know how he does it like my first book it was hard it took me long it was almost like I had to dissect it and break it apart and put it back together yeah so he told me about you can either just write which is amazing you just go off you go you know which is lovely in itself because you don't know what's going to happen but then the other way is to do a structure which I've done for I've just finished my first draft of this Rosie 2 excellent and I did it the way he said structure it first and it is much much easier it took longer to start yes but then it was quicker much much quicker yeah how did you find it writing alongside your everyday life it's really hard yes because you've got two children

they're very different ages and a stepdaughter so how does that there's that famous quote about the pram in the hallway and whether that affects art and I wonder how is the quote it's a Cyril Connolly quote and it's something about the pram in the hall is the enemy of art interesting who is sir I don't know who that he was a literary editor I mean classic man who said that quote probably never changed in his life yeah hang on there is we can all sort of procrastinate or get distracted so easily. And it was Dawn French who also writes books. She's always been a very long standing friend of mine. And she said to me, leave your phone outside the room, leave it.

It's a creative killer. And so it's the discipline of leaving it out and making the appointment for a few hours you know for me it was like from nine o'clock my mind is fresher between nine and twelve I would say no matter what that you're going to the desk you're going to do it so that's what first things first is that nothing else not do not be disturbed you know go down you know for a cup of tea or something like that but you can't do anything else okay and no internet so do you write on a laptop yes but here's a thing yeah I write on a laptop but here's you've got to be careful there's two things I learned one is switch off because otherwise you can get you know like notifications notifications and that

interrupt your train and suddenly but the only other thing is sometimes I'd turn on the wi-fi because I'm doing a bit of research and suddenly you go down rabbit holes or you know what I mean wormholes of like research yeah and you're like what the hell and you can suddenly go down I did that more on Rosie too actually okay but yeah your second failure is not applying yourself enough at school yeah tell us why you chose this as a failure do you know what we can all have regrets in life so I went to a really good school a grammar school I got picked two kids out of you know from this junior school from a very different background I was distracted. I don't think I had the mental discipline and support to really anchor myself in learning. I'm really curious. When I loved the teacher,

I loved my German teacher. I love German. I did well in German because she got my attention. But part of me thinks, oh, did you squander that opportunity? And then I went back to education. When did you go back? I went back, so I left school, kind of went and studied at college for a little bit, left that, then went back again. I went, okay, now I'm going to study theatre and English literature.

I'm going to go for A-levels. That's a really brave decision, to go back when you're a second-grader. Yeah, I was like, I think I was 19, 18, 19. I went back. So I took a year out. I tried one course and it wasn't for me. I was sort of lost. Do you know, I think that the late teenage years

are probably so important to be actually having that support from adults because it's like I think they're we're toddler adults we're like bikes that still need stabilizers we're finding new things that we've got to deal with but we still need a little bit of support you know I look back at that and think I wish my attention was better I did okay at my exams you know I did okay respectable but I could have done so much better if I was focused. You know, I didn't revise hardly, but I just didn't have that sort of discipline and anchoring.

Did you not have the structure at home to help? No. Do you feel, because you're clearly so highly intelligent and very into history and you've written books and lyrics and everything, but I wonder if you felt for a period of your life like an imposter because sometimes when you don't get the academic qualifications that are worthy of you you feel like you don't deserve the space that you're claiming so interesting because there can be I think in any walk of life, we can get marginalized, you know, that you're not this or you're not that. It's life, isn't it?

You know, you can feel like alone because you're the only one that loves reading that much. You can suddenly not feel cool. Yeah. I was thinking to myself the other day, I was thinking, maybe I can really acknowledge that it's, you know, being, I don't even know what the term is whether you're sort of nerdish or you know make that cool can we rebrand it you know that so you know that it's in its own it doesn't matter which side of the fence you are we can all feel alone did you feel when you were ginger spice that your nerdy side got sidelined because you were the epitome of cool and sexy for so many of us but I wonder if you felt like that inside I think we put all our battle shields on our

batman suits it doesn't mean it's not true it's just putting on a different armor so to speak at that what's needed at that time that's that's what's going to serve me being a student didn't mean I stopped reading yeah do you know what I mean I just thought well I you might think one thing about me that's okay you know and to anybody out there I'm we've all had assumptions made about ourselves if someone's judging a book by their cover sometimes we're fluffy bunny with a book in our back pocket do you know what I mean who cares tell me more about that because I think that one of my flaws still to this day is I care too much what other people think of me are you liberated of that not completely but not as much okay there

you go I think there's progress but not perfection of course you know we're human I think it's natural you want to be liked and you know so when you said to me, you really enjoyed my book, I'm like, oh, that's so fantastic. I'm thrilled. You know, I'm not a robot. I'm not immune to your love and, you know, affection. maybe I'm a bit more discerning about whether I care about that particular person's opinion if it's someone that I care about or you think oh okay and maybe there's something to look at in myself why you know it's finding that balance you know I don't want to be like arrogant to think oh it's not going to sink my boat but equally you just think oh okay it would have been nice if I connected to you we all want to i think it's human you take it as more constructive feedback and if it's not constructive then you can eliminate it and also having the humility not everyone's gonna like me do you know what i mean i think i'm all right i

think you're very likable oh thank you i really do you're so lovely thank you very much i like most people yeah but who have you met who really hated I know well you know not everybody I'm not going to be everybody's cup of tea and that's okay I suppose if I am your cup of tea that's very nice too your daughter Bluebell recently got nine A stars at GCSE how did that feel for you given what you've spoken about in terms of your own school experience? I think it's so easy having to put our own badge of honours onto our children and, you know, or helicopter mum or those things. I am no way perfect in this. I'm learning every day how to, you know, to parent. What I hope is to be, you know, a really good support to her.

You know, she can make her own choices, but just reflect back. And anyone with a 17-year-old, you know, they want to make their own decisions, but you can give them like honest feedback, whether they take it or not. But I will say this, I've been very blessed and lucky to have achieved some things that I'm proud of in my life. But when I watch my own daughter open her own GCSE results and her face, I've never felt so proud. You know, it was incredible feeling. But equally my husband, when I watched him win championships, and I know he has worked so hard this has not been an easy ride I felt more proud of their achievements because just watching it I feel happy for them I felt happier for them

and trust me I still want to achieve and I still want to win in my own field but it's a lovely feeling yeah well especially everything you went through and having raised her on your own. I mean, I know you had good friends who helped you, but that is a wonderful thing. You know, she's on her own path and chapeau to anybody that's, you know, they bring up children. There is no right or wrong way to do it. But I do feel very proud of her. You should. Your final failure is lessons on backstory. You've touched on it. Do you get lost in the backstory, Geri? No, actually, I think sometimes this is what I learned. If I bring a new character in and I haven't really flushed it out what they want, who they are, put it this way,

it's much better if I know exactly who they are then it's so easy to answer the question to know what they do when you write you get to play God yeah right and so you've got this series of characters and so I know exactly who Charlie is and I know exactly what he would do and how he would say and how he respond and I can say oh Bina she would never do that or she would definitely do that and Rosie wouldn't do that. If I do that sort of due diligence, that preparation first, it makes life easier when you're in the thick of it. Yes.

It sort of exposed it when suddenly, actually giving it to an editor, she said, oh, I need to know more about this person and they feel a bit thin in their narration. And I was like, oh yeah, I can see that. about this person. And they feel a bit thin in their narration of it. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can see that. I've sort of budged it a bit. Do you find that in real life as well, like off the page? Because one of the things that immediately struck me about you was that you were interested.

You asked me lots of questions, which is a really, again, a lovely quality. Do you want to find out the backstories of people you meet I think my mother's like that as well yeah you know she's very chatty and she likes to know people and so I've had that example I'm definitely like that by the way I'm super nosy some people might say yeah I mean but I think it doesn't matter you know whether you're the postman or the president. Everyone's interesting and everybody matters. It depends what day you get me on. If I was tired and grumpy, hangry, so to speak,

then I might not be as interested. And we can all get into the bondage of self. But isn't it quite nice when you hear something about someone and and sometimes you have to sort of unpick someone a little bit and then that feels a privilege if they share something that yes you wouldn't know who's the most interesting person you've ever met do you think okay the most like I can tell you this is really I'm wowed by okay so I'm I have spent the company of Judi Dench oh yeah that's a good one isn't it I started studying acting again I was looking at Shakespeare fine so I was with this acting teacher and she

gave me the Merchant of Venice to look at one of the famous speeches and so when I was with Judi we started talking and I was telling her and then she started quoting it. And so then I started doing it with her. And I was like, oh, my God, I love you. But she's got such a beautiful energy. She's just amazing lady and inspiring. And you think, you know, when I grow up, I want to be like you. You know, you're gorgeous. And she's one.

And another one is Dame Shirley Bassey. So they're both dames. Yes she's amazing too she's amazing she sung happy birthday to me and I was like oh my god because when I was a little girl my mother used to say when I used to sing after my mother used to say Shirley Bassey arm Shirley Bassey arm so I used to sort of sing and do lift my arms up like Shirley Bassey and then Shirley Bassey has turned out just to be incredible what a life yeah that's not what an extraordinary turn your life takes that you have ended up yeah with Shirley Bassey Dame Shirley Bassey singing you happy birthday yeah she's lovely I want you to become a dame then just like you three dames can hang out together all the time I feel like it's in your future I also wanted to ask you about backstory in terms of

how you apply it to yourself because I'm interested in how you perceive each decade of womanhood because I think that as women we have been historically sold a lie which is that our age diminishes us and actually my experience and I don't know if it's yours as well is that I feel I know myself much better every single decade that passes and that actually is the source of power and so I really wanted to ask you what your take was on aging. So interesting obviously I've connected with girls you know across the world girls and boys and everyone anyone and define their power of who they are I actually felt I don't know maybe a moral obligation to look at how I move forward as a good example. And it's not, I'm not perfect. I'm not doing this perfectly.

But actually I asked myself the question, can I age with grace and power, find a different kind of power? Because otherwise it's another way of marginalization, prejudice. It's another way to box you in. But equally, every age is a different age, is a different chapter, you know,

not to try and hold on to that age and not to hide one's age. I felt if I hide my age, that's a betrayal to everyone, you know, to all my peers, my brothers and sisters, to everyone. So, you know, for me, I'm trying, not perfectly, to say, look, I'm learning how to age with grace. And what I've experienced so far, okay, so in my, you know, teenage 20s, I had youthful bravado. The 30s, you know, no longer the ingenue. It was really difficult. Or the peer pressure to tick the boxes, it was really difficult. I couldn't quite work it out. I felt lost. Then 40s, it started to turning point. And I naturally, I started to find that sort of ownership of identification that wasn't built on a bravado. You know, I'd fallen down so many times, you know, I know what it feels like to fail. So the bravado is gone. But in the 40s,

start building up experience and learning that that is something beautiful in itself. And then actually finding power within boundaries that actually I can be attraction rather than promotion. You know, there is quality in less is more. I can say no. All of those things that actually I don't need to people please and that comes with a huge amount of confidence and experience that comes with age in your 50s I think so yes but tell me more about attraction rather than promotion it's not over promoting

like okay I can use any example I could say to you oh please please like my book and actually or please like me please and actually is that how attractive is that but if I say do you know what I'd really like you to read my book I think you know I felt something when I did it and you might too or of being an example of like an example of power rather than telling anyone to be powerful does that make make sense? Yes, I love that. It's such a good way of putting it. Yeah, I think that's, isn't that more attractive? Actually, I'm suddenly attracted to someone because the way they are

rather than telling me how I should be. Yes. I'm striving for that. I'm still not perfect. That's the gift of age. You're like, well, this is me. What for girls wear pearls? Okay, that's, it is what it is.

Yeah. If you could give a piece of advice to yourself in your 30s, when you were feeling lost and under pressure, what advice would you give? Or what would you say to that? You know, I'd say to anyone now is that tranquilo, like calm. You've got time. You've got so much time.

You know, you've got more time than you realize. It's your path path not anybody else's yeah because otherwise if we compare to they're doing that and they're doing that at this age I think it's it's quite a lot of pressure final question yeah sherry what is it about Anne Boleyn that you love so much well it's interesting right because if we've really broke it down first of all I was just intrigued because of you know i love the tudors yeah i'm you know and it looked glamorous and it looked dramatic and when i first started you know looking at giving heaver bridge it's the name of the school in the book a history

i thought about queen elizabeth the first and then i looked to her mother and somebody said to me no no no don't pick amber lynn it no, no, no, don't pick Amber Lynn. It was a bloke. He said, don't pick her. She's not liked. Right. And I thought, oh, and I thought, well, what? And then I thought, I looked at her narrative and I thought, well, who wrote this narrative? And then I said, she seems quite smart. And then I started unpacking her, her history. She believes in reform, the NHS. Okay the more i got you know to understand her story i thought actually maybe this woman was shamed for being smart and clever and she was just murdered by a misogynistic pig you know she had a three-year-old daughter yeah henry the eighth

she had a daughter that she had to leave behind that was you know that was not even three did she deserve to be murdered for that you know for what the people said about her we don't even know it was true and I thought actually if we just fast forward the tape to now you know that women can be put into boxes and so I felt like this is interesting. Can we look at this? Maybe she deserves a rebrand. Yes. Maybe she deserves a rebrand because who told us that about her? Maybe she was just smart and, you know, caught up in somebody else's narrative. And obviously her daughter was the greatest monarch ever. So that was kind of some of it. I love it. I love it. it's all about her redemption it's the redemption it's the power of unboxing someone from those boxes they've been restricted to make her human and make her own

hero which is the story of Rosie Frost and it's the story in so many ways of your life thus far I can't wait to see what you do next and I just can't tell you what an honor it's been to chat to you today. Thank you so, so much, Geri Halliwell-Horner for coming on How to Fail. Oh, thank you so much. 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.