Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Aside from being sexy, what do you do for a living? (with Kate Atkinson)

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Fi is still joining us through the ether, but we live in hope... Together Jane and Fi discuss awful pick up lines, non-traditional Christmas' and celebrity deaths. Plus, bestselling author Kate Atkinson joins Jane to discuss her career, her recent novel 'Shrines of Gaiety' and her new collection of short stories 'Normal Rules Don't Apply'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfiAssistant Producer: Eve SalusburyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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OK, so I thought today went very well, Jane. And you must get your Comrex installed because it'll make things so much easier for you. I've already asked. Apparently at one point I thanked you, which I've never done before and I certainly won't be doing again. So welcome to Off Air. This is Fee and I just having a very technical chat

about a new way of working which we did today using some new equipment. And Fee was at home, I was at work and it sort of was okay but I'd still rather you were here because it's just more fun. Yeah. I know I'd much rather come in actually just because I obviously I miss your warmth Jane and humour um but it's quite it feels quite remote and it's just it is just a bit back to lockdown mentality it's I I'm

so happy to be able to come back into work just as soon as I can yes okay well look everything crossed and you'll feel a bit better, a bit more like it next week. Also, I've got to say Foodie Thursday is not one to miss. Hannah Evans brought in these mince pies today and I like a mince pie but the alternative ones that she had with her today, there was one

that was flaky pastry and it was filled with clotted cream and sultanas and brandy and it was horribly indulgent in a truly wonderful way. It probably cost about 150 quid just for one of them. But they were beautiful. And I love that about this time of year. Although, as I say, I realise it's not even December yet.

Not quite. And we seem to be... Do you think we've just gone early this year? It feels like it to me. No, I think we always go early but can i can i just be a little bit more detailed on that mince pie where's the mincey bit so it's just cream and sultanas and flaky pastry yeah it was like a cream horn yes croissant type thing with croissant croissant with a with a christmas hint oh eve said there was a layer of fruit i don't know i'm sorry i'm okay uh and we should say that uh today uh has been notable for

a number of um well let's be honest about it celebrity deaths and i'm just looking at um the images of shane mcgowan all over all over the big screens, the Pogues lead singer. And the Fairytale of New York is by some margin the greatest Christmas song. Isn't it just? Now neither of them are here. And it's sad, isn't it? Well, it is sad, but what an enormous contribution to have made to the musical landscape.

You know, for a guy who who let's be honest about it just piled so much stuff on himself it's amazing that he didn't lose his talent in the midst of all of that and I know that he wasn't exactly performing at his finest for the last decade or so of his life but actually that's quite a testament to a rock and roll life isn't it and to leave something behind that's so beautiful you've got to be proud of that. I thought the other people we talked about today who had died were very interesting too Jane. Henry Kissinger he died at the age of a hundred. I didn't know that much about his diplomatic career because actually in my lifetime I think

I've caught him more in fiction than I have in fact you know the when he's been played in a slightly kind of fictional capacity in movies about American administrations notably Nixon and in the world of diplomacy Jane do you think you had excelled at it? It seems to depend an awful lot on just doing what the bloomin' hell you want to do and just hoping the other side don't notice. That seemed to be a bit of his MO. Yes, yeah, he was, I mean, I'm just about old enough to remember him featuring very regularly in the television news, for example. So I would know his name. But in truth, you have to be quite a lot older than me

to remember him being in power. So I guess if you are going to live... But then there's a picture of him. There's a picture of him today sitting with Donald Trump, who apparently wasn't particularly keen to hear the wise words of a near-centenarian politician. So you think, God, he really has straddled some eras. Oh, yeah, I think he had. I think everybody took his calls. Let's put it that way. But there

are some incredible people who've been Secretary of State in America, aren't there? I mean, Madeleine Albright was an amazing, amazing woman. And then Antony Blinken, who is Biden's Secretary of State, he seems to be such an accomplished, highly intelligent bloke. These people never go for high office. They don't actually ever run for president. I know Madeleine Albright wasn't born in America, so she couldn't, I don't think. But it's strange, isn't it?

They seem to be in a different category altogether. We must ask our American listeners to tell us about why these people don't get to be actually running the joint because some of them seem incredibly able yes but i think uh wouldn't it be fair to say that you make as many enemies as you do friends when you're at that high level of office and maybe just walking across the corridor to the big big office is far more treacherous than we might imagine well maybe they're not party politicians i don't i don't even know are they just chosen walking across the corridor to the big, big office is far more treacherous than we might imagine. Well, maybe they're not party politicians.

I don't even know. Are they just chosen because they're very brainy? I've got absolutely no idea. Well, we'll definitely take that. And I need to apologise. I need to massively, massively apologise because I've ruined Bake Off for quite a few listeners. And I didn't mean to do that obviously and I just didn't

even I thought because it was yesterday by the time we talked about it in the UK that it would have buzzed all the way around the world on social media platforms that the one of the blokes had won I'm not even going to say his name now Jane just for fear of retribution but I would like to apologize because I know that that really does ruin it for some people so I'm not even going to say his name now, Jane, just for fear of retribution. But I would like to apologise because I know that that really does ruin it for some people so I'm really sorry. It just slipped out. It didn't mean to. Some people get their jeopardy in a show about cake and we have to

accept that. I must admit, I share your bafflement as to why it means so much. It's a lovely show. I haven't actually watched it this season so I can't really. And the other sadness is that Shetland has totally lost it. Oh, Shetland! It's jumped the...

What do you call it? It's jumped the what? What's it done? Well, the phrase is jumped the shark, but this series has jumped the sheep. I don't want to see a plot involving some kind of satanic abuse of sheep. I mean, I really, really don't. I really don't. You've changed me. You really have.

It used to be the kind of thing you really enjoyed, but not anymore. Terrible. I tell you what, we had quite a few emails as well wanting to hear more reviews done by Ray. Oh, Ray's reviews, yeah. Well, I spoke to the great man last night and once I'd explained what Off Air is, he seemed mildly interested in doing more for it.

I think he should. Do you think he could start by watching Channel 4's A Couple Next Door? No, I don't want to think about my parents watching that. Thank you very much. He did think another trip to the cinema was unlikely in the next three or four years, so that slightly limits his potential to take over from Mark Kermode.

But he could review, he's probably happiest reviewing Liverpool versus whoever they're playing next, but I'm not going to let him do that. So I am going to set him a task, because apart from anything else it keeps him away from bothering my mother, so that might not be such a bad thing.

So we look forward to Ray's reviews. Probably in a couple of weeks he'll come up with something else. Perhaps he could review our family Christmas. How about that? Maybe we'll find some very, very long movies for him to go and review. Dancers with Wolves. Let's start with that, Ray. I'd say my problem with The Couple Next Door, which I started watching on your

recommendation, Garv, is I don't want to see Hugh Dennis doing that. Because he will always be the dad in Outnumbered. I have to say, though, that it's a very silly show with lots of sex in it. It's just ridiculous. It's set in

supposed to be in Leeds. It's got terrible sex in it, Jane. There isn't a single person in that drama who is appealing or sexy. And the idea that they can't keep their hands off each other is just preposterous. Absolutely preposterous. Don't you like the police motorcyclist when it's raining on his T-shirt? No, I don't. He's no stranger to the wax bar that

gentleman and i'm not having any of it anyway it's on channel four nine o'clock uh or you could find it on is it all four yeah uh that's not a recommendation from either of us uh it's just to say that it's available on all four uh and it's it's sort of a drama, but, I mean, it's hard. Yes, I don't understand it, really. But anyway. Right, this is from... Oh, Evelyn, who said, I enjoyed Jane's dad's review,

but I was shocked that he had to pay to go to the toilet. I realised my mistake when I thought about his next sentence and that he won by a short head. I do have a tendency to take things very literally or to choose an alternate meaning of words. OK. I thought his review was sharp and to the point, unlike, I'm assuming from the review, his film.

Evelyn's got a beef with you as well, actually. I was really surprised, she says, at Fee's reluctance to go to the theatre, despite several positive experiences. It would explain why you never reference the astonishing national theatre production of that thing i can't say prima fassi is it in the face i yeah it was i don't know it was a one woman performance by jodie coma the national theatre live transmissions are amazing enabling a huge number of people to

see fantastic productions without the expense of getting to london the service is also available How did you know about that? Honestly, you're missing some amazing performances. Well, that's you told. I'm sure you're right. And I do keep remembering things that I've seen at the theatre that I've actually really enjoyed. So I'm just being silly. Can I read winning pick up lines and the cities that rely on them the most?

It's it's an email that came into our inbox. It's not from a person, a listener. It's from a PR company. But it's so funny. Cheeky difference. I'm not going to. Yeah, I'm not going to give them the satisfaction of saying what company it is, but they've done top ten pick-up lines, and the probability of these working on females, that's what this says, and the probability of it working on males. Would you like a couple of them? Well, will they be aimed at females?

Well, they're aimed at anybody, and then i'll give you the probability uh aside from being sexy what do you do for a living that would work on 20 of females and probably 20 of males are you from tennessee because you're the only 10 i see I see Oh God I know They get better Is your name Wi-Fi? Because I'm feeling a connection If you were a vegetable you'd be a cute cumber Do you have a name

or can I call you mine? Oh my goodness That's appalling And in at number 10 This is just dreadful. I don't believe that anyone's ever said this. Do you have a map? Because I keep getting lost in your eyes. Well, that's a Channel 4 drama right there, isn't it?

OK, horrific. And can I just, I don't know, genuinely, I don't know where that email came from. Is it a product? Is it a service? Is it a company? Would I recognise it? You would recognise it. And it's from a company that we have the genre of which we have specifically asked not to get involved in our programme. OK, right. I think I know where you're coming from. Yes. Right. The big guest this afternoon is Kate Atkinson, the writer, and we'll hear from her in a moment or two. Dear Fee and Jane, says Alexis, I've written many an email to you in my head over the years,

but I've finally been inspired to type something up as it covers godparent gifts and touches on one of the contentious issues between you. Brace yourself, Fee. Alexis says, I'm 48, and my lovely godmother still gives me a birthday present, but she's never given Christmas gifts. Every year she asks what I'd like,

and we comment on how much faster birthdays are coming around. As a granddaughter of a man called Arthur Wood, my godmother gets a share of the royalties from Fee, the archer's theme tune. Oh. Oh. No! of the royalties from Fee? The Archer's Theme Tune. Oh! No! I've no idea how much people get for that kind of thing or how many relatives she shares it with

but when I was at art college she used to give me £150 a term from her Archer's Fund for books particularly encouraging me to buy exhibition catalogues. So I like to think my book collection is an Archer's funded library via my lovely godmother, of course, says Alexis. I think that's a lovely story.

And also, even Fee will admit, that's interesting, isn't it? Because I've always been... To be honest, I hadn't even thought about who composed the Archer archers theme tune but the idea that some people are still benefiting financially from it that's remarkable shocking it's not shocking it's wonderful isn't it true that uh happy birthday you know happy birthday to you was written by a couple of american sisters is that right i think you're right and they because didn't they go to court in the um i think quite early on in their lifetime to try and get some kind of royalties for it because it was being sung everywhere do you know what it'd be worth looking that up maybe even doing it as a little feature, because obviously when you sing it to somebody round at your house, you don't pay anybody anything.

No. And I don't know, does, yeah, let's look into that, Jane, because otherwise we're both just talking rather randomly without any fact to touch to it. We don't want to start doing that, do we? I mean, I thought my foray into American politics a couple of minutes ago was absolutely fascinating, if somewhat ill-informed. foray into American politics a couple of minutes ago was absolutely fascinating, if somewhat ill-informed. No, I think it was very convincing. So let's not let the mask slip on happy birthday. Hi, Jane and Fee. Is there a chance you could make a little space on Off Air to talk about non-traditional Christmases? I don't see anything of my own experience being reflected in all the marketing or on social media. I'm single, mid-30s and have no family

and can deal with this pretty well through most of the year, but Christmas does just get to me. To make it worse, I'm a musician, so I've been doing Christmassy stuff at work since September. What do other people do to make it their own and ignore all the hype? Past options for me have included having COVID, not keen to repeat that one, volunteering, doing a traditional Christmas all by myself and doing nothing at all. But nothing

sits right. My friends and my family, but of course, they have their own to go and see at this time of year. Thank you. And please keep me anonymous. We're very happy to do that. But that is a great call out because I reckon there are lots of people listening who do Christmas a little bit differently apart from anything else I really hope that we do have quite a lot of people listening who don't celebrate Christmas at all yeah who come from other faiths other religions and for them it's just you know not a really big deal so it'd be really interesting to know as those statistics creep up about blended families, people not having families at all, that kind of stuff, and the melting pot that is the UK, there just must be so many other things that people are doing and enjoying. So you don't have to feel that Christmas kind of locks you out because that is dreadful.

I think as well, many of us have just been through, you know, bog average Christmases. And often Christmases that can be, I don't know, just slightly impacted by maybe somebody being ill. And I don't mean seriously ill. I would hope it wouldn't be that. Although, of course, in some cases it can be. But just people with sore throats, in bed, throat infections, laryngitis, norovirus, as we were talking about on the programme today. There's such a build-up, particularly when you have small children. I remember so many of my Christmases when the kids were very young that were just dominated by Calpol.

You know, we just needed to go out and get Calpol or somebody was being, you know, we know what they were probably doing, whether or not we should get the bucket, all of these sorts of things. It's not always picture perfect your christmas is it for a multitude of reasons no but i'd be really interested to hear from people who just just make an app you know an active choice to go and do something different than what it is that they go and do uh because you're right to our correspondence you know we talk about christmas in a pretty kind of uh one-dimensional way don't we we make

assumptions about everybody celebrating it and we're wrong to do that we also had a thank you oh sorry no I was just gonna say I've said it before I'll say it again Christmas day is the longest day of the year it just goes on and on and on it's extraordinary it does yes carry on oh no well we just uh we just had a really nice thank you email. I wasn't expecting to be so emotional. But yesterday, after listening to your show and podcast, I wanted to say that the kindness of listeners who took the time to send messages really meant something. The listener who suggested just sitting with the feelings and knowing that they will eventually pass was particularly helpful. So this is from our correspondent who started off our thread about what to do when life is just a bit shite.

Listening to other people's experiences of life also helped me get some perspective. And I hope the others who emailed in get some strength in knowing that there is a lovely little community out here of off-airers who are listening. What a lovely thing. And, you know, Jane and I, I think think don't say this all the time because it would just sound really saccharine and a little bit kind of self-aggrandizing which we don't want at all

but it is lovely that there's a community of people listening to Off Air and we are very grateful aren't we and we always say that whenever we've done a live show you look out across the audience and you think I could go for a drink with every single one of you and we'd done a live show, you look out across the audience and you think, I could go for a drink with every single one of you and we'd have a laugh, wouldn't we? So that is a very nice thing. It is true. I mean, we would go for a drink with every single one of you, but we wouldn't buy you all a drink.

I just want to make that very clear, just in case people think that's an offer. It isn't an offer. I'll buy the drinks. And on a similar vein, we've had another email, which I won't read out, actually, in its entirety, but it's from a listener who just does, frankly, run through some of the incredibly difficult situations

she has found herself in over the last 18 months. There's such a lot going on in this woman's life. And I just want to say to her, I've read the email, I'm sure Fi has as well, and I can only hope that things get things get better for you she does say sometimes a hug or an invitation for a coffee or an update on somebody else's life um good or bad because i have found that people shy away from telling you their troubles is exactly what is needed my life is my life your life is yours share experiences good and bad it's what makes us a community says that anonymous listener so oh dear fee my voice is going that'll be because i've really worked this week you have actually you've had to put in the

hours and i'm sorry that i haven't been there as backup and I do hope that normal service resumes next week well I did feel something coming on first thing this morning and I did take a Barocca no I did I took a Barocca oh no don't get this Jane don't please don't get this no no I haven't got that unpleasant no no no but you know when you just wake up you think oh I'm so depleted I better just take a baroque. That'll boost me up. Yeah. Anyway, it did. So the interview today is with Kate Atkinson.

It was a mango flavour, though. Not my favourite. Big interview today is with Kate Atkinson. She is such a good writer. She won the Whitbread Book of the Year for her very first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. She's the creator of the Jackson Brody series of crime stories. Although, as she'll explain in this interview,

her first ever literary success came courtesy of Woman's Own magazine. She specialises in twisty tales that make demands on the reader, but in a thoroughly good, good way. Now, her recent novel, Shrines of Gaiety, is set in the clubs of Soho in 1926. And trust me, Soho was wilder then than it is now by some margin and she has a new collection of short stories out too called Normal Rules Don't Apply and this collection of short stories starts with a tale around the void an apocalyptic event

I asked Kate how she'd achieved her trademark style. Well, if I knew the formula, obviously, or not that it's a formula, but if I knew how to do that, then I could obviously be a very rich woman because I'd be selling. I don't know. I think I have, when I'm writing, I have a very intimate connection with the words. You know, it's very much...

My brain becomes quite isolated, I think. It's just me and the words and it's me and the book. And I think it's always been like that, I think. And also I'm very aware of what my voice sounds like to me. So I think, you know, up to a point it's been the same voice, for want of a better term, that was in behind the scenes. And I think it's just developed. And I think it's almost like me talking to me.

But I was actually thinking the other day, I was thinking, would I like my books if I read them and I think it's just developed and I think it's almost like me talking to me but I was actually thinking the other day I was thinking would I like my books if I read them and I wasn't and I hadn't written them and I actually don't know because there's a huge difference between writing and reading and I said this once in an event and people were very irritated by the fact that I said you know reading and writing are completely different. They have nothing in common with each other. Obviously, they meet in the words, but they're such different activities. And I think, would I? I don't know.

I'd love to be able to read it as someone else. Yes. Well, you're never going to have the experience. I'm never going to be able to do that. Because you have to be a different kind of reader. Because you have to read your own work when you're writing it. And you have to imagine what it's like to be a reader of it and that kind of keeps you on track because you know you have to make sense but you also have to be I would think you have to be quite friendly as a writer you know and I think maybe that's what

you're saying is that there's that intimacy well there really is, because you occasionally would just tell us, for example, in Shrines of Gaiety, that book is set in 1926, and it opens with a newspaper delivery boy, and it closes with the same character, the boy, and then you tell us... Everything in between. But yes, we also learn in the final, I think it's the final sentence of that book, that he dies in the Second World War. He does. And for some reason, although this character doesn't really play a huge part in the book, I was stunned by that and felt incredibly sad. I sound as if I'm listening to you telling me something I don't know

because I forget almost instantly that I've finished a book. I forget the characters' names, I forget what happens. And I'm not embarrassed by it, but it is when you meet readers and they're going, oh, and you know where that blah, blah, blah, blah person, and I'm like, really? I think you're illustrating, Kate, there really is a difference between writers and readers.

I'm appalled. Readers remember, writers don't. Can we go right back to the beginning? And your latest collection is a collection of short stories. your latest collection is a collection of short stories. Your latest book is a collection of short stories. And your very first foray into writing was to win a short story competition. Run by Woman's Own. Woman's Own, which I used to always read my mum's copy of Woman's Own.

What was your short story about? It was called, you're really asking me now. It was called In China and it was about a girl called madeline and she was adolescent teenager and about after that i'm not sure i think it was a sort of family thing but it was interesting because it was the first thing i ever wrote that wasn't about me i mean that kind of deep I've got to get this out of me I'm so wretched you know I need to put this into words kind of thing and I'd been writing scatty bits of stuff before that uh in a kind of tutoring myself I suppose I did a doctorate on

the short story so I was very aware of what a good story was so I wasn't eager to but also story is a great way to learn to write so it was very much like oh you know I'm a wretched person you get rid of all that biographical nonsense and and in China was the first thing I wrote there was nothing to do with me it was completely fictional and probably one of the best things to ever happen to me because I was getting kind of on my uppers by that point. I was really needing money and I was more or less given up all the little jobs I'd had. And the woman from Women's Oaks, she phoned me up and said, you've won this.

And I just thought that's the best thing that's ever going to happen to me is that someone has said, you can write. And not just that you can write the biographical bits and pieces you can actually write fiction and from then on I started writing for women's magazines short stories I loved writing short stories for women's magazines I'm not sure that anybody really apart from the people's friend these days actually publishes gosh that's true isn't it yeah and that clearly helped you did you win money from Woman's Own I did win money.

Well, don't worry too much because you're there. I won a great big bag of goodies from a healthcare firm that was sponsoring. Did you? Strepsils. Strepsils. Well, look, not to be sniffed at. Certainly not at this time of year. Then when you wrote Behind the Scenes at the Museum,

that won a prize. That was your first novel. That won the Whitbread whitbread prize so you were then presumably brimming with confidence about your abilities no i wouldn't say that because you know you've got to write another novel and that's you know maybe you can only do it once so you have to be able to do it twice at least so that was i'd already halfway through the second novel human croquet when i won the whitbread so at least I had that kind of basis to move forward on. I would say I didn't really become confident as a writer

until I was somewhere around maybe the second Jackson Brody novel. And those are your crime books. Those are crime books because I find that the pattern of my writing seems to follow the same every time. I get round about the middle of the writing seems to follow this it's the same every time I get round about the middle of the book and I think oh my god this is this is terrible I can't do this I'll never get to the end because I don't know how to make it work it's about making it work so it's like a puzzle and then I have a complete kind of mental breakdown while I try to reassemble it and make it work and to begin with that was terrible I mean I just thought oh my

goodness what am I doing but now I just think oh yeah here we are this is this is the awful bit we'll you know we've done it before we'll do it again so I do now have that kind of blasé confidence that I can get to the end of a book and I think that's you know reassuring for me and I suppose there'll come a day when I just think no can't do it and that'll be it but well it'll be a very sad day for those of us readers Kate who enjoy what you do um Shrines of Gaiety if we can focus on that because that's your most recent novel um it's set in 1926 it's about the London nightclub scene and it's about a woman called Nellie Coker who runs a string of clubs and well she's up to all sorts of stuff

but also what absolutely intrigued me and I know you do lots of research is that for any young person who's going clubbing in London today it's almost all been done before hasn't it? It has those were wild years. They really were. They really were people just completely I think in the provinces it must be have been very different i don't think people in you know sheffield and doncaster were going well you know we're going to be doing lots of cocaine and dancing the night away tonight i think it's a very london-centric kind of scene and it's interesting that somebody said to me the other day oh it's not about the nightclubs everyone thinks it's about the nightclubs but actually there's only one nightclub scene and i

thought that's true all the rest of it he said to me they're all during the daytime there's all people going to look and see how the clubs are doing and you know totting up the drinks and everything it's actually not that kind of you know bright young things raving sort of scene it's much more about the family who who own the nightclubs and the desire that nelly coca had to make her children respectable yeah and and you know Nellie is based on a real person called Kate Merrick who also followed the same trajectory and uh in fact two of her daughters did marry into the peerage and one of her sons became a novelist and was found on the pavement dead after he'd written a crime novel about it. So these things are all very much mirrored in real life.

But I've read her autobiography, which clearly she didn't write on her own, and I just think she's one of these women who made her life up, and you just have to kind of champion that because it's so bold, I think, to have lived that kind of life. Just, you know, I'm going to do this and I'm going to make an enormous amount of money and I'm going to be incredibly successful on the back of other people's need to as I say enjoy themselves to think they're enjoying themselves anyway you know you're right there are lots of scenes set in the clubs but during the day

and if you've ever been in a nightclub during the day oh no it's a different well they're rather sort of tawdry and tragic aren't they there's something it's it is behind the scenes i remember we used to i used to live in stonegate when i was a child and there was a pub opposite the punch bowl which is still there very old pub and because my father went into all the shops during the day because they were says you know his shopkeeper friends we'd go across to the punch bowl and i i can conjure up now the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and it's the smell i really like i think and that was so much the morning after you know and you just think there's a very there's two worlds you know there's there's the front that's all glitz and there's the back that's

really pretty sooty and grim and and it's where those two worlds meet that i think that's always interesting now you wear you do a lot of research but you wear it very lightly in the books. And I know that actually Barbara Cartland's memoir was a book you consulted. It was very good. What was it? Yeah. It was very interesting because she was absolutely, she had details that I hadn't come across elsewhere.

So that, just tiny things, you know, nothing big, but really about, you know, what she's drinking, what she's wearing, what she's reading. And I think it was a very direct line into someone who was very much part of that. Oh, no, it's a good read. Was it really? Okay, well, I'm surprised to get that endorsement. What's also interesting is that I think, is it set just before the general strike? Yes.

Yeah, right on the cusp of it. But no one seems particularly concerned. They're not. I don't think they were. I think there's such a divide between the working man and, you know, those people in London that I think people don't want to know. People didn't want to know. That's just, you know, they're far too busy enjoying themselves or making money or, you know, taking drugs

to actually be bothered about the politics of the time. Voice over describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over on settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books, contacts, calendar, double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility.

There's more to iPhone. And we're talking this afternoon to the novelist Kate Atkinson. Now, she's written a great deal about the impact of the Second World War. And I asked her if she thinks there'll ever be a time when Britain stops looking to that conflict. I do wonder. I do wonder because I'm in the middle of writing a book set in 1951, which is the year I was born. I realise I'm obsessed by 1951.

And people are not really talking about the war, but the war is still, I mean, it's only six years since the war finished. And I do think one of the characters does say, we're never going to stop talking about this war. And then, you i mean it's only six years since the war finished and i do think one of the characters does say we're going to stop talking about this war and then you know that's in 1951 and i think i think once my generation goes because i was born just after the war so it's still a a vibrant kind of thing in you know in my hinterland as it were i think once my generation goes i think that's probably when we stop talking

i think and will writers stop writing no no because it's such a rich source of material because that's what you're always looking for isn't it you're looking for you're looking for material but what happens with your books is that you can't well i can't depend on them because i don't i never quite know where you're going to take me. And I never quite know who to trust. Not me. Well, no, I don't trust you as far as I can throw you. Is that your intention to keep,

because I know that probably other writers have, frankly, sold more books than you. But is that possibly because you are simply a bit trickier and that can make it harder to sell books oh I don't know you'd have to ask my publisher um I don't think of myself as being particularly tricksy but I am aware that there is a tricksy element in there but it's me that's being kept interested by those tricks I think because when you're writing in order to engage with what you're writing,

you have to be entertaining yourself, I think. You have to be. I often do think, oh, where am I taking this? Because I have an end point I know I want to get to and I don't know how to get there and I don't know who might possibly die, for example, in the course of me getting to that point. You really don't know?

No. So you take yourself by surprise every time? I do and I think that's quite important to have those surprises in there for me as a writer, because otherwise, you know, you're just working from, I don't know, a wall chart, you know, from a friction that's going to keep you, might keep you on the right path, but it's not going to be particularly inventive. I like inventive writing. That's why I'm wondering if I would like actually reading my own writing,

because I like writing inventively. I'm sure I like inventive writing that's why I'm wondering if I would like actually reading my own writing because I like writing inventively I'm sure I like reading it so you wouldn't be a Kate Atkinson reader I think we've established that actually that's all very peculiar um so your collection of short stories uh normal rules don't apply again you're up to your old tricks because I never quite know what's going to happen next that's a very tricksy set of stories yes no it really is and I also just want to talk about the importance of York in your writing, because you went to Dundee University, didn't you? I did, yes. And York is hugely significant.

And you're not, although Shrines of Gaiety is set in Soho, you're not London mad, are you? Not everything you do has a London twist to it. No, no, I mean, I'm just trying to remember the first time I came to London. Oh, it was eight on holiday holiday but that was a strange visit i uh i live in edinburgh so you know i'm pretty much as far away as you can get and it doesn't have the same resonance as a capital city as as london does i'm i'm from yorkshire we can't help it we just think it's the best place

so that it's you know it's the texas of england it's the biggest county and we can't help it we just think it's the best place so that it's you know it's the Texas of England it's the biggest county and we're the most patriotic people and I miss it every day I think I have a kind of an innate homesickness about not living in Yorkshire but I quite possibly wouldn't like to if I actually went back but I think I try to bring it into books quite a lot quite you know not necessarily it needs to be there but I like to have it into books quite a lot. Not necessarily it needs to be there, but I like to have a character who knows Yorkshire or York. It just comes from there. It's a lovely recurring theme. I like it. In your short stories, Princess Anne makes a number of appearances.

She does, doesn't she? She doesn't have a lot of luck, I should say. I think she survives the apocalypse, doesn't she? No, I think maybe she's taken out by the apocalypse. She's taken out by the apocalypse very early on, and so is the Prime Minister. And the Prime Minister is replaced by the Deputy Prime Minister, who you describe as sounding like a supermarket manager

when she makes her first statement about the apocalypse. I'm afraid it's not as funny as it would have been a couple of years ago, Kate, because this is, in your short stories, this is called The Void, this particular apocalypse. Where does it spring from, that scenario? I think, well, my last collection of stories was called Not the End of the World. I think it's just that is a recurrent theme. It's just the total wipe out of everybody.

Again, rich source of material. Let's forget that but i think i think there's a well i think there's probably just a darkness in me actually and always has been since i was very very young um i mean you do you describe a small girl the young kate as perhaps somewhat introspective and oh well i was an only child yes i was an only child. Yes, I was an only child. I learned to read quite early on and I read everything. So that's an extremely introverted way to conduct your childhood, I think. I would be a completely different person if I'd had a sibling. I mean, everyone I know who I say I long to have a sibling,

they say it's not what it's all what it's cut out to be. But that's not really the point, is it? It socializes you. It brings you up against adversity, I think, having a sibling, as well as companionship. You fall lucky with whatever sibling you get, but I feel I would be a very different person because I was basically stranded alone with my parents

who didn't like each other, so there's always that sense of a kind of lack of emotional comfort, I think. That you've tried... It just comes from having a setting that's more... is more inclined to be looking at you, I think. I don't know. My parents weren't happy. And I think that has a big effect on a child, I think, because they stayed together, so...

I was about to ask, they did stay together? Yes, relentlessly, grimly, yes. Yeah, I mean, I know divorce can be painful, but sometimes... Well, my mother was already divorced. She'd had a mysterious marriage during the war that nobody would ever talk about, and she refused to have him back when he came back from the war. So she did say to me once, I was divorced,

you know, I'd been divorced once, I couldn divorced. You know, I've been divorced once. I couldn't get divorced again. I couldn't leave someone again. So I think perhaps, you know, the sense of shame from the first divorce, possibly, was one of the things that kept her there. Did they enjoy your success as a writer? Were they able to? My father died the week before I won the Whip Red.

And he'd already become very mentally confused. So he didn't know any of that. And he's the person who would have appreciated it because he was self-taught. He was an autodidact, came from a very poor, very unfortunate background. And he taught himself. He read books, you know, used to get the Reader's Digest condensed books.

And he went to classical concerts. I mean, nobody in Doncaster of his, you know, he used to get the Reader's Digest condensed books and he went to classical concerts. I mean, nobody in Doncaster of his, you know, a boy who came from the pit was going to classical concerts. So he would have really appreciated it. My mother, not so much. I remember when I was given the MBE, I told her, she said, why you? And I think that sort of of my mother that's northern parenting

okay I mean I also just need to make clear because I am a big fan of yours as I hope has come across but um there's humor here there's a lot of sometimes sly rather wicked humor and there's a short story in your latest collection about a middle-aged woman who goes online dating and some of the blokes, a lot of them on the online dating sites and apps are wearing headgear to suggest they're rock climbers or adventurers in some way and she's often very bitterly let down by them. I know because once they take their headgear off they all prove to be bald. let down by them. I know because once they take their headgear off they ought to prove to be bald. The wonderful Kate Atkinson such a pleasure to meet her she's in her I think she's in her late 60s possibly early 70s V and she's just I think she's she's a genius and she just doesn't she

seems very sort of measured and yeah she likes writing but she just doesn't take herself all that seriously I think it's brilliant yeah I would agree I was so surprised when I read her first Jackson Brody crime novel that she was the same person who wrote all the other novels that I'd read and I don't I can't really think of another writer who has managed to straddle both those genres quite so well. Can you? No, I don't think anyone has won prizes and achieved... I mean, she's also had... Jackson Brodie's been on television, hasn't he?

And Life After Life, which was her novel, was televised by the BBC as well. And so many of her books are about death, frankly, and about people dying. And I just... I think she's such, such a clever woman, but also has a wonderful sense of humour as well. And the stuff about the men on the dating apps that Pamela comes across in that short story in her latest collection is kind of an illustration of just how acerbic and funny she can be. how acerbic and funny she can be. But also, honestly, Fi,

the stuff about the nightclubs in Soho back in the 20s, there were all kinds, not just drugs, but all kinds of sexual persuasions were catered for in the clubs of Soho 100 years ago. And also, the aristocratic circles quite often had these, I think they're what they call baby parties, where grown adults would go dressed as babies in romper suits and be wheeled along in perambulators, as they were called at the time. I mean, there's nothing new under the sun. There really isn't.

Well, wasn't Cynthia Payne, part of her pleasure parlour, was given over to exactly that kind of... Oh, was it? Yeah, I think you're right. Men in nappies kind of fetish. So, yeah, there's nothing new on the planet, James. So I'm going to tell that to my youngsters. You think you're raving and you're raving for the first time?

No, it's all been done before by your great-great-granny, so stick it. Not that any of my great-great-grandmothers, I suspect, were into dressing up as babies in giant romper suits but you never know right um we reserve what do we reserve the right to let everybody just be fee i think i think we do i think i'm pretty sure that a producer from who do you think you are will be in touch instantly after you've said that um have a lovely couple of days and look after yourself and see you next week. Yes, and obviously I hope that the depletion doesn't turn into something more serious.

So have a lovely weekend yourself and thank you everybody for listening. It is janeandfee at times.radio. Yes, thank you very much for your company. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fi Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house

or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know, ladies. A lady listener. I know, sorry. us and we hope you can join us again on off air very soon they'll be so silly money good bank i know lady listener sorry voiceover describes what's happening on your iphone screen voiceover on settings. So you can navigate it just by listening.

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