Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Middle-aged muttering

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Jane² are back, answering all the questions plaguing this slightly sunny Tuesday afternoon: What happened to empathy? Why call them beavers? And does a random word generator decide the world’s headlines? Jane G also speaks to novelist Catherine Airey about her debut novel, Confessions. The next book club pick has been announced! 'Eight Months on Ghazzah Street' is by Hilary Mantel. 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! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I've just had to bear witness to Jordan Peterson and Nigel Farage talking to each other. It's like the clash of two slightly decaying pork pies. It's absolutely appalling. Paramount Plus. He is much more impressive than the Hedgehog I fought previously. Dude, I'm standing right here. Sonic the Hedgehog 3, now streaming on Paramount Plus. We're just having a middle-aged woman's rant. And actually, only I'm middle-aged here. Well, I'm pushing it Jane. No, you're not pushing it, other Jane. Welcome to day two of the Mulcairn's takeover on

Off Air. Oh, it's not a takeover, I'm just your sidekick for a few days. No, you're just muscling your way in. Shimmying in. Yeah, shimmying in. It made silver disco boots. Yes, really, I mean it's Tuesday and you're rocking, I have to say, a rather bleak funeral going out, but with these astonishing silver

boots which rest the whole thing. It's a disco funeral. Actually, I could have one of those. Not yet, Jane. No, no, but why not? We'll book you one in. Okay, not yet. No, well, we hope not. You never know. But just to go back to our middle aged rant. Which I really do feel like people don't offer seats for people anymore or carry things. People don't carry things anymore. And I don't know when it happened.

But I feel like when I was a student and I used to struggle around with a heavy suitcase, maybe it's just because I was younger, people used to offer to help me, I don't know. But I feel like now, if I was at a station, many of which are not step-free, struggling with a heavy suitcase, all these people rush past and just don't offer to help you. And so I do a lot of muttering. Do you? Well, you've got to that stage. Welcome to my world, because I have to keep my internal monologue silent. Sometimes things do slip out. I too have started muttering. So it's

not just the involuntary noises when I get off the sofa. It's that kind of when you see really poor standards of behavior. Yeah. Actually, you just you know, you mentioned the step free access when we were talking to Tani Gray Thompson, I think it was last week or the week before. She's brilliant, but she mentioned something that I saw in action at the weekend, which is let's just congratulate, I'm always ranting about public transport, Mersey Rail now have step-free access at their stations. That's fantastic. And they've got lovely new trains as well on Mersey. So congratulations to everyone involved. I mean, obviously everyone should do it, but Tani did mention that it's really made a difference to some of her travel.

Oh, I mean, I, you know, if it's difficult for us as able bodied people just carrying some things around, when you start to think about what it must be like if you are in a wheelchair or you are otherwise, you know, less able. I mean, I interviewed Georgia Stannard on your show, actually, when I was sitting in for you over the New Year. She's this amazing girl, I think we talked about it when I put her in the mag as well, who had, was her, one of her legs was, one of her feet was run over by a bus and so she had an amputation from just below the knee. And she lives in London and just talking about getting around London as someone who has a prosthetic and she gets very tired.

Sometimes you're walking for 15 minutes between lines in a station at bank and things. She was saying people also don't offer her a seat even when they sometimes can see her prosthetic. She said if she's wearing trousers and they can't see, she can sort of understand it because she looks like a perfectly healthy 28 year old woman. And she says, but sometimes she's wearing a skirt and people can see it and they still don't often. She was like, she said, well, what do I do with that? I don't know what she does. I really, God, I mean, so do you think people have just got worse? Yeah. Or people have got nastier? There's less empathy around. There's definitely less empathy. I don't know what that is down to. I mean, I'm so bored of people blaming lockdown for everything.

You know, is it going to be like 2082 when we're still saying, well, in lockdown? You know, I don't think you can excuse appalling standards of behaviour, people not offering seats, people watching porn openly on their phone on a bus next to children. You know, you can't blame it all on that one year where we were all in our houses. It was a bit more than that. It wasn't that bloody grim. And actually for many of us, can I just say if you were relatively privileged, if you had a warm house, a decent set up in your domestic setting, and you had enough to eat and you were warm, lockdown had many benefits. Absolutely. I know so many friends, particularly in Brighton where I now live. He said they just had a really lovely time dog walking, it was a really hot summer, went to the beach.

If you lived by the sea. I was in New York, it was horrible. Was it? Yeah. Genuinely? It was genuinely grim. Yeah. Do you think there's less empathy there, full stop, than we've been used to here?

I'm talking New York-London contrast. Interesting. Actually, I found New York. New York, London contrast. Interesting. Actually, I found New York is a city full of empathy, actually. One of the things that made it more bearable during lockdown was that it felt like the city really pulled together, even though the conditions were very grim. I mean, truly, you know, not to put too fine a point on it, but sirens 24 hours a day refrigerated bodies in trucks at the end of the street. And you know, it was horrible, because you just it was a you know COVID was extreme and there wasn't

an awful lot of provision for it at the beginning but but people really pulled together neighbors were really good to each other it felt like there was a sense of community. I don't it's funny I moved back to London and I didn't feel the same sense of community in London that I'd felt in New York. Oh, that's really sad. Talk about a sense of community. We've had some in my part of East West Kensington, we've had a really rotten fortnight in terms of violent incidents. Yes, I've heard. It's horrible. It's really horrible. I suppose I've kind of, I mean, I don't for one minute think that stabbings, for example, don't go on.

I know they do and it's truly terrible. What's really heartbreaking, we one minute think that stabbings, for example, don't go on. I know they do and it's truly terrible. What's really heartbreaking is we've had a couple of stabbings, one at a tube station, one in our local high street, in a shop in the last seven days. And it's the fact that it hasn't really made headlines, to be truthful, that makes you think, God, so is this... Harry's penis. Yeah, this has just become part of the fabric of our life. It's absolutely appalling. Bloody hell. God, will we all be doing middle-aged muttering under our breath? Anyway, it's

just really sad. No, it's really sad. Shall we talk about beavers? Please. Because... I mean, that's a segue and all. No, just very briefly. Your New York friends, I know you have them, how are they? Yeah, they're struggling. Really struggling at the moment actually. As is my brother who lives in Atlanta who we've spoken about before. He's actually coming

to see me at the end of this week so I will have updates from the southern states but yes all of my friends, all of my progressive friends who obviously voted in a different direction are finding it very hard. And they are finding the lack of resistance this time very hard as well. I think last time round, everyone felt that there was a very tangible, powerful, noisy, cohesive resistance, whether or not it managed to do very much, you at least felt that there were people who shared in your beliefs very publicly and there's none of that this time around. No, I mean that does seem, I mean look I'm not, I don't know as much about it as you but there does seem to be a lot of

silence from the Democrat side of the argument but where are they? I mean where's Kamala Harris for example? Has she just disappeared? I mean I guess I hope they're regrouping somewhere but they're doing it very quietly. She did say that Putin would eat Donald Trump for lunch. Well but it's nearly lunchtime. It's nearly lunchtime, it's past lunch in Saudi. Yeah they're having a sandwich break in Riyadh as we speak. Can I just say, Jane, sometimes in this new Trump 2.0 world, I wake up in the morning and I think, I put on the radio and I think, no, no. And I woke up this morning and I thought, oh, they're doing a peace negotiation now in Riyadh.

In Riyadh? In Riyadh. This is wild. Like, What random word generator did they put together for all of these things to happen on a Tuesday in February? Somebody is up there cooking up a crazy 2025 because you're absolutely right. It's every person I know and obviously I don't know everybody in the world because I don't know people who democratically elected Donald Trump lest we forget everybody I know she says outing herself as one of those pinky softy liberal types just wakes up every morning going what now? Well, yeah, and I have to say that that is that does feel very real when you live there I was saying this yesterday on Hugo show when I lived there under Trump 1.0 You would wake up particularly in the first couple

of months before we got used to the madness, you'd wake up in the morning and feel like you were under siege because you wouldn't know whose rights had been taken away overnight. And it genuinely was, you'd turn on the radio just thinking what now, who now? And it was terrifying, genuinely terrifying because you were just living in this very heightened state of anxiety all the time. that was just a warm-up. Yeah as it's turned out. Yeah. So back to beavers.

Sorry. Because I think we just have to. I belayed your beavering there didn't I? You did. This is actually a PS to a long email from Tracy who just says I am just catching up with your beaver chat. I am the Beaver leader for our local Scout group. I have often wondered about the sanity of the Scout Association Great and Good, who settled on this name for their six to eight year old members.

Were they genuinely unaware of its other associations? Or maybe we leaders are supposed to be above such tittle-tattle, in which case I clearly fall below their heady bar. On one particularly memorable occasion, we were playing a game of musical statues, or musical beavers if you prefer. During the game, while the children were still, one beaver called out, I've got an itchy nose and I want to scratch it. The other beavers thought this was hilarious and a chorus of, I'm itchy too and I need to scratch it. The other beavers thought this was hilarious and a chorus of I'm itchy too and I need to scratch broke out causing much merriment among the group and I responded loudly over the din. My goodness I've never seen so many itchy beavers. Right,

that's Tracy. It is odd, I've got to be honest, that they didn't think about the connotations. But I don't know when the name was invented because I don't think when, what's his name, invented the Scouts. Baden Powell. Baden Powell, thank you. And the guides, eventually. That they had the beavers. I think the beavers are relatively new to the scouting and Girl Guide world.

But look, I don't know. Pure aisle, but we need it in our lives at the moment. We really do. No, we just do. Can I just say that is there a duller game in life than musical statues? No. No, I mean, those...

At least with musical bumps, you know, someone might do themself a mischief. There's a bit of action in bumps, but musical statues does it does take you back to let's be honest life before YouTube and the internet yeah exactly where kids you know we did have to before Mario Gart we had to amuse ourselves with musical statues. Important business yeah tea oh yes tea um Sarah has emailed in to say just wanted to have a moan be Be our guest Sarah. I try my best to look for positive things and this is a first world problem but really fed up being presented with this cup of tea today at RHS Wisley. It's an apology for a cup

of tea. I didn't have the strength today to complain about it. I wonder why you wouldn't have pride in what you serve to customers. It's a mystery to me but I think it's down to the management rather than the individual youth. Sarah, what you serve to customers. It's a mystery to me but I think it's down to the management rather the individual youth. Sarah would you like to come on the podcast with Jane and I tomorrow? Do some muttering under your breath about this. I'm surprised, says Sarah, they didn't even have paper cups here as it's all about nature and ecology. She sent us a picture of this frankly pathetic cup of tea. I mean I'm absolutely with it, it's a disgrace. She has entitled that email confused of Epsom. I'd be absolutely fuming of East West Kensington if I were to get a cup of

tea like that. Did you drink it Sarah is the question. Well that is the question. Please do follow up. I have been to that beautiful garden down in, sorry isn't it. Did you take your own flask? I should have, I absolutely should have done. And it is genuinely gorgeous, but that is an excuse for a beverage. But then there are people who, I don't really get this, I like, I drink, I'm just going to name a brand here if they want to sponsor the podcast, they're very welcome. I drink Barry's Tea from Ireland. That wasn't where I thought you were going to go. In fact Jane, I get Barry's Gold. I'm just, you know, not the normal but the slightly elevated Barry's tea which you can buy in certain supermarkets in the UK, also available online. And it's just a slightly stronger brew.

And I, because I like my tea to taste of tea. I don't get people who just want a warm slightly brown liquid. Warm milk. What's that? Warm beige milk. It's disgusting. What tea bags do you drink? Yorkshire. Obviously. Well it's not obvious. Really? No. Okay. I mean I did grow up there. Well, yeah okay. Moving on, hair. Hair advice and a contrary mum. Sam says I recently heard Phoebe moaning the impact of hot and humid climates on her hair. I would have been in total sympathy 18 months ago but I have now discovered the keratin blow dry, says Sam.

My holiday frizz is now a thing of the past. It's changed my life and in fact it's changed my partner's life too. Why? Well I don't know maybe maybe she used to make her partner blow dry her hair for hours I don't know. I highly recommend and if you've ever if you're ever in tooting give Alex Alexander Adam Alexander a try. I used to have keratin blow drys. I'm sorry I just don't know what that means. So it's a kind of smoothing, they put a substance on your hair and then leave it on for a while and then blow dry it straight and it basically just smooths out all the kinks. But it is a chemical process. So I had it done for quite a long time when I had a different colour

hair and then I went blonde and put a lot of bleach on it and then I used hair straighteners and then it all broke off. And so my old hair, the pixie cut, was born of my hair all breaking off and I had to have some triage. It was born out of necessity. When I was in an interview in LA and oh, my fringe just fell off, yeah, fell off my head. So I had a pixie cut for a long time. Now I've got much more hair.

I quite like ker keratin blowdry but I don't want to risk it. Well I don't think you should at the moment, not after that backstory. But keratin, is it a naturally occurring? No, it's a chemical. It's a chemical. Also known as the Brazilian blowdry. Oh yes, I've never, I see it advertised everywhere but I've never known. It's, I don't know, I've thought of it like a faintly salacious air about it. That's another Brazilian. Yeah, you see I'm very innocent. I'm also indebted to Liz who, we had an email last week, Jane, from a woman whose mum didn't

allow her to wear wellies because she thought wellies were common. Interesting. And I like this because this little girl... How posh do you have to be that wellies are common? Interesting. And I like this because this little girl was sent to school not in Wellies but with plastic bags over her shoes. Which is classy. Which you could argue is actually less classy than just giving in and wearing Wellies. But Liz says it's Wellies no, gumboots yes. So as long as you call them a gumboot, then you're absolutely fine. I love wellies.

Yeah, I mean, I have no feeling either way, particularly. They're good in a crisis, definitely. Stomping through a puddle. It's quite joyful in a welly. That sort of crisis. Yeah, it's joyful in a welly. Yeah, or a gumboot, as I will call them. There was a particular trend in New York,

because it got very hot in the summer, but very stormy. So there was quite a look with wellies and sort of cut-off denim shorts, which is quite a look. Tell me again. Yeah, wellies and cut-off denim shorts. Oh my god. So sort of shorts and wellies. It's a very common summer look on the streets of Manhattan. Because?

Because the pavements are filthy, really dirty and when you have a massive storm, of which there are many in August, your shoes are going to get soaked, but you're sweaty. Why are the pavements so dirty? Because they never clean them, it's filthy, it's got worse as well. Oh. It's dirty. OK, actually that reminds me, I'm sorry to hear that, genuinely and slightly surprised, our guest is Catherine Airy, whose book, Confessions, came out a couple of weeks ago.

And have you read it? No. Well, it's set in both New York and Ireland and so you definitely love it. But it's incredibly good. She's incredibly young and it starts with the central character's father's death on 9-11 and and then it spins back in time backwards and forwards different generations of the family it's honestly it's it's absolutely epic and I think Catherine is going to go on to do all sorts of amazing things but she was only eight

when 9-11 actually happened. And was she living in New York at the time? No no she was a schoolgirl in England in fact. Interestingly, there were quite a lot of Irish Dowsborough who did die in 9-11 because there were a lot of firefighters. And a lot of the firefighters came from Rockaway, which is a kind of big Irish Dowsborough community. So it was sort of disproportionately, it did disproportionately affect certain communities.

Yeah. Yeah, well, it's a brilliant book and people will love hearing from her in a minute or two. Anyway, Yeah, well it's a brilliant book and people will love hearing from her in a minute or two. Anyway, sorry, back to you. This is from Sarah who said, another Sarah saying, I wanted to have a moan hope that's okay. Let it all out. If you can't moan round now, this time, then there is there's no hope for you. I skipped through January, really had a very nice January. Did you? Yeah, I did. I skipped through January, thought had a very nice January. Did you? Yeah, I did.

I skipped through January, thought, oh yeah, I've nailed this winter thing in 2025. And February has been a plod. Is it, what is it today? 17th, 18th? I don't know. It's still kind of around the middle. It does, the middle of February seems to be going on for a very long time. Really, it's been the middle of February for about four months now.

Yeah. And it's cold. We said that yesterday. I'm not going to go on. But apparently it's sunny today and apparently it gets warmer at the end of the week. Oh good. So yes, hopefully I'll stop looking so funereal by then. Sarah says, I've been working from home for the last year due to breast cancer. I'm very sorry to hear that Sarah. I hope you're doing okay. And I needed to buy a new work coat, wait for it, in winter. It's currently zero degrees, said Sarah. No winter coats are out there

and I can't buy a new smart coat until September. She said I had the same with shorts in September. Can we please ask the fashion heads to change their weather forecast, they seem to be rather out. It is really interesting how you get winter coats in the shops in August and then when it gets to this time of year they've got all the spring and summer selection

in and you just think what? That has been a constant throughout my clothes buying life and I do find it weird. Why has that not changed? I mean I suppose if I was going to be, I mean you can get great winter coats in charity shops these days so that might be, there are so many great, what's the Mary Portus, Mary Living charity shop, which is honestly, they have some incredible stuff in there, in my local one in West London. My mum and dad have moved to a new town and my mum is buying up all the goods in the charity shop. She's got about four new coats in the charity shop. Well there you go. In where? My mum is buying up all the goods in the charity shop. She's got about four new coats in the charity shop of Pocklington.

Yeah. In where? Pocklington. It's just outside York. Oh, is it? Yeah. Very good charity shops. Right. Pocklington. Pocklington. P-O-C-K-L-I-N-G-T-O-M. I bet that's got a good WI. Oh, I bet it has.

She's joined the University of the Third Age, but not yet the WI. OK. U3A is a very good... We've had emails in the past saying it's a really great organisation. My parents are loving it, she's in the book clubs and whatnot, my dad's in cycling groups with some other, you know, elder, aging men in Lycra and women, but they're having a lovely time. Yeah, well let's hear it for Poplington. POC!

And, and the other place that I mentioned. Yes, what are you on about your daft bints? says Melissa. No, she's got a point. She has got a point actually. Because we were complaining about that there are a lot of middle aged men, some of them in lycra in fact, as you mentioned it, Jane. Just in general? Yeah, but in general, but also doing travel shows on some relatively obscure and some more mainstream TV channels. And Fia and I were moaning about it. Anyway, Melissa draws our attention to the following women who are making successful travel shows on TV. Here we go. Susan Kalman, Sue Perkins, Sandy Toxvig, Jane McDonald, Joanna Lumley,

Miriam Margulies, Alison Hammond, Julia Bradbury, Nadia Hussain and Claire Balding. Okay, there's a couple then. Yeah, all right. Yeah, okay, we take it. We absolutely take it. Rachel says, my retired parents live in the Cotswolds. I bet that's got a good U3A.

Oh, it will have. And actually, it gets better in a beautiful little village that's recently been plagued with potholes. Sorry to hear it. Although it sounds nothing compared to the streets of New York as described by my colleague other Jane Mulcairons. Last week my parents found one particularly canyon-like hole in the street, but it had made it to the top of the council list and was actually being fixed. Now that'll be because we're not that...

How you put that on YouTube? You should have done. Not that far off the end of the financial year are we? So sometimes when councils decide to do things and spend the money in the hope that they'll get the same amount next year, I am cynical. Anyway it was actually being fixed. So whilst waiting to drive past my mother, a retired special school teacher used sign language to say thank you through the car window to one of the workmen. You see, you say standards in Britain are slipping, but there are still some people who are just decent and know how to behave. However, this sign is not universally known, as the man kindly returned what he thought was the gesture by blowing her a kiss. Then

I got a panicked call a couple of minutes later from my mother asking if she might have harassed a workman and did I think it was a problem? So Rachel, I hope your mother hasn't been arrested. She sounds eminently respectable and no she was just being completely decent. And to be honest judging from the response of the workman it sounded like he was gagging to be harassed. Yeah well can you say that in 2025? I don't know. I just did. There's no rules on podcasts. No that's true. Offcom can't get near us. Oh apparently. Do I swear? I really don't want to push it that far. On reflection, says Rachel, perhaps grandma's blowing kisses to workmen would be a good

way to subvert the usual stereotype. That's a great idea and strike a blow for the sisterhood. What do you think? Rachel, I think you're on to something. You know, I'm quite good at wolf whistling. I don't know if you knew that. It's one of my special talents. Why don't you do one?

No, go on. I'll play us out with one. Okay, well, yeah, alright. But I could set up classes at U3A for Gleoromar to learn to whiff whistle and they could do it as they walk past building sites. I actually think that would be really good. When things, you know, you're bound to hit hard times in your stellar career at the times, eventually, Jane.

I mean, it hasn't happened yet, has it? Oh, it has. Okay. If you could see my CV Jane Garvey. So Rachel Reams, is it like her CV? Oh no, I never lied on it. Not that she lied? No, we're not saying she lied and she's saying, I mean her people are saying that there's nothing to see here. Do you know what though? You've just got to be so, you've just got to be careful. Really careful.

Really, really careful. But I think the other thing is that no one really used to look at your CV, certainly not in our industry. I mean, I've been made redundant, I've been fired, I've been contract renewed, all those things. But until this job, nobody asked me for my university certificate to prove that where I went to university, nobody asked me, I mean, nobody asked me where I went to university until like the job before this one. So it's really interesting. And now things are much more, well, you've got

LinkedIn, but also things are much more official. You do have to actually have human resources. Whereas in journalism, you used to go to a chat with someone, they'd take you for a drink, decide if they liked you or not and give you a job. I think you're absolutely right. And I'm not saying it was right. No, no, I don't think it was right either. But I think in terms of radio, which is really the only industry I've ever worked in really, until podcasting, and thank God for it by the way, it hadn't even been invented up until quite recently.

Ears were new. And so it's so invigorated me, reinvigorated me, so thank you for the podcast world. But yeah, on the whole in broadcasting, if you could do the job, that was all they cared about. And obviously if audiences plummeted and you were an obnoxious cow. Yes, they could have a rethink. Then yeah, they might well have a rethink. But on the whole, if you were good enough, you were good enough. But I mean, I do think with there's an article in The Times today actually about LinkedIn envy and young people in their 20s who

I mean, and it is true that some people, even if they hate their job, will put on LinkedIn how much they're loving it. So it's become the kind of career version of the Insta the Insta endless party, which just can't be true. No and do you think obviously the sort of going for a chat with someone and then getting a job is not helping any kind of diversity equity or inclusion of which I believe in by the way Arjane. Yes I do. Yes well do you think you've been the beneficiary? Not particularly. No, I don't, actually. You don't think people gave you a chance because you were a lady?

No, I don't. Or northern. Or short. Or any of the things that might hold a person back. No, I mean, I've got a nice education. I don't think I diversify anything, really. No, you've earned your place. I have to say, I do think I probably benefited from being female. When you got women's at our GP. Well, that was... Yes. I mean, that was... So, these never manned doing it.

Well, they did at the start. I know they did. But how I got that job doesn't really stand the test of time because I just went out for lunch. And that's not, by the way, the way to get the job. No, it isn't. Because I benefited from that, I didn't question it at the time. In the cold light of day, I now think, bloody hell, why did I think that was okay?

Because it was just the way that it was done. Well, it shouldn't have been done that way. It absolutely shouldn't. And what I was going to say was that I think I benefited earlier in my career because I was a woman and I did know about some things that were traditionally associated with men so sport because I grew up in the northwest you couldn't not know about football men's football as it was then because I did and I was able to talk about it there's no doubt

that benefited me had I been male I wouldn't I just wouldn't have stood out I just thought it's really interesting actually you're okay you are making me think now because my very first job at the Sunday Times, so I'd been there on work experience and then sort of just refused to leave just sort of shoved my foot in the door and said can I come in and do some shifts and they did give me a job partly because there was only one other woman under 40 in the newsroom and they needed more women but I also I think it was because I was also they thought I was good at the job.

Yeah, well you wouldn't have stayed. No, but they were not doing anything to diversify and I think once you're there and you're able to do the job. So no, I take it all back. I've benefited from my gender. Well there we are, two little ladies, two little Janes in fact, who have been plucked from obscurity by...I and are laughing at the patriarchy as we... Look how the worm has turned. Look how the worm has turned. I've just had to bear witness to George and Peterson and Nigel Farage talking to each

other. It's like the clash of two slightly decaying pork pies. It's absolutely appalling. Let's bring in our guest, Catherine Airy, the novelist, who's come in to talk about her book, Confessions. Welcome. Nice to see you, Catherine. Hi, thanks for having me, Jane. Well, it's a great pleasure. Now, this is the debut novel that people have just been raving about it. Now, I heard Laura Hack Hackett who works here at The Times a couple of months ago sitting in that very chair recommending this book. I then read it and so it's absolutely fantastic to have

you on the program, really appreciate it. You are English but you have Irish heritage you should say, an Irish granny which is very significant. This book is set both in the States and in Ireland and it's the story of three generations of women, some of their secrets and their challenges and it starts on 9-11 when the initial narrator, and there are various different narratives we've through this book, Cora Brady, is in New York. She's 16 and just tell us what happens to Cora on that day. Yeah, the first chapter opens to Cora on that day. Yeah, the first chapter opens with Cora

waking up in the morning. She's skipping school, and she wants to go with her boyfriend to spend the day with her boyfriend, and they're going to take acid together. But that is interrupted by her realizing what is happening on the news when she turns the TV on. And her dad, Michael, works in the Twin Towers right at the top of the North Tower so yeah the novel opens almost after the

event as it were and then we see how she copes with the days that follow in New York City. Okay so we'll go back to the book but I just want to I suppose I want to understand where you were in on 9-11 in 2001 you were only a very young child weren't you? Yeah I was eight years old so I think it was the first really big world event like that that I can remember very vividly. I remember being picked up by my mum after school and getting home and seeing it on the TV and being confused about things like the time difference because I hadn't kind of figured out that there was time difference within the world and also just things like realizing how huge those buildings were compared to the biggest building in my town which I think had seven stories so I did a lot of sort of processing

around those things and I think those kind of themes have stuck with me as a writer and I was moving to Ireland at the point of the 20 year anniversary so it was back in the news again and yeah it was something that I thought would be a good starting point based on the fact that people still today talk about where they were on the day of 9-11 and everyone can remember it. Of course they can there isn't a single person certainly not of my generation or around yours as well that couldn't discuss exactly where they were what they saw and and the impact it had on them. So you were someone you you did English at university, you were someone like, let's be honest, like a lot of people who think, you know, well I've probably got a

novel in me but it's just a question of getting around to it. So tell me what did you do after university? Yeah I did English at Cambridge and then I worked in publishing for about a year and children's publishing in the rights department which wasn't really for me and I struggled to get a couple of editorial roles which I think partly was a little bit because I knew that I really wanted to write and it was quite hard for me I think working so close to books but not doing that so then I worked for the civil service for a few years but again it was the desire that I knew that I really wanted to do this thing but wasn't sure that I could do it, was really weighing me down, I think.

Yeah. Knowing that I wanted to do that. And then there was lockdown to contend with as well. Yeah, which didn't help matters. Although it was a good moment, I think, for me to pause and reflect and realise that actually I was in a very kind of privileged position where I could take a bit of time off. And, you know, I was in a position where I didn't have kids and my relationship had just ended and to have

the freedom to think you know what I'm going to try and do it now was what really drove me to do it. Okay so you went on to scratch your literary itch and it's paid off so congratulations to you because it's been amazing. I'm really interested in the scheme you took advantage of which I hadn't heard of, the work away scheme. Because people would think, well, you know, brilliant that she could get off and write her book. That's fantastic.

But how would I go about it? What is work away? Yes. So when I left London, I didn't have very much money in my savings account. I had about £3,000, I think, which is not enough money to live while you're writing a novel. But I didn't really know where I was going to end up. But someone had told me about Workaway,

which is a volunteer scheme where you can find people who need help, say, with, you know, something to do with like a farm they have or just various different projects where you can go and live with the person who needs the work doing and they'll provide you with somewhere to stay and with food. So that actually meant that I was able to live on very little money for a whole year when I did the majority of the writing of the first draft and also just kind of was a way for me to be involved in someone's life in a new country which I probably wouldn't have had if I was trying to just live on my own. So what was the job that you were doing? I was working on a boat that was over a hundred years old, a wooden boat, fifty foot, so very big

and mostly just making repairs to bits of the wood where, you know, the boat was rotting, it was very, very old and then trying to sort of save it from becoming a shipwreck. So that felt constructive and a real contrast to doing the writing? Yeah, a real contrast to sitting in front of a computer all day and to typing. So it meant that when I wasn't working and the work was quite based on the tide, so it'd be different times at different days, but it meant that when I got back, I could sit in front of my laptop. So whereabouts in Ireland was this?

Pretty much as far south as you can go. So it was near a village called Baltimore, which is right down, right down the bottom. OK, gosh, I mean, it sounds, that sounds that sounds incredibly romantic was it was it like that? Uh it was in the sense that it's something that I think about quite a lot now because I didn't have to worry about paying the bills I didn't have to worry about going to work every day and turning up and doing a nine-to-five job and commuting and getting the tube and all of that stuff so in a way it was a real freedom for me. Yeah, so your focus could be on this book. And I mean, I really am fascinated by the

structure, which is quite a complicated one. And some of the narratives are second person, aren't they? Is that right? Yeah, there's one in the middle that isn't second person. The others are first person, but still sort of slightly different to each other in form. But the last thing I want to do is put people off. Because this is beginning to sound a bit up its own fundament, and it isn't. It's absolutely brilliant. And it's about, as much as anything, it's about family relationships and about secrets.

And about how, however much you think you might know your mother or your aunt or your father, the truth is you know nothing about what they've actually been through. Yeah, I think that was partly why I wanted to use the different voices and I think some readers have told me that, you know, they were frustrated that they didn't find out what happened in the rest of one of the characters' lives, for instance, whereas I really wanted to interrogate the fact that you don't ever know anything about, say, your mother's or your grandmother's life. You know little bits and pieces and stories that are told to you and stories that you might embellish in your own head.

So yeah, I wanted there to be that fragmentary element to it. Yeah, you're right. There are things I wanted to know more about, but I guess that's art. And you wrote it, so I'm just going to have to stay intrigued. Yeah, and let the reader sort of imagine what might have happened behind the scenes as well, I think. Yeah, and you do mention some important issues, mental health is in there, abortion, the fact that Ireland has just changed so significantly over the last 30 or 40 years. So quickly, changes that, you know, were sort of being implemented over half a century and then very, very quickly in Ireland, there were those changes made.

So yeah that was something I was thinking about because I'd grown up in a country where abortion was available to me as a teenager and as a young woman and then making friends with people the same age as me and realizing that it's a very different experience to go through your teenage life especially where that wouldn't be available to you. Yeah, and you mentioned, well, I was going to say institution, but it wasn't quite that. How would you describe, you call them in the book, the screamers, and this was a real place. I think you had to change the name, didn't you, for legal reasons in the book?

I actually didn't have to change the name. Oh, you didn't, okay. Yes, so there are, you know, much in the same way as 9-11 is important to the first story in the book. The novel does interconnect with things going on in the world, let's say, that the characters come into contact with. So yeah, the Screamers were a commune who had a house in Burtonport in the 1970s. And they really did.

They really did, yeah. They really existed. And the woman who I was staying with doing the work on the boat, she had actually been part of that commune for a time, not the part that I talk about in the novel. But yeah, the Screamers are sort of, they're very known in Ireland in all different places, I think just because they were so unusual to be a commune in Ireland where, you know, it was mostly nuclear families and instead there were these adults who were living together and they didn't drink, they didn't smoke, but they also weren't, they weren't living the way that everyone else was.

Yeah, I can imagine that might have been a challenge in rural Ireland. So were they up to no good or was this a genuine experiment of one sort or another? I think it, from what I know, is a genuine experiment where people were trying to do a lot of psychological work like in therapy that we're more familiar with these days but that wouldn't have been done then but I think to the outside they were seen as quite

threatening and radical. Right okay I know you're working on another book, but it's not a sequel to this book, which might disappoint people, but go on. It's not a sequel, though I haven't ruled that out necessarily, but I think I got quite a healthy advance in my book, which I see as a huge opportunity for me to sort of develop my writing skills, and I'm actually trying to do something that's quite different. So it's more historical and requiring quite a bit of research but something I'm really excited about because I had a big idea for it whereas with Confessions I was sort of feeling my way to see if I could write a novel and seeing what came up while I

was doing it whereas this one I have a bit more of a this is what I wanted to be. Okay well look if this is your first attempt, your next one is gonna be truly amazing. So, fantastic to have you on the program, really appreciate it. And I also just want to say the cover of this book is astonishingly good and it's a photograph. I think people will know the photograph.

I sort of thought I knew it. It's quite a famous one by a photographer called Bruce Davidson. Just describe it. So the cover is a girl and she's sort of thought I knew it. It's quite a famous one by a photographer called Bruce Davidson. Yeah. Just describe it. So the cover is a girl and she's sort of like an every girl. Like she could stand in for a lot of the characters in the novel and she's got the short hair and she's holding a little kitten. Yeah. And actually when I when I'd moved to Ireland, I'd shaved my hair off and the house I was staying in had the cat had kittens who looked like that one.

So it's very important to me that cover. Right. No, I absolutely, it so stands out and it just looks amazing. And she's a kind of Elfin looking young woman, isn't she? But she's carrying what appears to be a sleeping bag or her life's possessions. So it really intrigues you and makes you think, I want to know about her and I want to know her fate.

So it's a genius cover and a beautiful photograph. Catherine, congratulations to you. Thank you And I really hope many many people seek this book out because honestly, it's fantastic. Thank you Catherine Airy and I'm really looking forward to the next book She writes she is absolutely brilliant and we're gonna end as promised with Amal Keran's wolf whistle Up the sisterhood and we would like emails from, just a moment Jane, we would like emails from you on whether standards are slipping, which is how we started this meandering but very enjoyable podcast today. Right, here she goes.

It doesn't work well in the studio. Darling, look at it! Jane of Fiat Times dot radio. I'm better on the sort of touchline of a pitch. Oh yeah, okay. Times. Radio. I'm better on the sort of touchline of a pitch. Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee. Thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2-4 on Times Radio. The jeopardy is off the scale and if you listen to this you'll understand exactly why that's the case.

So you can get the radio online on DAB or on the free Times Radio app. Off air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler. Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is now streaming on Paramount Plus.