Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Swifties unite! (with Katherine Faulkner)

Episode Date: July 11, 2023

Jane and Jane discuss Taylor Swift ticket jeopardy, surprise Sunday morning visits from Showaddywaddy and Penny-farthing related journey delays.Sunday Times Journalist turned novelist Katherine Faulkner joins to talk about her new thriller, The Other Mothers. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] us on Instagram! @JaneandFiAssistant Producer: Matt MurphyTimes Radio Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I can't believe it I'm now I mean as if fee isn't bad enough with a cold swimming I'm today podcasting with a Jane who had what for breakfast a cheese straw sorry about that sort your life out um but I didn't actually have time to eat properly today. It's been very snacky because I spent most of the day on Ticketmaster getting Taylor Swift tickets. And have you got them? I have four tickets for Stockholm, Jane. Stockholm? Stockholm. Get you.

So why can't you go somewhere? What's wrong with Liverpool? Well, nothing. I registered for Liverpool and Edinburgh and Dublin and London and Paris and everywhere. I only got one of those special Cody things for Stockholm. And it was quite tense because I got let in the waiting room and then let into the queue and I was 52,000th in the queue. Wow.

And I thought, okay, that's actually not bad. I did some maths. It's a 60,000 seat of stadium. There's three nights. I might have a chance. And then everyone got very invested around me some maths it's a 60 000 steter stadium there's three nights i might have a chance and then everyone got very invested around me at sort of the two hour mark when i was like 5 000 people away and then when i did get in and i managed to buy some tickets i wasn't registered for ticket

masters stockholm or sweden so i had to re-register while the clock was counting down in Swedish. There was so much jeopardy, Jane. I'm sorry. I think that sounds awful. And I only hope the performance lives up to that effort you made. Oh, it's forgotten now. I'm just very, now I just have to choose who I'm going to take. Because there's two 13-year-old girls that will never forgive me if I don't. Oh my goodness.

But the problem is the four seats aren't together oh I mean they're quite close but they're not together so I might just be taking three random people first of all I mean I have not been to Stockholm but I think we mentioned Stockholm last night as well didn't we and you really love it I love it so I'm very happy to go back there okay and I've also booked for hotel rooms because when Beyonce played in Stockholm, it was about £11,000 for a hotel and she actually has been held responsible. She's been held responsible for causing inflation in Sweden. Oh, yes, she was, wasn't she? Yeah, OK.

Do you have a particular Taylor song that is your favourite? Many, many Taylor Swift songs are my favourite, but I have a special place in my heart for Red because it reminds me of a really bad breakup that I had just before I saw her perform it acoustically at the Country Music Awards. Right. I'm going to say something controversial now. I wanted her to stick with that nice British lad.

Yeah, Joe Alwyn. Joe Alwyn, yeah. And I'm not as invested in Mattie Healy. I don't think she is either anymore. Well, no, apparently she is again. Oh, well... Oh, you're not sure? I don't know.

Oh, OK. Possibly. Right, the song you didn't ask, but you're actually playing the part of Jane in the Jane and Fee show. But my favourite Taylor Swift song is Exile with the Bon Iver. Is it Bon Iver? Bon Bon Iver I really like that

I was playing that only this morning, no one's interested It's interesting though because I'm not that keen on the kind of folklore-y bit No, I love that album that one actually did speak to me and I am less interested if I'm honest in her other stuff but I think her lyrics

I think she is probably because she's not male somewhat underrated as a songwriter I always felt the same way about Lily Allen who I completely agree I thought wrote great songs and wasn't always given the credit that she deserved and she wrote songs about you know the one about London which I absolutely love I mean there's just other stuff that she wrote about that was unusual. She wrote about men not bringing her the pleasure that she deserved in bed. Yes, what was that called? That's called...

Oh, God. No, it's not called that. It's definitely not called that. It's called... Never mind. We'll come back to that one. Somebody will know. Now, there's no reason why you would know this,

but last week when Phoebe was here, the conversation moved on, and I cannot why i have to confess to shawadi wadi um and you weren't expecting that were you uh shawadi wadi were the hugely successful 50s style sort of pastiche band that were massively successful i think in the 70s and probably the early 80s i don't think they went on much after that anyway don't remember do I look blank you do I feel like I might look like it's absolutely fine you do look blank uh Nikki I just wondered whether anyone had even the most tenuous connection to Shawodewoddy and I knew you would deliver and Nikki has she says I live down the road from the drummer of Shawodewoddy. He runs a small gig venue and he often also has hot rod and bike shows connected to music gatherings.

There are classic American cars. Once I was on the toilet and heard a knock at the door. answered and a voice said hello i'm the ex-drummer of shoe what of shawati and wondered if you'd like to bring your car to my gig it was a sentence i never expected to hear oddly surreal on a sunday morning in the haze of having just got up thank you nicky fantastic that is exactly what i wanted to hear um incidentidentally, while looking... It's that song. I was about to say, not fair. It's not fair.

By Lily Allen. Yeah. I'm glad that came to me in my very slow fog this afternoon. Yeah. Foggy from all the effort on Ticketmaster today, don't you? Well, you deserve a lie down. Thank you. Actually, tonight's the night I might stay up late enough to watch Newsnight.

Actually, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll take ipad to bed and watch it there oh treat yourself i'll tell you what we're a night carry on um this email pleases me on many levels not just because it is addressed to dear jane and jane so clearly someone's listening yesterday um my car journey writes the listener was slightly delayed this morning by a man commuting to work on his penny farthing. OK, well, go on. Sorry I don't have a picture for your Instagram page, says Lucy. So, Lucy, I'd like to say thank you for your email and also congratulations on not committing a motoring violation in the name of the show. But I would have liked to have seen a man on his penny farthing in central London. As far as I know, the only person in Britain who regularly rides a penny farthing is Jeremy Vine.

I'm sure there might be others. I don't know whether there are. I mean, the last time I saw Jeremy Vine, because we live, loosely speaking, relatively close to each other, he was in the full gear with a kind of funny Victorian, I hope I'm right, possibly Edwardian cap on. Does he stick on a sort of handlebar moustache as well? He hadn't gone that far, although I wouldn't rule it out. And I know a lot of famous people don't like attention. It's the last thing they want.

But I slightly got the impression that maybe attention was something he wanted. That brings me on to another thing on my mind today, which is PRs. I'm not going to mention why they're on my mind, but you have dealt with a lot of very famous people over the years. And they always say that celebrities can be difficult. And indeed, some can. Many are very pleasant. But it's a bit of a cliche, but true,

to say that it's often the people around them who are worse. Has that been your experience? the people around them who are worse. Has that been your experience? If I tell you that I would say at least 50% of Saturday mornings are spent with me dealing with irate publicists from, you know, slightly to very unhappy with all manner of things that we've put in the Times magazine. OK, so they've read the article and they don't like what?

The tone, the content? The headline, the content, the pictures, anything, any tiny detail. And are they the sort of people you might expect? In other words, can I assume that the more famous the individual, the more pernickety their publicist is likely to be? Often the other way around. It's often A-listers, absolutely fine, people who might not be total household names,

often very demanding. And do they not understand the basics, for example, even I know, and I'm not a print journalist, that the person who's written the article doesn't write the headline? No, but I have a sort of twin job in that sometimes I write, but I edit as well. So I am the person who deals with the publicist, sets it up, negotiates interviews,

negotiates shoots, things like that. So I'm the person in the firing line. Yeah, and I have to say, this isn't all publicists. Some publicists, a proportion of publicists, are dreams to work with. They send you a lovely thank you. They very happy with everything they never look to change anything and they understand too that you're doing your job just as they're doing theirs i will say having spent a decade in the us the further west you go in the world the trickier publicists seem to be so

london publicists in general you know very happy just to do a sambuca shot with you and get a lovely spread in the magazine new york publicist tiny bit trickier and a little bit demanding la publicists oh my god um yeah i don't i don't different species what is the single most idiotic thing they've demanded um gosh the single most idiotic thing they've demanded. I mean, I've been thrown out of press conferences and been told I would never be allowed near that said person or anyone around them again. That must hurt.

Yeah, it was okay because that person didn't really do much after that. So that was gratifying that's the curse of mulkerins i put a hex on them yeah avoid it at your peril it is interesting isn't it because you would think they'd be grateful for any publicity but it's probably not true no i don't think that they see it that way always right what else have you got there um i've got a email from a listener in west yorkshire so um this is about memorable pieces of writing which i think you were discussing oh yeah recently uh and this listener has recommended iran was our hogwarts by arianne shah viz shahvizi i think it was guardian long read from september 2021 um our listener says it's the only newspaper article in the last few years

I've shared with other people and returned to for the sheer pleasure of the writing and the breadth of its content and connections made. But I also love this email because it says, found your show and podcast very recently, Jane and Vee. Now I enjoy your daily fix. So listening to the older podcasts on the days you don't broadcast,

could you possibly plan to work seven days a week fairly soon as i may run out of episodes i'm sure you'd be delighted jane i love my four-day week here i have to say it would take quite a lot to encourage me to come in seven days a week i might possibly for the right amount of money be prepared to squeeze out another day but no one suggested it far. So we can probably forget it. And we should say that we did talk, I think we did talk, didn't we, yesterday on the podcast about the big talking point across the country,

which is the unnamed BBC presenter. I have to say, as we speak this evening, with the latest twist in what has been quite the saga, is that a second person, unconnected to the first has now um has now told the bbc that they have been sent threatening messages by this suspended bbc presenter on a dating app i don't think this unnamed business is going to stagger on much longer in fact when people hear this it, it might actually all be out there. I have to say, I'm surprised.

We're on about day four or five, aren't we? And I didn't think it would hold this long, to be honest. I think there are questions about whether it's a good thing for it to hold. I mean, I don't know. Well, I think also the Daily Mail's front page today said one in six people in the UK know who this person is. I think it's more like 96%.

I think so. Yeah, which, I mean, does beg questions of its own, of course. But I know that on one of my WhatsApp groups, somebody was saying that their relatively elderly mum had been at Aqua Aerobics, and everybody there knew all about it and certainly knew the identity. So, I mean, there's some very serious issues at play here,

so we're not making light of it. But this has been, I mean, it's so easy to easy to say oh there are so many more important things in the world and there absolutely are but sometimes even with my dainty journalist head on even I can recognise what's a cracking story and this this is one isn't it yeah i mean i think if anyone of this level of the alleged person the person who's being rumored to be this level of public prominence i mean it can't help but be a story that everyone is completely a gog yeah i think a gog um isn't used as much as it should be and it's certainly at play this week um we'll have an interview in a couple of minutes i should say it's with a great author i really recommend this book if you're into sort of psychological thrillers and twisty,

twisty-twirney, twisty-turny stories, particularly about parenthood. This is one for you. It's called The Other Mothers. But I just want to alert people to the presence tomorrow on Off-Air of David Tennant, who is a big guest for us um I recorded the interview earlier and it's going to be on the Times Radio show and on our fair tomorrow now you must have interviewed David Tennant I've tried many times and not actually managed to interview him um and how did you find him well he's a very very um he's 52 and um he he could 40, he could be a decade younger and I say that I slightly confused him because I asked

what was meant to be a faintly comic question about how do you keep yourself looking young, I wasn't saying it wasn't a kind of arch way of saying have you had work I just wondered because he's very skinny as well and that's quite an interesting looking young wall looking skinny.

Yeah, well, I wouldn't normally say that I wouldn't pass a judgment on somebody's body shape, but he is notably, he's sort of one of those blokes who is 70% sinew. Do you know what I mean? And some people are just really lucky that way. Anyway, I then told him that I was actually 75. And poor man, he didn't actually know what to do with that information because I'm not 75. And what was very sweet was that in the room

were various of my quite young colleagues. And they didn't really know either whether I was... I was telling the truth. So I genuinely am a slightly shattered individual as I sit here tonight but that just shows if you can't do don't attempt humour

no I've been told that so many times in my broadcasting career I've been told time and time again you don't need to do that but I just don't learn can't help yourself no I can't

I can't help myself and it's very very poor right I'll allow you one more email because yesterday I know we ate into the studio time and it got all very annoying for people. This is a email from Rhonda who says,

Dear Jane and Fee, slash Fee and Jane, love your show. Been listening since you were with the other folk and I love the way you bounce off each other. I have to say though, I don't know some of your guests and would be just as happy to listen to you two wittering on for the duration of the show but then she does go on to suggest

some guests yeah so she suggests professor mary beard oh i'd love that yeah she's actually got a book coming out quite soon oh we'll have her yeah um professor dame sue black uh i've interviewed her yes she's interesting mona sadiki and grace and perry oh love oh yeah i think we can say yes to all of them i think yeah i'm not sure that ronda is offering them but um i think she's just saying she'd like to listen to them as well as you and fee so she's not their pr sadly not she's far too nice it's far too polite an email okay um this is from kate who says if you're seeking a gender balance in your in your podcast life she would wholly recommend alan alders clear and vivid podcast i didn't know he did one no me neither in fact i wasn't sure he was alive well that would be a great podcast beyond the grave

i mean that would be feet that would be a dream for fee and i to podcast from the other side and i wouldn't rule it out uh the way other side. And I wouldn't rule it out. The way life's going, I honestly wouldn't rule it out. Well, you're looking very good for 75, though, Jane. Enough of that. Kate also mentions James May yesterday and says that James is right, that stabilisers are really not the best way to learn to ride a bike. I remember my own difficulties in the 80s,

as really young kids can basically pick up the requisite balancing skills during 18 months of just pushing a balance bike around the house. This then leads to that glorious day when you can put them on their first pedal bike at three or four and watch them literally just cycle off perfectly at the first attempt. Nothing beats seeing the pleasure and pride on their faces as they realize they can ride a bike and when they feel that first taste of freedom and independence yeah i'm not sure whether that's true i certainly needed my stabilizers and frankly if i was to ride a bike now i might need them again i sometimes need them when i'm just on my legs yeah yes quite well yes with your social life, you certainly

do. Jane's sort of very, how can I describe it? You're always out, aren't you? That is how to describe it. Just always out. I just don't understand it. Although I am going out myself tonight. And tomorrow night, Jane, I'm prepared to be jealous. Tomorrow night, I'm going

to see, get your face ready, Aspects of Love. I actually love musicals, Jane. You did nearly laugh, but then you stopped yourself. I love musicals, no. And I've seen the adverts on the tube for it. Yeah, Michael Ball. Michael Ball, yeah. Backing up Aspects of Love. Well, I don't think anyone

can resist Michael Ball. I certainly can't. No? And he's going to be on the programme next week, and so I'm going to see the show tomorrow night, with a mate from school. Do you know what? I am actually quite jealous, Jane. I know you said it with irony but I'm actually quite jealous.

If your friend gets ill. I think she looked fighting fit. Yeah, sorry about that. Today's guest is the author Catherine Faulkner who was on the programme to talk about her second novel The Other Mothers. Now, Catherine used to be in a very, very important job at Times newspapers, and she'll talk about that in the interview.

But as a former journalist then, I asked her if it had secretly been her dream, perhaps it was everyone in the newsroom's dream, to end up writing a best-selling book. I don't know about that. Although it's nothing special, certainly, being an author in this office. Everybody seems to be writing a book. But I don't know that it was my dream forever. Although I did, I've always written stories. But no, I love being a journalist. I still do journalism as well. But no, for all intents and purposes, I'm a full time writer. When you wrote The Best Selling Greenwich Park Park when your eldest child was a newborn. Now just tell me a little bit about that. Did you really

take her to the park and then when she nodded off get your laptop out? I really did yeah I mean she didn't sleep at night so she slept quite a lot. And I was terrible at sleeping when your baby sleeps and all that. So I did used to take the laptop out in the pram and have it underneath. And then when she nodded off, I used to whip it out sometimes and find a coffee shop or, and yeah, and write a little bit. But obviously, I didn't make much progress doing that. But when she, as she got a little bit bigger, I started thinking, yeah, no, I really want to write this story. And that story had come to you, I gather, at an antenatal class? Yeah, exactly. So I, it was when I. And that story had come to you, I gather, at an antenatal class?

Yeah, exactly. So it was when I was pregnant that I had this idea for a book. I had the idea for a book about how do you undo a friendship? What happens if you make friends with somebody and you find you can't get rid of them out of your life? And I found all that really interesting because I think the rules for romantic engagement are quite clear, but it harder with friendships between women I just think they're really complicated and interesting and then when I went to my first antenatal class that's when I had this light bulb moment of this is it this is the moment where these two characters are going to meet and form this completely unwise friendship because it's just such a weird situation it's just so bizarre you're expected you're just initiated

into this group of people and expected to talk about really intimate things with them about birth and, you know, vaginas and God knows what else and sitting around and you're all pregnant and it's, it was really hot. And I just thought this is perfect. This is it. This is the scenario. So, um, yeah, so that's how it kind of came together in my mind. And then I started writing it was pregnant, and then carried on. Yeah, when the when when she was born. Okay, well, it went on to be a huge success. So you're obviously onto something you're quite right. And The Other Mothers is the follow up, which is out now came out a couple of weeks ago. Now, I guess it comes from this sort of genre. And it's very popular these days kind of

maternity or maternal noir. Yeah, it's been termed mum noir. Okay, mum noir. It's a sort of sub-genre. Yeah, it is, but why do you think it's so popular? I think there's a number of things. I think we've started talking about the more difficult side of motherhood. We've started to talk about motherhood more honestly and we're kind of more

prepared to explore I think the sort of psychological difficulties that come with motherhood and maybe that's because as a generation we're more used to talking about these things um but I think for somebody who's always been interested in dark stories and so much of my recent life has been about having young children um the two things sort of this sounds awful but they seem like a kind of natural fit for each other I mean when you're pregnant you there is so much going on it's psychologically for women the way that you're treated differently and seen differently suddenly and it's almost like you embody something that's not entirely you and you're you're losing your sense of yourself as this person of the person you were before without really knowing what the future is as a mother and what that means

and what what that person looks like you're in this kind of weird limbo space and I found that psychologically really interesting so I thought exploring the idea of somebody going through all of that psychological darkness and then adding this storyline into the mix of making and forming a friendship that you kind of want to back out of and then finally you can't and this person is really trying to get their claws into your life the two things together felt to me like a very exciting and interesting mixture so i was trying to work out when the first of these sorts of novels came about and do you you remember a book called The Hive? Yes. Jill Hornby, which was, I think it came out in 20 something. Yeah. And it was about, was that about a primary school?

Yes, I think it was about the school gates, wasn't it? And the PTA from memory. And I really don't know whether that's the first novel of that type but that was all about friendships and competitiveness and psychological warfare of one sort or another and I wonder whether it's all I mean I read these books I should say and I really enjoyed The Other Mothers but is it is it a bit sexist are women being hard on each other hard on ourselves what do you think? In terms of it always being portrayed as women being competitive? Because I guess women also overwhelmingly, it'll be women who read this book and enjoy it, I should say. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I think that there is definitely a trope that is just untrue, that the school gates are about competition between mothers, one-upmanship. I think all that is quite sexist and outdated. But there is a lot going on at the school and playgroup gates, I think,

for lots of different reasons. So I think because their parenthood now, everybody makes really different choices. We're all quite different as parents. I think that in our mother's day, maybe there was a sense that we were all kind of in the same boat and women parented in the same way and families were kind of broadly the same.

Now it's really different whether you're working, whether you're not working, the choices you're making about childcare. People arrange their lives so differently and the school gate or the playgroup drop-off or the nursery drop-off is kind of the moment where all those choices are on display and you're very visible to each other.

And you are probably, because everybody's making different choices, you're probably second guessing your choices, wondering if they're the right choices. Everybody's also doing the same. And so because you're second guessing your choices, you're probably thinking, are other people judging me for having a nanny and going to work five days a week? Or do they think I'm stupid because I'm a stay at home mother and all of them go out to work? Whether any of this is real is sort of beside the point, I think, for psychological fiction. I actually think that it's what is going on in our heads is as interesting as what's going on in reality.

Sometimes the disconnect is interesting. So I think that it's not sexist to be interested in those things and explore those things. I think actually what's quite sexist is that that stuff is branded sort of trivial and has not been branded sort of high proper fiction. These are the things that is the stuff of being a woman, of being a mother and it's the stuff of our lives and what goes on in our heads. Well society judges you as a mother anyway, whether you judge yourself or whether your friends judge you or whether you judge them. Fathers are still not judged in the same way. No, absolutely not. I think that they don't seem to experience

this kind of psychological pressure. I think that part of it is that there's also social media in the mix now and also parenting manuals and books and approaches to parenting. And women who, let's be honest, monetise motherhood in a way that wasn't ever done before. Which we all then consume. And I think that all of that in the mix, there's been a depletion in our time for active mothering

because of women being a more active part of the workforce. But there's also been an explosion of expectation around mothering. And that's been, as you say, commoditized and monetized online. And it's been fed back to us constantly via our phones. And so the disconnect between the kind of shrinking amount of time we really have to kind of achieve these mothering ideals, plus these mad ideals that never existed for my parents' generation. I mean, my mum would just say to me, what, you know, what this, I remember her picking up a parenting book that I was trying to stick to a schedule with my daughter, you know, like nap at this time. She was like, what is this? We've never had this.

You know, you just slept when you wanted to or you just, you know, you asked your mum what she did or it was just the pressure that is inherent in all these different things was never there. So I think all of that is does make it a specific psychological experience to be a parent today. And I think that's worth talking about and worth exploring oh I completely agree I mean on television as well Big Little Lies, Motherland all these shows yeah they've hit a chord and I think there's a reason why yeah I mean I wonder as well whether perhaps women who like yourself actually had very high level demanding professional lives and then you are bound to carry with you into parenthood some of that drive and some of that perfectionism you can't just leave it yeah and never revisit that side of yourself I think

there is a really specific thing that goes on there for a lot of women certainly for me and I think the mistake that I actually made with my first daughter was that I thought that motherhood was something you could be good at or win at it even you know that you could succeed at you know that I and there were certain things that I needed to tick off. I wanted to get her sleeping through the night and I wanted to take her to Gymboree and I wanted to, you know, and I needed to expose her and stimulate her mentally by taking her to a sensory club.

I mean, you're laughing at me, but this is what... Sorry. It's okay, I'm laughing at myself, but it's ridiculous. Now I know better, of course. But then I think I sort of thought I had to there must be a structure there must be a thing like like in my job there must be a way of being good at it and then I realized that no it's just a it's just a state of being and it's just being present I suppose and fulfilling their basic needs and just muddling through like everyone else is

I mean I do relate I mean as a sort of really thin-skinned broadcaster, I have to say I was used to people telling me at the end of a working day, darling, you were marvelous. I know, exactly. And I was fully expecting someone to say that to me after a day at home. I know, and I think I used to try and elicit it

out of my husband a bit as well. Well, you know, we've been to this class and then I took her for a long walk around the park and then I fed her some pureed carrot that I'd made and he was like, yeah, okay. And I was just like, well, where's my, where's my, thank you. Give me a badge. Yeah, what, am I going to get promoted?

I'm talking to the author Catherine Faulkner, whose new book The Other Mothers is out now. Here she explains the premise in this book, in which a character, Tash, who may or may not be based on Catherine, is looking to get back into journalism. She is desperate to relaunch her career and she's convinced that the death of a nanny who was found at a local beauty spot is the scoop to do that.

But first she needs to get her son to settle at this playgroup, which is in an exclusive neighbourhood of London which she doesn't really live in, but she kind of lives on the edge of, and where she has recently befriended this very exclusive group of other mothers at the playgroup gates, whose moneyed lifestyle she finds very seductive. And she is a little short of money, isn't she? It's all relative.

Yes, absolutely. She is struggling to afford the life she would like to live. And she's the sort of person who's addicted to scrolling right move for what houses she can't afford. And as she continues her investigation into the death of this nanny Sophie it draws her in uncomfortably close to the other mothers at her son's play group who live in this beautiful world that she would very much like to be a part of and she starts to wonder whether maybe there's another reason why

they've accepted her so readily into their exclusive little circle yeah and I think we've all had that feeling of just being well not perhaps doubting our acceptance into a group like that but wanting to be a part of a group we perceive perhaps wrongly to be the one to be a member of. That's right and what I find interesting about the school gates and the playgroup gates is that sometimes it feels like a slight rerun of school a little bit because you're suddenly thrust into this social situation with complete strangers, but that feels sort of important. And it's more fraught, of course, because it's tied up with your hopes about your children.

You want them socially to be part of a group. You want them to be accepted and part of the gang. And you sort of think that maybe it's important that you are also part of the gang so that they'll make things easier for them. And Tash finds all that a little bit challenging especially because she feels herself to be not quite on the same level socially and financially as these other women at the playgroup. But in every dream home a heartache I mean you can have the biggest kitchen island on earth but you could actually be as miserable as sin couldn't you? Absolutely and I think what's

what Tash starts to realize is that once you scratch away at the surface of some of these perfect lies there's uh there's a lot of darkness that lurks underneath and thank goodness because we are talking about we are talking about um i mean there's there is a sort of tyranny isn't there as well of of whatsapp groups um i do remember this i'm to an extent we're all members of any number of different whatsapp groups and certainly mine have been pinging away like there's no tomorrow over the last couple of days for reasons that will probably be all too obvious um and this is something that sometimes you can feel well i don't know they're they're stressful aren't they yeah yeah i mean the whatsapp groups

now especially if you have multiple children at the same school and you're part of multiple groups it becomes very overwhelming and I do know I mean I've done lots of different I've done it lots of different ways since I've had kids I've worked full-time I've worked part-time now I work pretty flexibly um but I do know that for women who work in really demanding high-level jobs who whose kids are in my daughter's class they find the whatsapp group really hard because they a it's constant and b it's just they feel give me an idea without invading anybody's privacy but an idea of the sort of information routinely exchanged on a primary school whatsapp group uh i mean it's everything

i mean there's just endless school admin requests for money requests for kit costumes you know the other day we had to make a Tudor house and um you know not at short notice surely well it shouldn't have been at short notice but my child's not always the best at communicating these messages so I found myself at short notice constructing a Tudor house on a Tuesday evening but what was quite funny about the whole whatsapp group thing is that I then whatsapped my street whatsapp which is a separate non-school group and said I'm constructing a Tudor house has anybody got a glue gun And what was really funny is that I had three or four mothers come back saying, I've got a Tudor house. I've got a Tudor house from when my son was in

year one. Please take my Tudor house. I've got a cardboard Tudor house. Do you want it? Completely constructed, ready to go. Oven ready, as Boris would say. So, I mean, it is just, it's just, you have to see the funny side. But there's also stuff, you know, suddenly they'll want a costume, we're making a parade, we're doing this or that. It is, and also they'll, sometimes there will be parents who come on the WhatsApp group and say they're really unhappy about something the school's done or that's happened in the class and they're kind of recruiting people to sign a letter.

But of course you may or may not agree. You may or may not agree. And I think what's really hard in those sorts of groups is that some people don't really have that awareness that maybe the WhatsApp group isn't the right forum for that. And so it can all get a little bit painful. Yeah, it does sound immensely stressful. The other thing that you write about,

and I don't think this is really still explored enough, is the whole idea of being a nanny, having a nanny, and having, as a nanny, extraordinary access to a household and the way it operates or doesn't operate. Yeah, absolutely. I do think that it's absolutely fascinating, the whole dynamic between nannies and women who work. And I think any working mother has had to, you know,

subcontract some of the childcare to somebody else. And that relationship is just necessarily fraught. And, but I think there is a specific thing about having a nanny, especially one like Sophie in my book, who lives within your home, of not knowing where those boundaries are, because they become to all intents and purposes, part of the family. They're doing the job of raising your child with you. But there is a boundary there they're not part of the family they don't enjoy the same position and the way that also that they're treated by other women at the school gate i think that's really interesting is also really fascinating and because they're not quite a member of their gang well they can't be no and actually the other mothers don't necessarily really want to hang

out with them they want to hang out with the mother. And I can't really imagine what that experience is like for a nanny who... And I think the whole thing is interesting. And I find all these kind of little wrinkles in relationships between women just fascinating. And I love writing about them. Yeah. I mean, what about your own status as a writer and indeed a member of WhatsApp groups and indeed a parent? Do people trust you anymore with information? I mean, I haven't written about anybody real. So you say, Catherine.

No, so I say. I know. It's quite funny, that whole dynamic, actually. It is genuinely very funny because I wrote this novel before I was ever part of a school WhatsApp group because I wrote it when my daughter was very small and she did briefly go to a play group but she um but then we had Covid so I wrote this during a pandemic when I was stuck at home with both of them frankly I would have killed for a nanny um but I um I do think that um it's people do tend to think that they're in your book. And it is quite funny.

They always seem to think, oh, is it about me? Which is just an interesting dynamic. I don't know whether people don't tell me secrets and things because they think it's going to end up in a book. What do you think is the best book about motherhood? Have you read, I think I want to get the title right soldier sailor i haven't and i'm dying to read it so i'm sorry that's a terrible claire kilroy i think it's claire yeah i think that's her name it sounds incredible um i haven't read that the most

disturbing one uh which i actually recently reread for something was uh lullaby by leila i'm gonna mispronounce her name now slim Slimani. Slimani, I think, yes. We should both know that, shouldn't we? And that is the most, that's a very haunting portrait of a relationship that goes wrong between a nanny and a working mother. And an exploration of the way that the mother sees the nanny as a sort of not really a whole person. And also the way that the nanny almost becomes to manifest that by not being treated as a whole person i thought was very very good it's a it's a very very challenging very difficult book though yeah it's a yes it's not one to take on your holiday no mine's more of a

beach yeah i was about to say um please don't please don't think that katherine's book is something you couldn't read on holiday she said in the middle of July talking about a book to its author it's very definitely yeah you definitely can because it is the it is a page turner and it's told from different perspectives and I genuinely was kept guessing oh well I'm delighted to know so congratulations to you on it and what's next another book yeah but what's it going to be about? Oh, well... So I can nick your plot. I am probably not quite at the stage of talking about it yet, but it is about... It's also about motherhood, but it's actually a sort of different kind of set-up,

and really it's a book about how a single act of violence can define your future and also make you think very differently about your past. Okay. That's not too vague. No, no, that's, I mean, listen, you've got no reason to just offload the latest plot you've thought of to me.

You're presuming I've actually got it worked out. That's the thing. I mean, I could be a best-selling author too if I could just have that idea, Catherine. It's just a question of getting the idea for the book and I haven't got any ideas. So I'm not going to be any kind of an author anytime soon. Catherine Faulkner, and honestly,

if you really do need a cracking page turner, that's the one for you. The Other Mothers is out now. Back tomorrow in the company of Jane and David Tennant. I mean, how many people can say that? Wow. If you want to send an email in, if you've got a comment on David Tennant,

you admire his best work, perhaps you know what you think his best work is. It's janeandfee at times.radio. Thank you very much for listening. We're bringing the shutters down on another episode of the internationally acclaimed podcast Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe.

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Pretty much everywhere. Thank you for joining us. And we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon.