The Netmums Podcast - S1 Ep72: Writing my tits off with Annie Macmanus

Episode Date: March 15, 2022

Annie and Wendy are joined by the brilliant Annie Macmanus, who talks about the daily and nightly struggles that all mums go through, her new found love of being a professional author and why it was totally the right time to leave Radio One.

This episode is sponsored by the NHS. Now, a hot topic on our Netmums forum is the COVID-19 vaccine and whether it's okay for pregnant women to have it. Lots of you are asking for the facts and that's something we've got plenty of. For example, here's one. Between May and October last year, 96% of pregnant women who were admitted to hospital with COVID-19 symptoms were unvaccinated. You can book your vaccine online or find a walk-in centre at

nhs.uk forward slash COVID vaccination. Now, on with the show. You're listening to Sweat, Snot and Tears brought to you by Netmums. I'm Annie O'Leary. And I'm Wendy College. And together we talk about all of this week's sweaty, snotty and tearful parenting moments. With guests who are far more interesting than we are on this week's show at what point did you think i'm actually quite good at this this is this isn't shit this is quite good still not still not okay come on i've got your book in my hand yeah but just anyone can write a book it could be shite no one would publish it, man. But before all of that... Welcome, my loves, to another episode of the glorious Sweat, Snot and Tears.

I may need to be found in a pool of sweat, little bit of tears, no snot yet this week, because I am finishing, finishing's a lie, getting near the stage of being able to move into the house that we've been renovating and I feel a bit of mosh so and I'm very exhausted. This is the biggest sit down I've had for about 10 days. Wendell what's going on in your world? My world? Hmm it's much more chilled than yours, in honesty. I'm a little bit starstruck about this guest. Come on, tell me. Well, she's been with me through many a pivotal moment in my late 20s.

Yes, that is true. She was there when I got ready to go out on no doubt disastrous dates. She was there when I got ready to go out on no doubt disastrous dates. She was there when I got dumped. She was there when I went often with you out for make me feel better after being dumped. And she was even there when my daughter started getting into music. And there's a note on my phone called Annie's songs that Chloe likes that we used to listen on the way to swimming to her show. And Chloe, age six, would say, I like that one, mummy. And so we'd have to write it down so she could find it. That is so cute. So I'm a little bit like, oh, ladies and gentlemen, it's Annie

Mack. Welcome, Annie. How are you doing today? Thank you so much, ladies. I'm really good, I'm very happy to be here, thank you for having me. You'll have to just excuse me being a bit wobbly. I got a bit emotional there. Does it feel, you must, we can't be the only ones who feel like that. Is it weird being part of people's lives who feel so attached to you and you're like, I don't know who you are. It's just lovely to be honest, like radio is this really intimate medium isn't it you're right in people's cars you know you're in people's kitchens in their bathrooms so they there's a real kind of familiarity with people towards me um and uh I'm I'm down for it

like I like it I love chatting to people I love connecting with people it's my favorite thing to do is just conversations so I'm really happy to chat to people about it and um really touched actually that I could you know the work that I did could affect that many people um and it's when you hear those little personal stories that it really kind of like you know resonates yeah it's pretty crazy she was quite cross with you in honesty when you start a lot of people were a lot of people were incensed oh it wasn't that bad don't worry yeah but but just like just angry because you like as radio does so well you you're kind of punctuating people's lives so my job on the radio was a kind of hopefully like a positive punctuation in that kind of something that made people feel a certain way the music

that I played so I think I don't know like obviously I know because I've been in radio this long that someone else comes and does your job and then like six weeks later everyone's like really into them so it's fine but I think because I've been around for that long people make when I left it made people be introspective about themselves so it's a reminder of time passing for people and sometimes they don't want to be reminded of that and I think as well that it's a reminder that people can leave you like if you're like an abandonment god this is a bit deep you left us Annie you left us but ask her the first question christ we'll all be in tears okay well the first question is related have there been any sweaty snotty or teary moments in your house so far today nothing today

today's been quite smooth um the kids went up and out to school okay but this week in general it's been um uh less sweat and snot more tears from my son who is eight who will not go to sleep oh welcome to our world it's rubbish this was gonna be because you posted something on instagram that just i was with you you posted a photo of yourself at the top of the stairs yeah saying this is where we are every night i've been there i've been there yeah well so just to give context to those who don't know so my kid hadn't been sleeping for a long time and um it had become just normal as it does in households when you're just busy and you have to get on with things it

just became normal that we would sit on the stairs every night now we could sit in his room but I was like no you have to not have anyone in the room so if we'll sit near you on the stairs then you know we're near and so it's kind of you are doing it by yourself yeah exactly so then we went away for half term and I got some sleep and I got some rest and I was like we're going to come back and we're going to do this differently I'm going to speak to him it's going to be you know man to man woman to son whatever we're going to you know I'm going to we're going to do this together I want him to feel invested in this I'm going to explain him my reasons I want him to learn you know that it's good to be able to sleep by yourself so you don't have to depend on any other one else. And sometimes it's okay to be afraid.

And being afraid is like part of daily life. And you know, it's about not being afraid of being afraid. And I was getting really deep with it. So I came back, I think we made a plan, right? And the plan was, I was going to buy walkie talkies. And the walkie talkies would mean I could sit downstairs and he could sit in his room and whenever he was scared he could talk to me and like this it was because when I did that Instagram post I had about 200 people giving me different types of advice but I really liked the walkie talkie one and he liked that because he's eight and he's a boy so and all all week we've been kind of like um you know i need to do that over and out really really fun and it doesn't get tired but so we had a couple of nights with him on the walkie talkies and it went really well and then i don't know what

happened i think my husband forgot what the plan was and he ended up sitting with him till he fell asleep one night and then the next night it all went to pot can't break the plan he broke the can't break the steel and then and then so my son was up to oh I tried everything like I I gave him an audiobook then I gave him some kids meditation wave sounds He was still about 20 past 11. He got himself so wired. And then they get overtired. And then you can't switch off. Yeah. And it's just like we're arguing with each other at 20 past 11.

So what are we doing? Just go to sleep. And I think part of it is because he knows how much I need him to go to sleep. So it's his little way of thinking this is you're really bothered by this. And I'm getting all of your attention right now by not sleeping. So I think I'm just going to stay awake for as long as I can. So, yeah. So have you made any progress or is this where you stay or may? No, that was the night before last. And then last night he slept.

I it happened again. And then eventually I let him come up we've actually set up a small mattress beside our bed on the floor so he sleeps in our room when we're there but at one point he said to me he went he was talking I was trying to do my thing again about saying you know you have to it's good for you to be able to you know if you want to do sleepovers and stuff it's good for you to be able to like not be afraid when you go to bed and you have to learn how to beat this and I'll help you and then he said but I'm only eight mom and then I was like you're only eight you are only eight and I think I don't know like uh I find that with the older kid because I only have two but with the older kid they are always made to grow up quicker than the youngest kid because you always measure them against your younger child don't you and it's like

they are the older one so it's relative but he's still only eight and my my husband's like just let him let him sleep yeah but it's hard when you're spending half your evening sat on the top of the stairs you know I can see why it's like I know I what I really kind of what really resonates with me about this is the thing of you're really torn between getting the plan together sticking to the structure making progress and then the oh but they're only eight that constant and then and then just being tired it's the end of a long day whenever you're trying to kind of so you just you just capitulate don't you you give in and that is why parents all over the world spend at least two or three years of their life sat on the stairs and that's just you just you

just end up you just end up doing it well at least you made it to the stairs our our seven-year-old since the eight-year-old until very recently would only go to sleep if she was holding one of our feet. I.e. if we were sat in the chair next to her bed and had one leg up on her pillow. I love Flo. I'm sorry for laughing, but it's so comedy to support you. I just love her. She would just clutch it like a teddy bear and off she'd go to sleep. Her feet are disgusting.

And not in a sock. But then you'd have to try and retrieve some foot. So you'd be wiggling it out of her grip. And for some reason, and I don't know why we never sorted this out, we always had a rocking chair there. So it would be, the thing would be rocking and you'd be trying to retrieve your foot. Oh, my God god you couldn't

make it up that's that's incredible it's just too much well they sell those things now don't they they sell fake heavy hands that you can put on because you know sometimes babies like babies they're like gloves yeah no and you wait your baby that is creepy i think that's creepy a fake hand mind you well i'm to tell you this. So you're talking about the walkie-talkie. I might have said this on the pod before, so sorry, listeners, if I'm now just being a dementia-ridden, repetitive old bag.

But our friends had one of those walkie-talkie baby monitors where if the baby cried in the night, you could kind of press a button and go, shh, shh, shh. You're like, shh, shh go it's okay yeah yeah um and one night that when the baby was like more a toddler it got into bed and it was like night mummy night daddy good night wall because it thought the shushing was the so they stopped shushing on the monitor after that so i thought it was a bit weird the scars were inflicting on our children so do you ever wish you were just um at work playing records rather than doing bedtime not yet not yet i i know i said like i'm really conscious of not

wanting to sound like i didn't like radio because I absolutely loved it. But it was just time to go. So I still every evening I'm like around five o'clock. I'm like, wow, I don't have to go anywhere. And it's not it's not that I am kind of relieved not to be playing the records. I miss the music. I miss being in a studio with two hours of live music, loud music in my ears every day. Like there's something wonderful about just being in a studio with two hours of live music loud music in my ears every day like there's something wonderful about just being in a room it's very soul enriching it is yeah

concentrated doses of music right exactly yeah so I miss that and just the kind of freedom of that but I'm still enjoying being around in the evening more because it's still such a novelty um having not been around in the weekday evenings and a still such a novelty um having not been around in the weekday evenings and a lot of the weekend evenings for my eight-year-old's entire life pretty much up to last summer so it's it is it is pretty exciting still just to be about so even the rowdiest of tea times can't make you think oh god the studio yeah well take me back what i've learned is that like there's actually loads of time in the evening. So they, you know, you sit down,

we have early dinner around six and then like, you don't really start bedtime till like half seven, eight. So you have like an hour and a bit after dinner just to do nothing. So kick around, yeah. When my husband's home, sometimes I would go off and like,

I don't know, go for a walk, go for a jog, go make a call, do something away from them so that I can feel a bit more ready for the bedtime. But we share the bedtime too. So it's not always on me every night, which is cool. Yeah. And you keep your boys quite, well, very much out of the public eye. God, I can't speak today. Annie, ask the question for me.

Out of the public eye. I got it. I was getting it. I think everyone got there before you yeah um was that a conscious decision did it kind of just evolve out of nowhere is it something you still feel really strongly about I feel strongly about it for me but I'm very like my first rule of parenting is you cannot ever judge another parent it's just you just don't know what's going on with people you don't people have their own agendas their own ways of doing it there is no right or wrong there's only your way everything changes all the time you can't like it's just I just don't ever do that so all I

can speak of is for my own experience and I don't want them on uh online because I as in their faces because i just want them to have agency over their own uh kind of digital footprint i suppose and i do think that when we get older there's going to be a situation for our kids where they they just they're it's all going to click in terms of like the whole privacy thing and the lack of and they might just want to not be traceable or um they might not want to have their lives plastered out over the internet so it's more just saying listen it's on you like it's up to you if you want to do this um and yeah it's just that it's that simple really i'm wondering if that generation as well because kind of our generation and maybe the one

behind us grew up pretty much behind closed doors and then vomited their whole life everywhere and plastered it across all the walls and everyone else's walls. If this lot might, their rebellion might be going the other way and being like, dude, dude, mum, mum, stop pitching yourself. Exactly. If it's all you know private you might rebel against it also like i am the last generation of people who who grew up without a mobile phone like i got my first mobile when i was 19 snap so i got through all of all of my teams and i'm so grateful for that and i'm so glad so i think that must mean something I haven't quite like figured it out but it means something that it must have something to do with me not wanting to put them online as kids

so I'm just going to go back to your very sad departure from radio one which I'm as you can tell still slightly morning um do you still listen to radio one, by the way? I do. We still listen on the way to swimming. We still have the playlist. It's still named Annie's songs, but we've just moved on. It's now called us. Well done. You made the change. So you were given some pretty serious flack by,

there was a particular piece in the mail that i read where you were accused of doing women a disservice for putting bath time over baselines which i think i didn't see that piece oh i'm really glad you didn't don't read it it's pretty shocking actually well i did i did it you've resigned to be with your kids you know well no you you see, this is where I was all mixed up. Like, I, well, that was one of the reasons why I left Radio 1. And I'm not ashamed of that. And I kind of thought it was like, should I say this? And I was like, yeah, because this whole exit has been nothing but completely honest and authentic.

And I want to give people the real reasons why I'm leaving. And I think my listeners deserve those real reasons. And I think it would help them understand if they knew my personal motivations. But, you know, obviously I had spent two years writing a book and really enjoyed it. And I wanted to give myself more time to do that. There was all that.

There was my podcast that was going really well. So I knew that there was other things going on that I owned, that I was loving, that I wanted to give more time to but the the kind of motivating reason for doing it then was because of my youngest kid starting school so he wouldn't be around in the daytime anymore so I wouldn't see him till kind of 3 30 every day and then I'd have to go to work at kind of 4 35 so it's like he's four man he's four, man. He's four. I want to see him. And it's, you know, my oldest son is eight.

My oldest son is eight. And he's not, you know, he's only ever known me not around in the weeknights. So I kind of feel lucky that I had a second go and I had a second kid and was able to be like, you know what? I know this time that I do want to be around and I feel really grateful that I'm in a position where I can leave my job and have other work to do and make this work for me so I see it as nothing but a positive thing and most people nearly everyone in fact the Daily Mail is a well we know what they're like but most people were really well yeah they just it's just any excuse to be down on women basically and what they should have seen is what the kind of career that I'd had up to that point which is kind of you know pretty hardcore and the career that you've continued that just happens not to be

in a studio you haven't just stopped and anyway you don't need to justify yourself to anyone you're a woman who's who luckily lives in an age where she can make choices about her own life that's the most feminist thing you can do I know it's to be celebrated man to make choices yeah it's about choice so I've put for me I thought that the move that I made was kind of quite a feminist move because I've never felt more in control of my career, more powerful in terms of what I want and how I want to achieve success. I've never felt better about that side of things. So for me, it was like this is a power move, but it's not a power move in the typical way of kind of, you know, moving up in the world.

It's a power move in terms of becoming more fulfilled um as a person um so I was delighted to take that daily mail well and who's to say up is like up doesn't have to mean like climbing a career ladder or you know what I mean like fulfilling yourself as a human being right yeah yeah's what you're doing yeah and you found that you're good at more than one thing you cow you can write as well as play bloody records yeah oh man it's probably a bit more than just playing bloody records you know it's not really wendy it's not really i think but i think this touches on a really interesting point that i wanted to raise the actually you're kind of i think one of the reasons we all did, we still do, feel like we know you, even though we might not, is because you're very authentic and open and honest.

And so you're easy to relate to and we feel like we're sharing with you. And the way you kind of parent and you're, you know, like you share the sitting at the top of the stairs on bedtime on instagram and everything like that so you're very open and and honest about that do you think it's important do you think as a woman in the public eye you have a duty to share or is it just your nature like how has that come about i think there is a kind of dangerous trend of women feeling like they have to share overshare maybe um in order to um get clicks and likes and I think if you put that next to men it's very different god that's so true and I hadn't really thought about it like that yeah but but when you know but women are naturally listen I'm not kind of trying to gender stereotype but we're better at sharing we're better at communicating we are better at it comes more naturally in my experience that women do that so it makes sense that if you've got a nice online

community of people that you know and you're naturally online all the time that you would do that for me I enjoy doing it when it feels right but I don't kind of force myself to do it and I am victim of that in the past like anyone who's on social media for a long time will know that as soon as you go on Instagram and you do that regularly you have this pull that you feel like you should be sharing something on Instagram so it's like oh I've been on Instagram oh everyone's done this post I need to do a post I need to do a post it's like no you didn't need to do a post until you looked at Instagram and it made you feel like you needed to do a post so what I'm trying to really fight at the moment

is that kind of um you know reward system that Instagram kind of forces upon you and just not look at it very much but if I genuinely feel like something like that thing on the stairs um then I'll do it but I won't do it otherwise and I I like I kind of write essays a lot and put them on my website and that's a nice way of sharing because it's kind of a nice way of me like trying to exercise my writing muscles but also kind of being you know sharing about my life but it's never like a move it's never like okay this week I'm gonna share it's never like considered or strategized in that way well and we can tell it's written by you I mean with so many people in the public eye you know it's like some 20 year old that they hired

in the office who wrote who wrote February's posts in like July last year yeah yeah yeah yeah god god I'm so naive I just wouldn't even think that people would do that. But yeah, it must be. Yeah, there's a lot of that going on. Yeah, you can hire kids to do that for you. Wow. We're sounding like the three old witches, us three. You do it, us.

Listen, witches are great. I'm down for being a witch. Can I just say? Now, back to the COVID-19 vaccine. We want everyone to have a healthy pregnancy, but unfortunately, we know that being pregnant puts you at greater risk of getting seriously ill with COVID-19. And sadly, that's not all. Getting COVID in pregnancy could also cause complications, including your baby being born prematurely. The best way to protect

yourself and your baby is by having the COVID-19 jab. The good news is you don't need to wait until your baby arrives to have your vaccine or booster. It's safe to have at any stage of your pregnancy. You can book in at nhs.uk forward slash COVID vaccination. Now, on with the show. Now I'm going to talk to you about your book. Yeah, let's talk about it. You made me cry cry I'm just gonna sit and stroke it actually for a bit really yeah really um it was just there was just some bits of it where I was like questioning it made me question decisions I've made as a mum and why you made them and why I made them and why you I don't know where did you pull it from Annie has it been in there the whole time no I god I mean obviously it has but um did you know it was there no it's the first question everyone asked and I

and I still struggle to find like an honest answer for it because I just obviously it was there but I just don't know I don't know where it came from but it came from in here so you weren't like walking around thinking I've got to tell this story I've got to tell it wasn't there wasn't like a burning story to write what happened was I had I did a course and when I turned 40 and I really wanted to write something I had to write something to submit to this course so I wrote a piece where was the course um it's called ink academy it was a really good course it's in London I liked it because it

was one-on-one as opposed to sitting in a group of people having to read your writing i was mortified at the prospect of that so yeah it was just me and a tutor and you meet the tutor every three weeks and you deliver them 5 000 words and they critique that so by the end of the course you have like 35 000 words so it's like okay that's a nice bulk of words and by the end of my course I was felt like I kind of I could feel like I knew what it was so I kept writing and I finished it after that but it wasn't until I started writing that I realized that I had something to say it's like let's say like you go for a jog and then you realize god I really want to run a marathon it was kind of like that it was that vibe it was like until i started i can't say that's happened danny but okay me neither

i'm just trying to like give an example but it's like it's like a muscle like it's like a muscle that you haven't used and then when you start using it when you start writing you realize that it's something that you want wait tell me so it's week one and you're meeting with the guy or is it, or a lady? A girl. A girl. Susanna, amazing. And were you just dying inside having to show her the first bit of writing? I felt nervous.

Because that feels like being naked to me. Yeah, really, really nervous. And like a, like, like, you a you know I was like that you know the mature student in university you know like really over eager wanting to learn wanting to know everything like tell me more tell me more tell me more just so it just felt so good to learn something brand new like I had been doing the same thing the most amazing exciting thing that I loved but the same thing for 20 years so to actually sit and like actually go through this process of learning something new and I'm you know I still have so much to learn and I find that really exciting it just felt so good it felt like it

was my own little secret thing that I had away from everything else and everyone else it was just mine it was really indulgent um and I I just loved it wait two more questions on this trip I swear I'll give her back to you in a minute Wendy so a 5 000 words I know you've got three weeks to do each set but that when you're a mom and you've got a job that's kind of a lot of time that needs to be carved out so a how did you do that but and then b when at what point did you think i'm actually quite good at this this is this isn't shit this is quite good still not still not okay come on i've got your book in my hand yeah but just anyone can write

a book it could be shite no one would publish it man oh yeah the publishers you can't just pull the wool over their eyes they do have a good idea oh Annie yeah this is lovely but we're just gonna send it off to this woman who lives in a cupboard who's gonna rewrite it for you do you know what I mean honestly I got I got the paper back yesterday and I was looking at all the quotes because they put on all the quotes from the papers and stuff and and it was just like I still can't believe that it's any good I don't know if you ever can listeners it is I don't know if you ever can I don't know I think I don't I just I think maybe that's a good thing and I don't want to I don't like dwelling on it too much I just I've realized I just have to keep going forwards all the time and just write the next one write the next one write the next one but so in answer to your

question I I because it felt like this kind of illicit secret that was just mine right this is when I was doing the course and life was really busy it felt like a kind of it just felt super indulgent doing the writing so I would do it anywhere and anyhow and any time I could like on the bus on the number 34 bus in the back of the bus sloping off for the weekends for an hour getting up early before everyone else any time I could do it I would do it and it felt so exciting and most of all just frustrating that I couldn't spend more time on it basically um and that was again just such a motivator for me to find more time in my day to write and now as I'm sitting talking to you eight

months after leaving Radio One I'm in this lovely position where I've had two days this week where I've had I could just turn my WhatsApp off no meetings nothing I had like seven hours to write. That's amazing. I start push everyone out the door, make coffee, go up to the office. And I'm in just writing my tits off for eight hours. And then I go to bed and I pick up the kids from school. I'm in this daze. I'm just like, oh, there's people. It's like, honestly, it's, it's so mad. And when you're in this deep into a book, which I am now. So this is book number two, which is your baby number four, which is underway as we speak. Yes.

And it's like basically you have this whole other world in your head, a fictional world, right? And it's just there all the time. And there's people in it that you're getting to know really well and that you're getting to really like. And at any given time, your head can just be like i'm in that world so like there's a war going on i you know there's so much shit in the world and it's for me i just i feel so lucky that i could just go to this place in my head to your world my time in there it's

just so wonderful and did this one come out in the same way like you didn't know it was there and then you just started and then out it came or was this one a bit more right there was a theme that I never picked up on in the other one I'm gonna go with this how did it happen well the scary second book did you have yeah but my thing Wendy is that because I because I I think that I I I still, I should have to stop saying this, but because I feel like I could do better than the first one. So for me, it's like I want to be better and I think I can be better.

So I'm motivated to improve basically on the first one, but I was also very reactionary to how I wrote the first one. So if you've read the first one, which you have, like it skips back and forth in time loads. So it's a pain in the hole to try and make everything work because whatever year you're in, whatever songs on the radio,

whatever uniform the policeman's wearing, whatever make of car, was that hospital on that road in 1990 in Belfast? I don't fucking know. Like everything was just, it was an absolute, the detail, the granular level of getting things right, which I had to do because it was Belfast. Yeah, you can't mess it up.

No. So this one is like, right, I'm writing this in one place over the course of one year, and the place is going to be within walking distance of my house in London. So this one is like, right, I'm writing this in one place over the course of one year. And the place is going to be within walking distance of my house in London. So that's what I've done. And so there's a lot, there's a very different way of writing it. It's also very much in from the perspective of one person and it's in their head in the now.

So that's another really interesting way of writing the book. Oh man, you've made it, yeah. Did the first one have to be Belfast? Was that really important to you? I didn't think it was. But out it came. But out it came. And then about a third of the way through writing it, I was like, what the fuck have I done?

I lived in the city for three years when I was a student and I was drunk the entire time. I can't remember it. And so it was a lot of kind of like Google Maps printed out on the wall. I had this amazing group of women who I managed to assemble who are friends of friends and colleagues. And we had a little WhatsApp group. And at any given time for the course of about six months,

I was like, what did you wear for your Holy Communion? Does this shop exist? What happens here? What happens here? You know, what did you wear for your holy communion does this does this shop what happens here what happens here uh you know what did you do for your a-levels again when did you get your a-level results uh everything and they were so patient and that's a great idea to assemble a group to help with that yeah and they I think they enjoyed it I could do with one of those groups for day-to-day life what's my name yeah where do I live again what does my kid need to do well we do actually have one which is called black or blue and it's all about which bins we have to put out that week and that's how it started but now it's like shit it's world book day next week has anyone got any green leggings because she loves to go as a

green cat yeah which is actually genuine listeners if anyone's got any green leggings although world book day will be over by the time this goes out I guess well I in my new like I'm a great parent now I'm crusade which is which is ever since I've kind of given up radio one I'm like I'm here for you I'm there I'm gonna I joined I joined the year four whatsapp group but my kids in year four I joined the whatsapp group this year five years too late so I was like I was like hi guys I know that your kids have been in school for five years but I just wanted to say I'm here now and I'm Oisin's mom and it's great to you know but they were hilarious they were taking the piss they were like great so you're gonna do some flapjacks for bake sale

next week and I was like how would you like liar killer strike when i found the uh whatsapp group a little too much was instead and i knew i couldn't leave because that would have been like the most passag move in the world yeah i just signed my husband up to it as well yeah so that the love was shared my husband has been the one in at this whole time oh he's a good ah and then and then he was like it's your turn now so here we go well I feel like I met your husband listening to your podcast because your interview with him was just amazing and it's had some really amazing press but was it really hard like did you end up almost bickering about the bins while you were doing the podcast you know was it hard it wasn't it wasn't too bad actually like it we've talked obviously we've had a lot of discussions about his mental health and stuff obviously because

we're married and it's a journey for him and for both of us but um he it wasn't the actual chat wasn't too bad it was quite a revelation actually actually. It was, you know, really genuine. And I was really just kind of proud of him and impressed by him in being able to speak so openly and articulately about his own personal shit. So, yeah, the conversation was fine. And it was more the aftermath, to be honest, because we were on half term.

And when the episode came out um for those who don't know it's it's my husband t talking about his adult diagnosis of adhd and the kind of anxiety and stuff that came with that but but there was such a landslide of people getting in touch um about it and it's still happening now it's been a couple of weeks. And it was people from our lives and also people, you know, not from our lives. And I've just never had, since Radio 1, leaving Radio 1, like I haven't seen such a massive reaction to anything I've done. And it felt like it resonated with a lot of people.

I think COVID meant that there was two years of people being introspective and kind of actually being able to observe their own behaviours and be in rooms with people more than they often would have previously. And I think there's a lot of people thinking. Neurodiversity is like new to us grownups. We didn't grow up in a world where people knew who they were or what they were. Or new to even ask. Yeah. what they were or you to even ask yeah so we need people like him to kind of take us on the journey so that we can all get our head around it for ourselves don't we really yeah and I think that

a lot of people recognized behaviors or resonated with stuff yeah it's gonna be the amount of people are gonna go and try and get referrals now for a diagnosis so that's a great thing if people get to know themselves better yeah so was he your favorite and you've done so many amazing interviews on your pod you don't have to say he was your favorite just because you married him but who are your favorite guests that you've had on your podcast or you're not allowed to say oh I am yeah like you know we've interviewed some amazing people like really well-known successful people creative people you know from your Zadie Smith's your Steve McQueen's and then great musicians and stuff artists actors all that but I think the favorite I have two

favorites and both of them are people that are not famous at all and one of them is a guy called Paddy who is birmingham guy uh who was homeless and addicted to heroin and spice for pretty much his entire adult life and a lot of his childhood life um and he talked about his life and just told me the story of being homeless and then how he got off the streets and he's now a peer worker for shelter the charity and i don't know i just think those conversations with someone who's never really had a conversation like that before, who's not practised at speaking publicly

and who is just 100% real, I just found that one so deeply moving and I loved that one. And then there's another kid called Jamar who's 19, whose brother was fatally stabbed. And I wanted to speak to someone about knife crime who kind of had been in there from the inside and could speak about it with real life experience. And he was amazing as well. So those, those are the ones that I, that will stay with me, I guess the most,

those kind of very raw conversations, you know, where you're not finding these people through agents or, know reps it's you know and they're harder to find those ones because you know way harder they're real people but also you have to make sure there's a duty of care that they're okay talking about their their lives and their traumas and you know so it takes a lot of prep but it's worth it if you can if you can make it happen. Now, something I was keen to ask you. I read an old interview with you. I think it's in The Guardian where you said your greatest achievement was that you liked yourself. This is, you know, the amount of people that bring this up.

It's mad. Oh, really? Yeah. Is it still your greatest achievement? Yeah. I don't know I it's yeah it's still something that I feel and um again it's not something that you think about a lot like do I like myself today yes I do like it's it's not really it's just it's a it's just it's natural it's a natural

peace it's a peacefulness that's so it it's feeling at peace yeah and that's all anyone could ever wish for anyone right it's peace yeah peace of mind yeah it reminds me of perhaps anyone's seen it was going around twitter like a couple of weeks ago a woman overheard her kid um she was lying in bed and this little kid was like preschool saying good night mom i love you good night dad i love you and then she said good night myself I love you that's very cute that is all you'd want for anyone forever right it is isn't it and I mean just thinking about it I don't think it's right that I said that in answer to the question of greatest achievement because it's not really an is it an achievement oh it's definitely an achievement it's definitely an achievement okay to factor away all the self-doubt and the external critics and the and the bollocks

but what I mean is I don't I think that maybe that's something that I was really lucky enough to be it was a kind of nurture thing than that rather than a something I've had to learn I think it's because of my upbringing and maybe because of my family that I've been able to feel like that. So that's not really an achievement, is it? It's more just circumstantial. If your family could write a book about how to raise a nanny Mac,

then that would be amazing. We'd all follow the guide. That would be amazing. Now, from one extreme to the other, we're going to close with the really big questions. First up, what's for tea and who's cooking? I don't know and I don't know. I thought you were going to say I don't know and I don't care.

We've got nothing in the house. Is that a normal state of affairs? We're not cooks in this house. Neither of us plan a meal or look forward to cooking a meal um it's very much like something that you have to do it will probably be pasta and cheese and butter for the kids i'll make them eat some carrots when they're watching television and uh then we might have some vegetarian sausages and some, I don't know, some potatoes.

It's so boring. That's good. I'm glad because it makes Wendy and I feel really inadequate when we have guests because we ask this of everyone and they say, well, we're having swordfish. We like it grilled, but we prefer it pan fried. So we do it twice. My kids would no sooner eat a blinking swordfish unless it's battered

and in the shape of a finger yeah i'm thinking i think there's a heel of bread and maybe yeah one i'll go get the one last tin of beans from the cupboard of the 16 that have already been consumed this week the gusto box gets delivered around now as long as there's some limes and some coriander in there i think it'll be a yesterday there was no food in our house and there was a cake sale at school so i said to tim just get them like double cake and keep them going until i can go to the shop i always feel like i've won when it's a bake sale for that very reason yeah they get fed it's fine they get fed yeah right Annie M very tricky question for you now I don't know yeah I could this could go either way go on this could go either way you have to imagine that you're tucking Annie O and I into bed we are your

boys and you have to oh you're sat at the top of the stairs I don't know if you sat at the top of the stairs I don't know if yes and sing us your family lullaby we don't have a family lullaby um I do a thing where I do um it's so it's so cringe but I do a like um do you know how much I love you thing and then this is my youngest who's just turned five and and he'll go no and I'll go okay here's how much I love you and and then this is my youngest who's just turned five and and he'll go no and i'll go okay here's how much i love you and then i do the classic all the way up to the moon 66 times around the moon all the way down into the sea to the bottom of the ocean then up around a mountain down a volcano through a thing and then back and then he goes and then we blow each other a kiss and then because he doesn't kiss me now, either just a big one, we have to blow the kisses and that's it.

But I don't do singing, I'm afraid. Neither do we, don't worry. Yeah. It's for the best in our case that we don't. If I sing in my house, I get told to shut up. Like if I even, if I sing half a line, it's like, they will not allow me to sing. Well, on bad singing.

So a friend and I, for for our sins and I don't know why we did it used to run a play group on our day off every Friday morning I don't know why we did but anyway it's incredibly brave yeah I think it was about to close and we felt bad so we kind of felt like someone had to anyway so we did it and but as part of it we had this woman called Becky who used to bring a guitar and at the end she'd do a little sing song for the kids, you know, like the wheels and the bus and stuff. Anyway, sometimes Becky wouldn't come. And me and Emma would have, and Leila,

would have to sit on these tiny little chairs and sing to the kids. And every time we did that, no people came the next week. That's how shit we were. It's ideal, though, as a kind of like organic way of shutting down the playgroup it's just every week and eventually it wound down well on that note yeah on that thank you you've been amazing thank you ladies what a lovely chat wait we didn't ask one thing. When can we have the next book then?

Well, the Mother Mother paperback's out at the end of March, and then the next book is going to be the following spring, if all goes to plan. Does it have a name yet, or is it top secret? No, it doesn't have a name. That's the fun bit. We'll get to that. I'm still in the hell of trying to get the structure right.

Okay, well, good luck with that. Wish me luck. Thank thank you i'll take all the luck thank you so much and lovely to meet you both thanks annie nice to meet you bye