The Netmums Podcast - S11 Ep1: Jaqueline Wilson: Juggling motherhood with writing & her fave character

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Welcome back to a brand new series of The Netmums Podcast. In this episode, hosts Wendy and Alison are joined by the creator of the much-loved characters Tracey Beaker and Hetty Feather. Jacqueline Wilson is one of the nation’s favourite authors, selling over 40 million books across the UK. Jacqueline has now released The Best Sleepover in the World, a follow-up to her popular book Sleepovers published 22 years ago! Jacqueline chats to Netmums about juggling motherhood and writing, her books and her favourite characters. This episode of The Netmums Podcast is brought to you by @aldiuk. Switching from big brands to Aldi Mamia products will give you big savings plus Netmums and Aldi are giving new parents the chance to get a full-size pack of newborn nappies absolutely FREE to try! Click here to sign up for your voucher. This series of the Netmums podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative

You're listening to The Netmums Podcast with me, Wendy Gollich. And me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... I am not a house-proud person. I mean, it was never dirty, but it was always very untidy. If things weren't absolutely wonderfully ironed, I didn't care, Emma didn't care, the husband did care. But there were times when I said, well, I had your own blooming shirts. But before all of that... This episode of the Netmamas podcast is brought to you by Aldi. Wendy, I've got a question for you. What's your guilty parenting pleasure?

Oh, I'd probably say it's gobbling up cold fish fingers from my kids' plates after they've abandoned dinner in favour of watching the telly. I do that too. I reckon my guilty pleasure is sneaking out and escaping my children to have a lovely browse of my local Aldi alone. I am so with you. What I love about Aldi is they have an excellent range of great value products. They even have an award-winning baby and toddler range, which includes weaning essentials, nappies and wipes. It's funny you should say that because another friend told me that she switched to Aldi Mamiya and it's giving her big savings. Yes, plus with Netmums and Aldi, new parents can get a pack of newborn nappies absolutely free.

So log on to our site and let your friends know about this awesome opportunity with Netmums and Aldi. Right, don't tell my family, but I'm sneaking off to Aldi right now. Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode. We're recording this one quite a long way before you guys are going to be listening to it. In fact, it's the last week of the school summer term for us, and it is a big week for Alison and I. There's all the emotions going on in our houses. Alison's twins are leaving preschool this week. And my daughter is leaving primary school this week.

So there's tears and there's hormones and there's milestones. But I think I might have had it easier than you, Alison, as my walls and my shutters remain unscathed. Please tell. Please tell us. Yeah, my four-year-olds who are going through all the emotions at leaving preschool and starting primary school soon decided to express their emotions with a crayon, a red crayon and my lovely pink walls in the living room. They got artistic and yeah, I had to try not to be too cross because I know that it's all the emotions that they're feeling at the moment and just got the fairy liquid and a sponge out and it took me a good hour of scrubbing, but I got it off.

A mother's love knows no bounds. Tell us who we have on the pod, please, Alison. I am thrilled that today we are joined by author Dame Jacqueline Wilson. She has written more than 110 books, including the hugely popular Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather stories, which have both been turned into CBBC series. Jacqueline is a former children's laureate

and in 2008, she was appointed a dame. Over 40 million of her books have been sold in the UK and they've been translated into 34 different languages. Jacqueline's latest book, The Best Sleepover in the World, is a sequel to her best-selling sleepovers book, which she wrote 22 years ago. Welcome to the podcast, Jacqueline. Hi, Alison. Hi, Wendy. It's good to be talking to you. Thank you for joining us. Now, there's no two ways about it, Jacqueline. You are a living legend to children and grownups, those of us who read your books as children. What's it like being so much of a part of the daily life and growing up for so many?

I think it's wonderful. I never expected my books to be at all popular. In fact, I didn't even think they'd ever get published. And for a while, I had about 10 years, maybe more, when I'd written books, I'd had them published, nobody had really heard of me. You know, you go into the local chain store, and you'd look rather hopefully at the W's, none of my books. But then I think it was the story of Tracy Beaker that first made a bit of an impact. Just a bit. It wasn't until several years later, and the television series started that suddenly everything became wonderful. And I really haven't quite still caught up with the loveliness of it because I wanted to be a writer since I was six years old.

And then when I was going to school, I used to walk about half an hour to school by myself. Children did in my day. I used to pretend that I was being interviewed and being asked about my books and asked what it was like to be a writer. And I fantasize so much about it that when it actually started to happen, it was as if I was still making it up. And even now, I'm always so touched and thrilled if somebody comes up to me and said, oh, you made my childhood. Or some little girl comes up shyly and says, I like your books. I mean, it's just everything I've ever dreamt of. And which is the book or character, you know,

that people speak to you about more than others? Like a character or a book that has resonated with your audience more? I think there are three no four um tracy beaker inevitably although many children seem to think that i've um written the entire television series all the way through all by myself um uh hetty Feber, which my Victorian foundling book, and that seemed to go down well. They liked the girls series about three girls when they're 13. And lots of women said how much they enjoyed sort of identifying with these girls. And pertinently, they love sleepovers. And it's been a steady seller all the way along the line,

which has been wonderful for me. And that's why I decided that it might be fun to revisit those little girls, both Daisy and her sister lily and the horrible chloe who tries to spoil everything for everyone um because so many children have a thing about sleepovers and enjoy them or have in tears have to be returned at midnight because they're homesick or whatever and they're a big thing in many children's lives so and in many parents lives yeah very recently endured a sleepover with four 11 year olds oh my goodness oh it's noisy it's really noisy Well, my own daughter, she had manageable sleepovers. She just had at most a friend and the friend's sister and her got together. And that was so much easier because when she was young, we lived in a very small flat and really, you know, she didn't have a television or anything in her room. And because I'm talking about long ago, nobody was clamoring for a mobile and there were no sort of children's iPads or anything.

So they had to make their own fun. But even that was a bit of a challenge. I wanted everybody to enjoy themselves. But little girls get very overexcited at times, don't they? I'm sure boys do too, but somehow it seems simpler with boys. Maybe I'm being tremendously sexist, but it's the wanting to put on makeup and it's the telling secrets and then somebody laughing at what somebody has confessed and this sort of thing that seems predominantly a female thing. Yeah, that's so true.

I think you're right. Now, it must be the question you dread because it's probably like picking a favourite child, but do you have a favourite book or do you have a favourite character? Weirdly, I think one of my favourite characters is a boy called Biscuits who's been in three of my books. And I like him because he never lets things get him down. He's cheerful.

He's funny. And he's written about by other characters. And yet he's always a friend to them. Plus, he's very good at cooking, baking in particular. So I always thought if one of my characters became real, well, I wouldn't wish Tracy to be real. Fond of her as I am, I think she'd be a bit much. And I wouldn't want to resurrect Hetty Feather from the past

because she's a bit high-spirited too. Biscuits is kind and he'd bake me cakes. That would be wonderful. That's a good reason isn't it? I love it. It really is. Now Jacqueline, you worked on Jackie magazine years ago and I remember reading Jackie annuals that I bought for 10 pence in a jumbo sale back in the 80s. Is it true that they named the magazine after you? That's what they told me. I went up to DC Thompson's in Dundee when I was only 17. They'd started advertising for short stories for a brand new full colour teenage magazine.

And I was desperate to be a writer. My mum had made me go to do a secretarial course at the local tech. I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to be a sort of junior secretary. I wasn't very good at shorthand and typing. I wanted to be a writer, but as my mum said, well, that's not a proper job, is it? And who published your books? She wasn't really the most supportive mum in the world. And so I saw this advert for teenage writers. And so I wrote a story and sent it off to the box office number. I can't imagine how sort of confident that was, really, because I was quite shy. But anyway, I had to go. And after writing several stories, they offered me a job up

in Dundee, which was a bit of a challenge. And I worked on various different women's magazines whilst Jackie was being developed. And then every Friday, I had to go and see Mr. Cuthbert and Mr. Tate, who were the head of women and children's publishing. And they were just asking me how I was doing because I was probably the youngest journalist there. And and then they said, well, the magazine's coming out in two or three months time. And they said, guess what? We've named it after you. It's going to be called Jackie. And I was thrilled to bits. However, many, many, many years later, DC Thompson's decided to do their very own Jacqueline Wilson magazine, which was wonderful. And it ran for 12 years. But very sadly, it doesn't happen anymore. Much to my dismay. And I got to meet the editor of Jackie, very elderly now, sadly,

he's now died. And he said, no, it wasn't named after you. It was a sort of corporate decision. I don't know. I like to think it was named after me. It's a very special thing to boast about. Yeah, it really is. It is let's just let's just all assume that it was named after you yes please agreed so we have lots of mums and dads on the podcast jacqueline and we often talk about juggling work and parenthood now you became a mum in 1967 but obviously you were still juggling being a mum and working. How was it different doing that juggle back then? It was a challenge.

I didn't have much backup from my husband. But even if he'd been willing, he was a policeman and working shift work. So I not only had the bringing up of our daughter mostly by myself, but I had whenever he was on nights to try and keep Emma quite quiet so she didn't disturb him. It was a very, very old-fashioned sort of way. I was the one that did the shopping, the cooking, the washing, the ironing, the housework, the amusing Emma. I mean, his job was to play with her for five minutes, get her totally

overexcited, and then sit down and say, well, I'm going to have a bit of peace with my paper now. Oh, classic. One of those. And so I had to be quite organized. Emma was a baby that cried a lot. She had bad eczema. So probably she was feeling very itchy and all the rest of it because I was a very young mum, though, only 21, and didn't really have much backup. I worried about it terribly. And I didn't have a very helpful sort of...

She wasn't exactly a social worker. I don't know quite what she was, district nurse maybe. She came in occasionally, but she wasn't encouraging. She said, oh, you've got baby the wrong way round or, oh, it's that nappy rash. You're not washing the nappies properly. All this sort of thing. So it was quite tough.

But I was thrilled to bits to be a mum, although at times, you know, you do feel like throwing your baby out the window when you've done everything for them and they still shriek at you. But that time did pass and at long last I got to this stage where I was. You made it to adulthood, Jane. Yes. got to this stage where she made it to adulthood yes when I could I mean you know what it's like when you feel I cannot live without having one night of sleep because it's just so so difficult so um I'm fully aware um of just how difficult it is to be a mum but what I used to do, she used to, if I was very lucky, from about 12 to half past one, Emma would sleep.

And when she was a baby, that was my time when I wrote. Didn't bother about eating, reading, whatever, just wrote because that was important. And then if she went to sleep about half nine or so at night, exhausted, I'd write a bit then. And in between, I'd be thinking up what else I was going to be writing. Then she got into nursery school when she was three, just in the mornings. So I would hair down to the nursery school which is about a mile away rush back and then for a good two hours would write solidly and then exactly and in actual fact that was wonderful training because I don't ever although I'm crossing my fingers

suffer from writer's block because I didn't have time for that luxury. I had to get that bit of writing done. And it also meant I developed a habit of writing every single day, which I have now. So it might only be a little bit, but I do get something done. So that was the way I started. Then it was total delight when she got to be about four because she liked craning, she liked playing with her dolls. And so she could do her little bit of playing by herself while I wrote and then we could go out to the park or do this or do that. I mean, it's easy in a way being

a writer because you can pick and choose your own hours. But now many women have found, although working from home can be a nightmare, particularly if you've got several children, I only had the one, but you can sort things around and get things done just quickly when you've got a moment. However, I have to say, I am not a house-proud person. I mean, it was never dirty, but it was always very untidy. And if things weren't absolutely wonderfully ironed, I didn't care, Emma didn't care, the husband did care. But there were times when I said, well, I had your own blooming shirts. Absolutely. You're making me feel so much better about the mess in my house right now.

I feel like if Jacqueline Wilson says it's OK, then it must be OK. Life is too short. It really is. It's certainly too short for ironing. And with children in the house, it's almost impossible to keep the house really tidy. I mean, there are so many things, particularly young children, toddlers, even babies that crawl. It's surprising how within 10 minutes, every single toy can get out. I remember Emma particularly adored tearing up newspapers.

And so sometimes, just at the wrong time when somebody might be coming, there would be heaps of torn up newspapers all over the floor. No, you certainly didn't come to my house to expect it to be house beautiful. But hopefully it was a good place for children to come. And I never minded. I wouldn't have liked colouring on the walls, but we did have finger painting in the kitchen. And certainly my walls did not go unscathed.

Sometimes, and this is a dreadful thing to admit, but Emma was particularly partial to those round trees fruit gums and in desperation if I had something desperately important to do I would give her a few and she would play with them lick them and then stick them in patterns on the walls but it was worth it if I had a really serious business phone call or something discussing possibilities of a new book. Right. That was my dreadful way of keeping her quiet. And she's still got all her teeth too. And they're very nice white ones. That's brilliant. Now, your books are often about kids who are the odd one out.

Did you feel like that much growing up as a child? I think I always did feel a bit of an odd one out. Did you feel like that much growing up as a child? I think I always did feel a bit of an odd one out. I did have friends, but circumstances were such we moved from Lewisham in London to Kingston, where we were given a council flat. And so I was a year and a half in to schooling so that when I arrived at six and a half or whatever, everybody had got their little clumps of friends. So I do remember sort of wandering around the playground by myself for a little while. And then I'd never stayed to school dinners before. And my mum was not a great cook. I mean, she worshipped at the feet of Captain Birdseye. And so we just had frozen pies and stuff.

And so encountering stews and mints and strange things like that, I just sort of found it very difficult to swallow it down and enjoy it. And so my first, you know, few years at school weren't that great. But then I settled down, got some good friends. But I always felt a little bit different, probably because I was. And at secondary school, I had good friends. In fact, I'm still friends with a couple of people that were at my school then. But sometimes I felt I was kind of pretending. I mean, as we went further up the years in secondary school, it became imperative for status to have a boyfriend. I didn't really want a boyfriend, but, you know, I was desperate to have somebody so I could join in the chat.

And you had to, in those days, there were those hideous Buffon helmet things. And I didn't like that style. But again, I thought, yeah, this is the way that you get accepted by other people. And then when I went up to Scotland at 17, I was so different from everybody else. I lived in a girl's hostel to start with. And then I shared a couple of rooms with another girl but I was so different from these girls because to start with um you had to try extra hard to get people to like you because you were English you were different you were a sassnack um so um in in my head I I never quite relaxed and sort of chatted about the things that I cared about reading and writing and and all the

rest of it because I mean I once remember I went to my first pop concert with and it was a group called Jerry and the Pacemakers. And long, long ago, who were probably as big as the Beatles then. And I went with some other girls from the hostel to this and everybody started screaming as soon as they came on stage. And I thought, I see, we are meant to scream. And I didn't want to look standoffish. But I couldn't quite let go. So I sort of while they were all yelling their heads off and weeping and going, Jerry, I was going, ah, a bit pathetic. But it was a total joy for me to kind of discover myself when, you know, I started to get books published and could feel that, I mean, writers are a very strange bunch. But at least I felt, oh, I understand what you're going through or why you're agonizing about this or why you're feeling so desperately needy for praise because I am too.

And it was like, you know, finding my tribe. And there was a freedom in that to be myself. I think particularly when you're a young man at home, it's hard to know sometimes who you are, because you're fitting in, if you have a partner fitting in with them, you're fitting in with all your children's needs. And I always remember, I went to some book group. And this woman was saying she'd been to some very interesting therapy session with lots of people. And they all had to write down their favorite this and their favorite that. And she said, she actually started weeping because she said, I don't know what my favorite is. She said, I know what my husband likes. I know what my children like, but I can't remember what I like. I think women now have got more sense and life has changed so that, you know,

they can, you know, remember that they're a person too and that their needs also have to be met. But in my day, in the so-called swinging 60s and the sort of psychedelic 70s, you know, if you were suburban, you led a pretty, you know, trot to the laundrette, trot back again, trot to the supermarket, trot back again. You were the one reading the bedtime stories. It was very different. Yeah, very different. Now, you live with your partner, Trish, in Sussex. How important is it to you that you write about LGBTQ characters and issues in your books? I wrote ages ago, I wrote a book called Kiss, where there was a boy in it who was discovering when he was about 13 that he was gay. gay um and but it's written from the point of view of his best friend next door a girl who everybody always thought you know there's love's young dream and would always be together so i

wrote about gayness then but it wasn't until i wrote love frankie for it's a sort of young adult book for, I don't know, 13 to 15 year olds, something like that. And I think my publishers thought, well, people are going to ask you, is this your own experience? And I've been living very happily with Trish for a good 20 years. And it wasn't a secret, you know, everybody that knew me knew us. But I thought, OK, so I did an interview with as such. But it's nice to feel that, as far as I'm aware, there's been no sort of fuss about two women living together. Perhaps it helps when you're older and you've got grey hair. Nobody gives a damn what you do or whatever um but if if it's important to um a book that a character would be gay um yes i would write about it but i don't really feel impelled to have well i think all my books are gay friendly and um uh and in the best sleepover in the world um the children's uncle gary who's one of my favorite characters uh earns a living as a drag

artist and actually comes to uh lily's that's that's the daisy's non nonverbal sister, comes to her sleepover party and is wonderful and teaches them how to dance and also gives them a fantastic makeover. Because I think drag queens are so wonderful with their makeup. And I'm also, he calls himself a transvestite potter. I'm actually friends with Grayson Perry, the potter. And we've been at one or two do's together. And Grayson always puts everybody in the shame. And his makeup now is quite incredible. He's taken to sort of glittery bits all over his cheeks.

His lipstick is never smudged. I mean, he always looks spot on and he's he's tall man and um you know he's the first person you see in a in a crowded room and then he always has the most incredible frocks and extraordinary heels and his feet never seemed to hurt either. Not fair. I know, I know. And so Uncle Gary isn't based on Grayson, but I think children will enjoy Uncle Gary. And he's not ever, ever a sort of ultra camp, making a sort of slight innuendo type remarks he's he's very respectful and very sweet so you say that uncle gary is not based on grayson have you ever had

someone you know or a family member or a friend or something say, that's me in that book, isn't it? And you're like, no, definitely not. That does happen sometimes. And it always astonishes me because I don't put real people in my books. I might put some tiny little aspect of them, but never, ever a whole person. And it's bizarre sometimes how mistaken people can be.

And I have to say quite firmly, no, that's not you. And never was anything like you. And sometimes it's a book that I wrote long before I'd even got to know whichever person it is. But I don't know if it keeps people happy. Fine. It's not you. Just definitely not you. It really isn't you. You mentioned that in your new book, the character Lily is non-verbal. Is representation of children with different needs and abilities important to you when you're writing? I think it is. And in the first Sleepovers book, we have Lily being an important character,

but she can't express herself. And then when I was reading through it, I saw to my delight that there I had written that they'd moved so that Lily could go to a special school. And that's why my main character, Daisy, is trying to make friends with all the girls at this new school. And so I thought this time round, if I'm revisiting Sleepovers, we're going to see what Lily has been learning at the new school. And as well as having special therapy for her arms and her fingers to try and help her be able to use them more easily, they have taught her to use Makaton,

which is a signing language for nonverbal people. And you can use it for babies, not very little babies, but there's a woman I knew that used to go to bookshops and give readings to very little people. And she would also sign too. So I thought, this is brilliant. And then I found on the internet, this wonderful little girl called Lucinda, who's got a fantastic mum.

I think she's called Nikki. And they do the act out the different Makaton signs. And I am trying now to learn a few so that when I go out and talk to people about sleepovers, I can do it. I mean, I'm quite slow at learning. And I've gone through the whole text of the best sleep people in the audience would like to try and do some back. I mean, it's to my shame. You see Lucinda and her mother, but of course, they're a mirror image to me. So I don't know what it says about my intellect but i can't quite work out which hand it is so it takes me a little while you know a a child of of one probably can master it quicker than i do but i am determined so i will get there well the tv character mr tumble

does smackathon as well i should should look for Mr. Tumble. I have heard of Mr. Tumble. At the moment, I'm besotted with Lucinda, but I'm sure Mr. Tumble will be very useful too. But those characters in your books are so important, Jacqueline. Like, for example, for my seven-year-old, my brother, her uncle has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair. So to see characters in your books who are in wheelchairs and who have got learning disabilities makes it so much easier for her to understand the real life scenario that's going on for her. Yes, I think it's wonderful if you can find somebody in a book that does reflect your own experience. And I have tried very hard to not just to make things up, but to check facts and check what sort of things would happen at the school and I have been to um not because this book but simply in the past

um there's a very big special school called Treloz that I have been to quite a lot of times in the past because they did the reading challenge and so I came and chatted a bit and then it became a tradition for a while that I would go back every year. But it was a lovely, lovely school, fantastic kids. And so I'm very glad I did that. And I appreciate that many people aren't lucky enough to be able to get to a school like that. I think it all depends on your local council and whether you can pay for it. And it's really, really expensive. It seems a very important thing

because if you have a disability, surely to goodness, you're the very people that need as much education and development as you possibly can have so that you can lead as much of a life afterwards when you're grown up as you possibly can have, so that you can lead as much of a life afterwards when you're grown up as you possibly can. At this school, they have special sort of like a shop and things where you have to go

and communicate what you want. And they have a band that even if the use of your arms isn't possible, there was one wicked boy who was absolutely brilliant just being able to use his one foot that was workable on a drum. But he also used it fantastically to communicate with his own way of signing. And his music teacher formed a a brilliant brilliant relationship with him um uh was teasing him in a sweet way and and telling him oh yes so and so is doing this and doing that aren't you so and so and this boy just did two short, sharp beats, which were quite clearly a rude way of telling him to get lost on his drum. And I thought, yeah, this is what you need, an ability to express yourself in whichever way you can. So I think it's what I really love is that your initial audience are now growing up and introducing their children to your books. Do you hear from readers now who are introducing Tracy or Hetty to their children?

I not only hear from them, I meet them. And sometimes at signing sessions, they bring out a rather rumpled book. And it's actually got to so-and-so love from Jacqueline Wilson in it. And that was the mum's book when she was a little girl. She's kind of initiating her own child into reading my books, which is fantastic. The only thing is that these books were made quite well and still last so that my sales are nowhere near as big as they used to be. I just handed down. You've shot yourself in the foot there, Jacqueline.

You need flimsy books that are going to fall apart. That's it. Every 10 years, yes, explode. But then you'd get done for not saving the planet. So you can't win. Yes, no. I'm not being serious. I mean, it's lovely to me that people treasure the books. Finally, Jacqueline, is it true that Tracy Beaker was named after a Snoopy cup? It was indeed. I remember thinking, I want to write about what it's like to be in a children's home. I wrote it more than 30 years ago, when more children were in really big residential children's homes.

That doesn't happen so much now, thank goodness, because there's far more effort made into trying, even if children can't be fostered in a family, to be in a small environment. But then there were big children's homes. And I'd seen an advert for children, photographs of real children, where they were trying to find foster homes for them. And I didn't think, oh, I must foster one too, because I know what hard work it is. I wish I could be the person I've met many foster parents who I just so admire. But I thought I could write about what it's like to be

one of these children. And then I was thinking about it. And I don't start to write straight away, I was probably writing something else. So it was on my mind all the time. And in the morning, one morning, I like to have a leisurely bath. And it's a good daydreaming time. And I was lying back in the bath, just idly looking around the room. I have a little routine when I tell children this and because hopefully it breaks the ice and makes them laugh and say, I knew I was going to call my girl Tracy because it's a funny bouncy sort of name but I go through there shall I call her Tracy flannel Tracy soap Tracy tap Tracy toilet and that always makes them laugh and relax and if it's a, they look nervously at the teacher, but they realize it's okay. You can just sit back and enjoy yourself. And, but the, the truthful bit of the story is that I was thinking, damn it, I cannot find the right sort of name that will sound a realistic

name, but stick in people's mind. And in those days, very little money, no shower attachment or anything. After I had had my bath, I would wash, put shampoo on my hair and then keep an old Snoopy beaker on the end of the bath, put it under the taps and sluice my hair. And there I was with this beaker. And I suddenly thought, Tracy, beaker. And it was just that moment. I thought, yeah, that's it. I had no idea that many years later, you know, if somebody saw me in the street, if it was a child, they'd say, oh, Tracy Beaker, sort of thing. I mean, goodness knows what the valiant Danny Harmer feels

because she's been playing Tracy right throughout her life. Even, you know, as a mum herself herself she's got two lovely children now herself but there she is back on the television being Tracy as a mum and um but I think being a good mum too which is is nice I mean obviously Danny's a good mum but I wasn't sure what sort of mum Tracy would be but I wanted to prove that you don't need to have had a good upbringing. Well, an easy upbringing with a loving parent who's always there. What can happen is that if you haven't had that, you're so determined to give that to your child. And so that was my sort of one thing that I wanted to make certain could happen for her.

Yeah, it's fantastic. Thank you, Jacqueline. What a lovely way to spend a morning, having a chat with you. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh, it's been great. It's like we're all in the living room together having a cup of coffee. Do you get to go and have another raisin bun now? I hope so.

Thank you for joining us bye bye bye bye everyone