Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Mariella Frostrup

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

This week Emily goes to Somerset to visit broadcaster and journalist Mariella Frostrup and her two dogs Katyusha and Bomb. They talk about her bohemian childhood, fighting female stereotypes, and how to choose the right partner. Mariella's BBC podcasts Books to Live by and Open Book are available to download.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Okay, this is the last bit of danger. We just had to get to that gap in the tree. This is not a bit of danger. This week on Walking the Dog, I went to Somerset to visit broadcaster, journalist, and owner of probably the most distinctive and most fabulous voices ever, Mariella Frostrup. Mariella has two dogs, a Yorkie poo and a Yorkie Maltese poo called Katushka and Bomb, and we took them for a walk through her local fields.

So I hope you enjoy me being a ridiculous hands. and getting absolutely freaked out by cows. I've long been a fan of Mariella since her days as a presenter in the 90s, and I'm obsessed by her Guardian advice column, but I was also interested to chat about her recent BBC documentary, The Truth About the Menopause, which I know so many women found incredibly helpful. Mariella has a reputation for being charismatic and warm, and she really was. But I also loved how open she was.

We talked a lot about her slightly chaotic childhood and her party girls. years and how she finally managed to find domestic bliss with her human rights royal husband who by the way Helen Fielding apparently calls Mark Darcy I really hope you enjoy my chat with Mariella and do check out her brilliant Radio 4 podcasts open book and books to live by here's Mariella in a bit guys see you in Bruton Simone kick them they have to leave at 1120 yeah come on dogs oh sunglasses we need both dogs don't we yep there both there don't you worry you've got your little friend your little fat friend he's our little fat fat dog

and where's tushki oh there okay so it's bomb and she's the mother she came first she's a really silly dog but we were living in the in London then and we were in a sixth floor apartment so we had to have a little dog and my son Dan is he's allergic to lots of animal hair, particularly to cats. So we had to get a dog that wouldn't make him allergic in the flat. So that's a very long-winded explanation for why we've got this slightly handbaggish dog who's a yorky poo.

So she's a cross between a Yorkshire terrier, hence the sun's colouring, and a poodle. And then she mated with the stupidest dog in Notting Hill, Willie by name, Willie by nature, and created Baum, who's got the loveliest personality you can imagine, but is thick as two short planks. Well, I wonder if that's why I've bonded with Bob.

I absolutely. I'm not making any judgments at this point. Well, you've already said you're suspicious of my, that I'm going to be a slow walker. Yeah, well, you did turn up with black, shiny, patent, almost boots with covered in pearls. It hardly suggests, oh yes, there's nothing she likes better than a good stump at,

has it? I know, but that's how, that's Urban Dos Country. I don't even think that that requires me to be astute, you know, and I just got impressed. Right, we're leaving the gate. I haven't introduced you yet because I think your voice is probably the most distinctive voice I've ever heard. It's the wonderful Mariela Frostrop, journalist and broadcaster. Up here. I call you.

Thank you very much. Yes, that's me. Yes, I do. We don't do presenter. No, ghastly, or celebrity. Oh! It's not. Although the taxi driver did say to us

when we said we were coming here, because we're in Somerset, he said, oh, I know where that is. A famous person lives there. Honestly, I'm just slightly allergic. You know, I know everyone thinks that the best thing about, you know, working in the media or whatever is fame or, you know, some degree of, you know, fame.

All the car's coming from. I actually, you know, aside from, you know, restaurant bookings and things, which actually I can't even get anymore because I'm so old, they don't think I'm cool. That was very sweet. A lady just passed us in a Land Rover discovery,

and I loved her. She looked like the Queen. She had a headscarf on. She's fabulous. Who drives the Land Rover with a headscarf except for the Queen? My neighbours. I love her. Yeah, no, she's incredibly sweet.

She came to my husband's 50th, and really enjoyed the tequila cocktails. Oh, did she? Yeah. So you were saying about fame, sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I really am allergic to all those, but I hate, I can't remember, my mother-in-law was telling me something the other day, and she was saying, so I hear that, you know, you were at such and such a place,

and the osteopaths, and then, you know, someone I know was there, and he was waiting for ages, and then you came out and he thought, oh, yeah, you know, the celebrity gets a longer appointment. And the truth of the matter is, I wasn't in there any longer. She was half an hour late for me. But he hadn't been there at that point. You know, and it's that what, that happens to your life. Suddenly the sort of expectation of, you know, grand behavior and all that rubbish.

Well, it's a kind of othering as well, isn't it? Yeah. It's that thing of setting you apart. And so it means, I suppose, that when you meet someone, normally when you meet people. You're quite fast. I'm not bad. Yeah, I'm quite impressed, I have to say. Because normally very few people will walk with me.

Well, the other personality. I mean my personality. But I like to think. it's speed at which I walk. Are you quite type A? Well, I'm just always busying. Are you? In a really annoying way.

What's that about? I think I'm just probably afraid to be left alone with myself and contemplation. You don't strike me as that. You strike me as very laid back already. Except for the pace. Now it's getting too fast. I've done that thing of pretending I'm fine. Now I'm like, oh, my legs.

But truly, this is the worst bit of this walk. Is it? This is my daily walk, by the way. Is it? So do you do this every day with the dogs? Yeah, and this is the worst, but this is what keeps me saying. I think that, you know, therapy-wise, walking is the best therapy anyone could ever have or need. You just, all my thoughts, best thoughts come to me when I'm walking.

All the bad thoughts drift off. Yeah. You know, you get sort of oxygen in your lungs, but also in your brain. And you've got the boys on, the girls. A boy and girl. Boy and girl. Yeah. And they're on leads.

Only to go up the road. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, no. We'll be in the fields in a minute. I hate walking on the road. Now, they have a lovely life here, though, don't they? But you've got to say this is a steep hill, because both of us are going to be puffing by the time we get there in touch of it.

And I don't want people to think we're not fit. You look very fit to me. I've borrowed your hunters. Hey, I'm not naked, am I, so you can't tell. So tell me. They're my daughter's hunters. Oh, they're your daughter I met. She seemed lovely.

So tell me about when you're, when you. were growing up did you have pets then we've always had dogs yeah did you had cats sometimes but not very often in Norway originally um for Norway I didn't have we didn't have pets there because we lived in a sixth floor apartment very similar I really the one that I ended up in in London weirdly yeah and no in Norway we didn't but when we came to to Ireland from the minute we were there yeah we actually used to have elk hounds which are you know Scandy dogs and we started with them and then we, they got more and more mut-like as the years went by and we had

their puppies and then I started having dogs when I was really quite young. Yeah. Actually, when I was about 20, I think I got my first dog of my own. Which is quite unusual, especially back then. Well, I was just trying to nest, you know. Do you think so? Oh, definitely. I got married to my first husband when I was 18, then we got a cat and a dog.

Yeah. And we got a second dog and then we split up. And then my mother got all the pets. Oh really? Oh, that was good. She got to, but so when you, you came over to Ireland with your family, you were like six, weren't you? Yeah, we moved to Ireland when I was six. And your dad was a journalist, your mum was a painter? Yes. So from what I've heard about your childhood, I relate to it quite a lot because I moved around all the time with quite bohemian artist parents. You're not old enough to have 70s parents. Yeah, I am, they're 70s. Really? Good makeup. Yeah, good makeup.

No surgery. I've decided not to do that. No, definitely not. Well, I look at you and you're my inspiration on that. Come on, Don. Well, I wouldn't do that. I look like a beaten up old Chris bag. No, you don't.

But I just think I'm quite realistic. Oh, I don't know how to do the country gates. Oh, for God's sakes. You take someone out of the city. There, there. I did it. She's trying to get through a kissing gate. It's really not.

that complicated. But it is, it doesn't, it has a bit of a lock on it. Okay, I did it. Okay, it is a bit harder than the normal wooden ones. I shamed myself. Come on, we're going off the lead now. Come on, you two, let's go. There's a shorter version of this, but I sort of think, you've done that, you might as well have the nice, oh, lovely. Yeah, so I know what it's like to have those, that sense of, yeah, the 70s parents where it was all about that. There was a structure. Yeah. You know, that thing I always describe it as it wasn't the that notion of you becoming

the frame when you have kids and the kids becoming the picture my parents were always the frame was the picture you know yeah it's funny isn't it like you listen to parents now you know and you know I count myself among them ridiculously sort of scurrying around after their children yeah and you know I just in fact today I was just thinking my daughter has a friend

staying and I just made them both breakfast and tea and bacon and avocado because they had eggs yesterday. Lovely millennium beasts. And I suddenly thought, what am I doing? They're 15 both of them. Why am I here like skivying away, making them breakfasts? They should be up there doing it themselves. But I think there is a tendency, isn't there, with 21st century parenting,

to just run around like... My brother was talking to me the other day and he said, I was quite good at tennis when I was a kid. This is my youngest brother, there's five of us. Because you've got four siblings, haven't you? seven, well five altogether. Yeah, including you. Yeah, and he said, no, I've got six.

Anyway, I've got a brother who lives in Ireland. Sorry, I was trying to do the maths, untalking. I can't really do maths very well. And he said, I was really good at tennis, and I said, why didn't you play it then? You know, because I don't ever remember me play. He said, well, Mom couldn't be bothered to bring me. And I thought, God, you know, that was so different.

And now it's like, my child is brilliant at tennis. I've got them, you know, logged into the county. championship or whatever, you know, things like that, you know, they just didn't bother. I don't know if it was better or worse, to be honest. I can remember my mum saying, I said, Mum, how come I can't ride a bike and everyone else can? And she said, my mum was an actor and she went, oh, bikes are vile things, darling. And then she just took up a cigarette and then just had wine and got on with her day. Oh, the barbed wire, well done.

Yeah, you avoided that. Usually in a minute you get a lovely view down over. over the levels and you'll see Glastonbury Tour. Well, you might do. It's a little bit cloudy. So this is quite near the Glastonbury Festival, where that takes place. Yeah, you can actually hear it

when the wind blows in the wrong direction. Do you guys go then? Yeah, I've never been before we moved down here, but you sort of feel that you're so beset by it that you might as well go, if you know what I mean. Sadly, we're not in the very small area where you get the tickets for free. It's literally, do they give you tickets?

No, not us, we're outside. Oh, but they normally do. That's the... No, for a small area. Just immediately outside of Glastonbury at Pilton and around there. We're just outside. They used to go as far as Stoney Stratton, which is only a mile down the road. It's heartbreaking.

I like that, though. It's the equivalent of the neighbours saying, we're having a party, do come. Yeah. Because they know the noise is going to be unbearable. So, yeah, so because of your... Bohemian. I had a theory about your peripatetic childhood, though, moving around a lot. Yeah. Which is... I'm all ears. Well, it's something I...

As people have commented on with regards to me, and I think it makes you adaptable. And I also think what it makes you, you're seen as quite charismatic and you're easy to get along with and you're good with people. And I think you have to be in that kind of childhood, because most people have maybe five or six times in their life when they form significant friendships. and we had to do that about 100 times. Before we were 16. I went to just like you, seven different schools. Really?

Oh, I'm going to have to make new friends. I'd better be nice. And now, I don't know. Have you got children? No. So now I, with my own kids, I've developed the absolute, I've got an absolute mortal dread of moving them in any shape or form. So even when they had to move from junior school, nice poo in our face,

even when they had to move from sort of junior school to secondary school, I was like, oh God, it's going to be really disruptive. Poor things, you know. And truly, those are the things that make you resilient, really. I think so, but it's that balance, isn't it? My late sister, actually, she had kids, so I spend a lot of time with them. Your late sister? Yeah, she died.

I'm so sorry, what happened? I know. She got cancer. She had her 10-year-old, but the baby Bertie was only, my sister died just a week after she turned one. So she never, but you know what? my sister, there is that sense of being caught. I know what she would have wanted in a sense because we had the same childhood.

So we're things like, we're not moving from this house. My children are going to go to the same school. Because you want that for your children, don't you? Yeah, you totally do. And you know, I mean, I just remember how desperate I used to feel every time, you know, I saw the bags starting to be packed again, you know, and just thought, oh, no, not again. And I really liked Leah.

I actually thought I had a really good friend. And she let me ride her pony. You know, not again, please. You know, but anyway, this is why your little black, shiny boots with the pals. So Mariela looked. This is like Glastonbury on a very bad year. It's about three foot deep. I mean, Mariela looked at me like, it was a bit like sort of,

it would be a performance that would win a BAFTA. If someone was in sort of the Madea or something, you think, oh my God, the horror. she really conveys the horror. I did think slight misrepresentation will you do a podcast where you'd go for a walk in the country? I mean you might as well it turned up

in a pair of stilettas, frankly. They would have been that much use to you. Luckily, we have Wellington's for every foot size. I know. I know. It's so beautiful here. This is like if I was bringing an American and they said,

I want to see England, I'd bring them here. I love it. So lush and green. and rolling. It's stunning. And I always think that this bit here looks a bit like in the beginning of Babe,

the film. It's very Lord of the Rings, isn't it, as well? Yeah. It looks almost CGI. I think it feels, what I love about it, it just feels sort of ancient. Yes, it does.

You know, it's like sort of, old, old land and you feel connected to history when you walk it in a way. It's so lovely here, Mariel. God, I can see what you feel in love with it. Sorry, going back. No, that takes us back to your childhood because...

Must we? You've got to do it. You know we have to. Okay, we've got to brave the cows now. Oh my God, we're going into the field with cows. Yeah. I've been reading stories. They look quite lazy today, though.

Isn't they all right? Yeah, they're sleepy. Well, the dogs save us. Well, I did hear that apparently the most important... No, the dogs won't save us. What do we do if they come near us? I flick my lead at them. Should we...

I'm just going to follow you. There's a bat. Yeah. Don't worry. I flick my lead out and I shout very loud, which I hope you'll edit out, because it is quite terrifying when I do it, but needs must, if in, you know, any danger. I mean, they're like predators, but are they? They don't look like predators, do they just lying scattered around the field. They're shit predators, if they're predators. Very lazy. I don't think they'd survive if they were predators, do you? But why do they attack people then, just because they're like territorial hostility? Well, it's dogs mostly. They don't really attack people.

Oh, that's fine, and I love these dogs, but I haven't bonded yet. But they are 11. Yeah, exactly. Could your heart. Hardcore. Hardcore London bit. They say that you shouldn't keep dogs on the lead in a field full of cows, because the dogs will escape the cows, but you, with them on a lead, might not.

So it's much better to just, you know. Oh, okay. And you must show no fear. Okay, so just show me your... People always say that about horses. So I'd be London, like I'm on the northern line waiting for a train when I was 14. handen like I'm not scared of it. People always say about horses, you've got to

show them who's boss, treat them badly. I'm like, I don't like horses. It feels like you're starting off on a negative level, which is let's be inauthentive. Let's subjugate you. Let's subjugate. It's a very sort of colonialist approach, isn't it? I think there's a lot to

marry between horse riding and colonialism. The cows, don't No, we've got another feel to go. The cows seem very uninterested in us. No champagne yet, Mrs. Shiny Boots, with pearls. The cows don't seem to care at all about us and now I find them strangely

alluring, which says a lot about me. Yeah, but you shouldn't say that because you're tempting fate and we've yet to go through this field full of young bullocks. Quite a lot of them actually. There aren't normally that many. Don't panic. Just stick together. They're not bulls, they're bullocks.

Oh my God. This is... Okay. Mariella, please. Now what I am going to do though, which I don't normally is we're going to stick to the edge of the field so that we can jump over that fence if we need to. God, you're so brave. Oh I am. The dog's going up to the cow. Is this okay? Well, it's stupid of the dog, but there's not much I can do about him because he is stupid, I told you. You're quite sort of hardy and outdoors. You are though, aren't you? I mean, do you know what I mean? I think this image of you was so incorrect and I've always known that because

I think that's very much to do the way you would. Yeah, it was. It was. It was kind of like because you were blonde and conventionally beautiful and still are. It's that idea that, well, that's her thing, that's her currency. Do you know what to mean? I do. I do know what you mean. Well, I think you've successfully changed that assumption about you. I haven't changed it. It's only because I'm old. No, it's not. And now you can't be sexy and old. So one of them had to go and I'm not dead. So I'm not sexy. Oh, he's wearing up, Mariel. It's all right. I don't like him. Can I give you a tip? Look underneath, you see. Yeah. Others. Oh, okay. That's a show. That's a Oh, that means she's nicer.

Yeah, slightly nicer. They don't look very, they look quite lazy today. Don't look at me like that. They give us dirty looks. They're not like the ones in the butter ads. They're cast, especially for their cuddliness, don't you know? Are they the sort of Kylie Jenner's of the cow world? Totally the Kylie Jenner's.

These ones are a bit rough and ready. These are your real dairy herd. Oh, this one, oh, I don't like. these ones. It's all right. Don't you remember what we said? It's Camden when you were a child. Just show no fear. You can tell them the eldest of five-county. Don't worry. Look it's pretty that one. I quite like it. Oh I like that one. It's got a big stomach. That's why they're not moving because they're really full I think. They don't bother with the they don't get beach body ready and I respect them for that. No but we're lucky actually

because they aren't bullocks. I thought they were but they're all the dog. I thought one was show. Yeah, they're all dairy cows. Okay. This is the last of danger. We just have to get to that gap in the tree. This is not a bit of danger. You've managed to get through the mud. I'm very into life experiences now. What do you mean now? Well, I'm more carpaladium, I think.

So when you go through loss, and I know you went through it at a young age, but you lost your dad when you were 15. Would age you and your assistant dad? I was, so I'm 49 now, and she died when I was, I would have been 41, and she was two years older. So I think what happens with... sad. I know you've been very resilient and all that, but that's just heart-wrecked. Well, I've

processed it and my parents died just after her. But you know what, Mariella, you have a choice when that happens. You sort of, it's very extreme. And I do think losing your dad at 15, which you did, because your parents, when you came back here, you moved in with your mum

and then you had a bad experience with her boyfriend who wasn't great, it sounds like. I lived with my mum after my parents grew up when I was eight. And I lived with, had stayed with my mum for a few years until I was about 12. Yeah. But yeah, I just didn't get on at all with my, you know, stepfather in both of commas.

Yeah. And so I went to live with my dad. But unfortunately, he was in the grip of a very strong addiction to alcohol. So, yeah, it just wasn't really very feasible. So I left again. Were you conscious of that at the time or was it only afterwards it almost occurred? Do you know what to me? I didn't really know about alcoholism because Ireland was full of people who drank a lot.

Yeah. And I just thought he liked being in the pub. But when it got to the point when he'd split up with my step-mom who was fabulous and I really liked. And we were living in this rented house way out on the outskirts. Was it just you two? Just he and I. And he wasn't even, didn't seem to be going to work very much. And the kitchen was just full of dirty dishes.

And it was just very, very depressing. I sort of realized something was wrong. And I was at that point still determined to finish school. You know, it was about 14 and a half. and I really wanted to... So I thought, well, I'll go back to my mum, but that didn't really work out either. So then I got it.

Then I was very lucky. And these two lovely lesbian sisters took me in and gave me a room in their mazenet by the seaside in Dunlary. And I lived there for a bit with them. And then when my father died, which was only about six months after I moved out. And had you seen him to...

But after you'd moved out. I'd bumped into him in a pub, funnily enough. Really? A couple of... About three months after I'd... moved out and it was that was actually the most obsessing thing really because um A I shouldn't have been in the pub but he didn't seem to notice yeah B he um he sort said that he'd seen because I'd I had literally sneaked out with a suitcase

really and he said that he'd seen me go but he just hadn't been able to stop me because he knew he couldn't change and so it was sort of yeah horrible because you sort of I you know I think then for a long time that really affected the sort of men I was attracted to, you know, at first I was trying to fill the big space of my dad. Because he sounds like, you know, and my dad was similar in that, I don't know if it was similar, but it sounds like my dad was a journalist and a charismatic intellectual. I'd see him using these incredible words and painting pictures with them. And that does, that's a big person, but those people have attacks on them, don't they?

Yes, yes. Did you find that with your choices then sometimes? I was just, because I hadn't managed in my own little, you know, immature brain, to save my father, I sort of thought, oh, well, you look like you need saving. I'll have a go with you then. And yeah, that's not really the best way to pick a boyfriend. And it took me a really long time, you know. I actually think the reason I was so late to, well, my second marriage and motherhood,

I just kept picking the most unlikely candidates. And they would also be attracted to me because, you know, I had all the disfunctions that they were after, you know. But then I think you were probably being responsible. which not everyone is, that you thought something inside you thought, I'm not ready to bring a child into the world yet. You know, because presumably that could have happened earlier. I think that there's, I was listening to some,

sort of late teens, supporters of Extinction Rebellion the other day. Yeah. And they were saying things that I totally recognised from being a teenager myself. There's lots of these kissing gates, but you see this one doesn't have a complicated locking thing. Yeah. Because, you know, when I was in my sort of late teens, there was still this threat of the Cold War. We all thought we were going to be blasted to, you know, in a nuclear Armageddon. The Russians love their children too.

Yeah. And we just, you know, every morning you'd listen to the news to make sure that it hadn't, the nuclear holocaust hadn't ever night. And now listening to, and so when I was in my late teens and all through my 20s really, I had absolutely no intention at all of having children. And I was like, why would you bring children into this terrible world? And I was listening to these kids the other day, and they were saying exactly the same thing. And I just thought, it's so sad. You know, we're really like hamsters on a wheel, humanity. We just go round and round and round, doing the same things,

and never seeming to actually progress past points where our, you know, emotions let us down. Yeah, it's true, isn't it? Well, I think you have to, I mean, I would believe it's now. but I think only some sort of seismic change in your life. And I think it can happen, I think in your case, I'm sure the bereavement, without realizing it, that would have at the time, you know, because you ran away essentially, didn't you?

And you came to London, and as you say, you got married to Richard. Richard Jobson, who was a massive sort of heart problem. How old were you when you married him? 19? 18. God. 18. Yeah. And then we divorced at 12.

I was divorced at 21. Yeah. But I love Richard. I mean, he's been my friend probably longer than almost anyone. Really? You know, he got married again and he had two great kids. And in fact, I'm seeing him this evening. How nice.

Because a friend of ours died and we're going to the memorial. So, yeah, it's a bit, you know, I just think, I'm always surprised. You know, I mean, I know when you split up for really difficult reasons, you know, infidelity or, you know, some kind of addiction or violence. you know, which is unfortunately all too common. Then I can see why friendship isn't possible. But, you know, in the vast majority of cases, people split up because someone else isn't making them happy. Yeah.

And truly, you know, that is our individual responsibility. And I think so many people split up, especially in my lifetime, so many of my friends have split up, you know, when they were, you know, around now, really, around 50. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you see them get into these other relationships and you think it's not, I mean, you feel happier for a minute because everything's new. But you can see already that it's going to become the same sort of relationship all over again. So, you know, sometimes I really do think you're better with the devil you know.

I know. Because you go in and out of different phases in your life. And I used to watch my dad doing that, that he would leave what, you know, they were always slightly identical at women. They were glamorous brunette media professionals of some status of some sort, you know. And I would think, why is this? not it's not going to be any different. Yeah. Don't you mean it's like you're just carrying your shit into the next relationship it's that thing of not having a break either. But it's like the

definition of madness isn't it? Yeah yeah to keep repeating the same action and expecting a different result and yet somehow as soon as it's about emotional relationships you know and particularly sexual relationships yeah you know romantic relationships people suddenly seem to think it's okay to be really stupid about about the potential outcomes you know if you're behaved like that in any other area of your life you'd be really worried about yourself if you made your job choices like that or but that's what's interesting is that I think we don't really get properly schooled in this unless you're lucky enough to have a mum I'm sure you talk to your daughter openly about stuff like

this but not everyone who's trying she puts her fingers in her ears and goes ugh but I think that's it's difficult because all I was taught and you and I probably had the same I was taught a version of the rules I which was don't call a guy hard to get. Oh, I was taught. I mean, I read that in Cosmo, but I never, ever was able to. Did you never behave like that? Oh, I was terrible.

I was pathetic. Don't leave me, please, don't leave me. I mean, really. You know, we'd only been going out three days. I was awful for such a long time. And it makes me love. That woman, they told their friends about. You know that the sign.

Honestly, I mean, I was only a couple of degrees away from bunny boiling. I wasn't, I didn't want to harm anyone. I just didn't want to be left. But it's so weird that you can look back now. I mean, I listen to that and I think, well, you know, it doesn't take my expensive therapist to work out what was going on there in relation to your dad. I said, please don't leave me to every man you met.

And I had my dad left, he left and got on a plane to New Zealand and left us notes when I was about 13. You're joking. And I had the same thing. That's almost the same as dying, you know. And it did feel like that. And I had the same thing. There was this poor bloke.

Some highgate boy with your grump, floppy hair, going, yeah, I do you want to go on a day? And then I'm like, marry me. I was like, you haven't called me? And there's been like an hour. And then, of course he went running. And I was just like, I just, I'm so upset. I can't talk about this breakup.

I mean, it was literally. I know. And we're laughing, but I think that. Queen Victoria, Widows Black for a year. Think of that poor child that you weren't. Yeah. And how desperately needful you were of, you know, love and a male figure that you felt was strong and was going to, you know, save you and look after you, you know. And then I suppose as you get older, you realise no one's going to save you.

And I mean, look, I think now I sound much more resilient and functional even than I really am. I got lucky, you know, I married someone very reliable. I chose a different kind of man, you know, because before I used to know... What made you choose that? Why were you able to break the pattern? Crisis. Because most people aren't married. Was it? Well, I was nearly 40. I was 39. Yeah.

And I suddenly realized that the thing that I actually really most wanted, the two things that I most wanted, which were a stable relationship, which I'd been looking for ever since my father died, and having my own children, which I'd, you know, started thinking I wanted when I was, was in my sort of early mid-30s, that neither of them were going to happen. You know, I was 39 and it was 40th birthday was looming, which I think for most people... She was knocking and getting out of. It's a kind of watershed moment.

It is, yeah. Especially for women or particularly for women. Yeah. And I just thought, I'm going to do things differently this year and see what happened. So I did all kinds of crazy things. You know, for me, I took six weeks off and my job in London and went and worked as a sort of guide at a kind of boot camp in Brazil, you know, up and... it hiking up and down. That's why I like a hill

and a storm. Yeah, yeah. Is this pace all right, by the way? I can go faster if you'd like. I show off. It's all right. I can just about keep up. I can go faster. No, that sounded like I was saying, God, is this the pace you walk at, you loser? I just felt bad I was

urbanising your walk. No, no. You're doing incredibly well. You're doing much better. Do you know why that is, Mariella? Because since I've got a dog, which I did after, as a result, of grief essentially, I genuinely thought, I need this every day. I need to walk. And I do it. I don't wear the boots for the walk. But you don't have to in Hamster, do you? This is a, you know, I would sort of, I sort of think it's grounding and it fights off black dog.

Yeah, I think I think I've always been lucky in that I don't think, I definitely don't have a sort of clinical tendency toward depression. But I can easily see how I could slip into melancholy. Collie. Really? Yeah. And I think that for me, you know, I just know that getting outside is such a huge part of it. If I'm stuck in the city for a couple of days, and even there, I walk, but it's not quite the same thing. Do you

walk alone with the dogs? Or do you usually go with Jason, your husband or with the kids? Jason is very hard to prize him out of the house, to be honest. Jason, can I just say, I know about him? He goes on a stair climber thing in the house. And then we live in the middle of Somerset. We've got

fields everywhere and foot paths. I mean, it's a ramblers county. It's brilliant. And also you met him at the top of a mountain during the trek. And I met him walking the blooming, you know, at the foothills of Everest. And now I can't get him off his, you know, cross trainer or whatever it's called. So no, I moved here partly because one of my oldest best friends who I share a birthday with, she's a year younger. She doesn't look at it. I always say that to her. She married, she met just a couple of years before I met Jason. She met Don McCullen. You know, You know, the photographer.

Oh, yeah, the photographer. And he's lived down here for 30 years. And she, oh, more than that now, 35, 36 years. And they got married and I'm godmother to their son. Oh, how lovely. They live across the field. That's so nice. So she is, she's always been my walking buddy.

Like, we used to go on walking holidays. I feel stressed, though, taking selfies with Don around. You can't. I took a picture of Don yesterday. We were doing apple gathering in the orchard. And he was being so bossy. No, no, the sun is shining too strongly that way, Mariel. over there. God, so much pressure.

Anyway, I love him. So when you, I want to talk about your career because when you... Must we? We have to, I'm afraid. Out in the country, yeah. That's the one thing I try not to think about when I'm going for a walk, yeah,

because it's just too depressing. Well, it's not depressing. I think it, you know what? I think, why I respected admire you and I'm so keen to chat to you is I think I love the fact. We're going to talk about your menopause documentary, which I watched because I had my head in the sand about that.

And because I really like you, I watched it. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to deal with this. It's not an inconvenient truth. It's going to happen, and probably is in the process. But I think what I love about you is that women, I think, for so long, it was this idea about disappearing, you know, after 35. You know, you're invisible. That's it.

You've got to, and you haven't done that, and I love that. But you know something. Thank you for saying that. It is a struggle. Is it? Because people want you to disappear. Do you think so? Oh yeah.

There's a huge pressure to just quiet and down, step aside, you know, and I'd feel it really quite strongly. And I'm in a sort of dichotomy about what you do about it, because on the one hand, of course, you know, you want there to be opportunity and space for generations coming up. Yeah. But at the same time, over 50% of the population is made up of people my age and be able. 50 plus and you cannot disappear four generations people who are probably going to live well two generations really exaggeration but people who are going to live possibly until their mid 90s even a hundred you know because of you know that longer lives people who are expected to work until they're 70 years old and yet you

know the minute you hit sort of your mid 50s really people are just waiting for you to just go okay sorry yeah I didn't realize that I was in the way and I'll just pop off back to the country. I've come for you now. Yeah, and... And when you look at the BBC,

when you hear, I'm always shocked when I hear the average age, which is late 50s or something, I think BBC won. It's a really... And you think, well, why they're always 22-year-old? Do you know what I mean?

It's really interesting. And why aren't they making programmes? I mean, they were so... You know, I'm eternally grateful to Charlotte Moore for commissioning that... The menopause... She's the head of...

Is she the... She's the head of sort of television, basically. there at the BBC. And, but, you know, it did... She's a woman. Yes, but it took three years. And she kept sending me off to these young, young male commissioners who would go,

I mean, you could barely contain their repulsion. And then, you know, she finally said, right, that's it, I'm going to commission this. We're going to make it and that's it. But, you know, the fact that it should take that sort of intervention to make a program aimed entirely at your core audience, Yeah.

It's just really shocking to me. And it's exactly the same, I think, at the moment, with this, you know, obsession with the under 35s, the under 35 audience. You know, yes, I understand that Spotify and all those places are actually threatening, you know, radio, you know, because kids get their music when they want it, where they want it. But I think that the BBC, that's not the audience.

You know, that's not what we pay the license for. We're not paying the license for teenagers to get their playlist. paying the license fee so that the sort of programming that wouldn't be made by a commercial station is still made. Is this my neighbour's house? Not, not Catherine's. Oh, the stream is beautiful, Marieta. This is the mill pond where the kids swim in the summer. I love it here.

So when you were, I mean, it's interesting because we're talking about how things are now, but you worked in PR for 10 years. I love that you helped organise live aid, didn't you? I didn't. I mean, that was a grossest. exaggeration of my involvement. Is it? I was part of, yeah, a gross exaggeration. You just carrying a clipboard and smoking and saying, oh yeah.

Yeah, basically. And if Bob Geldof had you said, I'd be like, I'll fucking killer, what the, you know. And he says that if he takes his parking, he says that about everybody. And he'd be right about me. No, he's an old friend, because of it. But I was just part of a sort of, I did his PR for a while.

And he used to basically steal my desk at the record company. Oh, really? to sit and make all his phone calls, cajoling people into doing it. And then I was part of the team. I was there on the day of Band-Aid. I was the PR that day, along with my boss, Chris. And then there was a big team of kind of,

I think, I was something about 10 of us for live aid. So yeah, I did it, but I certainly didn't organise it. But you were very much a sort of mover and shaker at that point and, you know, in that music world, which very much in, I remember that being, and the job sort of a lot of young women wanted to do. It just felt so glamorous. There was a lot of money sloshing around.

Oh, it was amazing. I mean, it couldn't have been about it. For a young girl just off the ferry from Ireland to suddenly find yourself that sort of 19 years old with an expense account, flying to L.A. every two minutes, you know. I mean, it was just, it was incredible. And the amount of money and the sort of, yeah, the decadence of it was extraordinary. But I was, unfortunately, at that point,

Like, I probably would have really got into it in my 30s. But at that point, I was very sensible. Were you? Yeah. But you're not party girls, sort of, you know. I mean, you know, I'd taken drugs in my life. Yeah, yeah. Really, no, not really.

Nothing compared to, you know, what I was surrounded by. Yeah, exactly. I was very rarely drunk. I was just, you know, I was, I was, I was the one with the clipboard going, right you before she's behave yourselves. Yeah. You know, I mean, they used to send me funny. I remember once on, I can't remember which birthday.

been my 21st I think they sent me a card you before she saying would you like to have our baby she's terrifying thought if you think about it because I think it was 12 of them but they had they all had hundreds of children but you know I was always they used to laugh at me all my bands because they used to think I was Patsy Kensit describes me she said you know you were so bossy and and she said you always I mean this is an exaggeration she said you always used to wear suits and and she said I was so frightened of you. I think he was like, cloned clothes and damages.

But you know, were, were you aware that your beauty was a currency? Do you know what you mean? Definitely not in my 20s. Really? Definitely not. In my 20s. Did people tell you you're beautiful?

What then? Yeah. No. No. No. But you must have been aware of marriage. My girlfriend would go, I don't know what's wrong with you.

You look gorgeous. And I go, I'll go to the party because I... And I had terrible... Not terrible. I had weight issues in my twenties. I used to go up and down with my emotions. Yeah.

And so, you know, a lot of my twenties I spent feeling incredibly fat. Yeah. Though when I look back at pictures of myself now, I think, what? You know, but I did definitely, you know, it's only since I had my children that my weight is just completely kind of regulated. Look, can you see up there on the hill? You see, you'll see things moving. Oh.

That's Don's three. guinea fowl they're hilarious they walk down they're like the local thugs they walk down the hill towards my house three abreast on the road and they're like they make the most terrible racket they're worse than pheasants and and you're kind of almost nervous of them it's like a scene out of the foms or something they're there oh good more danger they're up there now you see them on the right no they don't attack they're guinea fow for crying out loud the attack of the killer cows but that's my name that's don and katherine's house oh how lovely they're just across the field for me Oh, this makes me want to move here.

I love it here. So go on. So after that, how did you get into TV then? Because my first memory of you was on a show called The Little Picture Show. And it was, I remember thinking, oh, that woman. Like, he had this incredible voice. No, I just thought, I just thought, God, that's what I want to be. Look at her.

She's got this beautiful voice and she's so glamorous. But I think I always felt you were articulate and intelligent. And it really struck me. that I thought, oh, you can look like that and be clever. Do you know what I mean? I'm so glad you're saying that, though. Because you sort of think that we all know that, but actually, you know, it's actually, in many ways,

not true for a lot of women. And when I think about my own career... What do you mean in terms of they don't believe that? Yeah, and that it also makes it harder. Yeah. You know, and so much has changed for the better for women, but so much has stayed the same. And I still think the idea that you can, you know, pigeonhole people, you know, if someone's sort of nerdy with glasses, that means they're clever but not sexy.

Yeah. You know, and yet if they take off their glasses and swing their hair, then they can often be incredibly sexy. Yeah. I just think that that idea of being able to contain people into the boxes, the definitions that people choose is a real big problem when it comes to women. I don't think it happens with men. No. And, you know, I was laughing earlier. She wears glamorous clothes and does her hair and makeup.

And she said, I don't see why I should have to look a certain way to be funny. It's like a deal, or you're distracting men. You know, you have to fight against it all the time. Yeah. And you don't realize at the time what a weight it is on your head that you're pushing against all the time. Yeah. You know, I just always thought, this is what I enjoy doing, this is what I'm going to do. And I think I was quite resilient, probably because of what, you know,

you and I've talked about earlier about our peripatetic childhoods and things. So I just always kept on pushing. But you do get to a point where you just think, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted with trying to convince people that I am who I am. Yeah. And I feel that more now that I no longer have to do it in a way. I think, gosh, you know, that's probably two decades that feel like five. Yeah.

Because it was just that much harder. it shouldn't have been. And I really don't want it to be like that for my daughter, you know. Well, I think things are changing, which is positive. Are they? I mean, I think there's small shifts, but I think the important things I still feel just aren't changing, you know. I mean, it's extraordinary to me that, for example, my latest, you know, shocker in terms of information unearthed is that medical tests till 1993 when it was made mandatory in America yeah medical tests weren't conducted on women you know so when they were doing clinical tests for drugs they're always conducted on men and we were just

perceived to be so if they work for a man let's say so we'll give him 10 milligrams yeah and we'll give her seven because she's a bit smaller then that'll work fine and it's only in the last 20 years that they've understood that we've got completely different physiognomy and and actually you know, so many things that women suffer from. You know, at the moment, I'm really, I'm just about to write a piece, I think, about a kind of, but I think there's an epidemic of sort of sleeplessness amongst women from late 40s, you know, early 50s up.

And it's always been dismissed as though it's just, you know, menopause, if you know, even that much about menopause. And I don't think it is. I think it's something different and separate. But the truth is no one's ever looked into it. Because no one's ever looked into women's conditions as something separate from the kind of mainstream of male conditions. And, you know, those are the things that really matter. You know, the quality of education, equality of, you know, health.

Those are the sort of base level from which you build. And I kind of sometimes think we're far too willing to let feminism become fashionable and then unfashionable. and then unfashionable. A slogan on a t-shirt. And then as a slogan on a t-shirt and, you know, what colours, it's okay to wear if you're a feminist and, you know, all of that. And then, you know, what happens is it reaches this great pinnacle as it just did, you know, a year or so ago. And then it just drops out of sight again because what we haven't done is consistently said, this is not a kind of cult.

This is about equal rights. That's all it is. It's equal rights, you know, and that covers you, you know, on every day. level of diversity, gender, everything. And if we stuck to just this ambition to see equality in our lifetimes, it would be far better than allowing ourselves to be sort of taken over as lipstick feminist every couple of years when they're desperately looking for new headlines. Well, do you know, that's the thing.

I think I've started to realise this and it's something I've only done recently. I suspect you've been doing it for longer, but... Only because I'm older. No, it's not that. I think you, but I think... Eight years old. No. Shh.

I think I've started to become less frightened of taking up space. Yeah. But you all get to a point where you start doing it almost, like the other night I was at a dinner party, and this man came up, and they're all terribly, much more like Gloucestershire than Somerset, because you don't really get that in Somerset. And he came over, and I could see he wanted to talk to me,

and he said, hello, what's your name? And I said, Mariel, how did he do? And he said, I'm, and he said, so what, do you tinker around in television or something to you? And I said, well, obviously, then you do know my name, and you do know what I do, but you're pretending not to. So why would you do that? And I said, I don't tinker around at anything, to be quite honest,

as you can see from the conversation we're having there. And he looked at me and it was like, oh my God, I know which blonde she is. She's the nasty one, you know. I sort of felt then maybe I'm too stroppy. No, because I think it's those casual moments like that that you let slide. That's everyday sexism. That's why it was so brilliant what she did.

You know, to actually say. I call it the Jenga Tower because what happens is you're fine with that. You let that slide. You let the next one slide. And then you have 25 incidents like that. And then you end up saying to Jason, you bloody, but. Yeah. And it's got nothing to do with that.

doing him, no, and I'm picking on him because he's the man in the room. He didn't call me before this and say, can you sort of a lot. Oh, sorry, you're right. Come on, dogs, stay there. So, um... So we're home. Oh, we're home. We just have to listen.

Wait, wait, wait, we just have to listen for the cars. Because otherwise their dogs will get run over. I just need to. I need to ask you. I could talk to you for hours. She's the best person ever. She's gone on a longer walks. I know.

But, um, I love all your, I think you also have made books really accessible as well. Because I always, sometimes, you know, I get friends. and I think with literature, even I did an English degree, I think, oh God, I'm not, you know, whereas I feel there can be a lot of snobbery in the literary world, just intellectual snobbery. And I love, whenever I see you, like I've been listening to, I love your interview with Cape Blanchett that you did for books to live by. Oh, it's so great. And also, your Guardian Agony column has been going for 20 years. Oh, God.

Why are you so brilliant at advice though? Because I'm a bossy eldest of five who's lived through quite a bit. Katushka, come here. You've got a stick to have to stick on you. Come here, come here, come here. What do you think is the success to that? Are you good at taking advice? She's not called out to some Parisian cafe, by the way.

She's called up to Russian Missa. Thank you very much. I know that, Petitia. You were so clever. No, my dad was clever and I picked things up. No, you're clever. I'm clever. Do you see how easy it is?

But you've told me that, and we've done that in the moment. That's good. I'm clever. You're clever. I'm not a product of him. Let's see how your memory is there. Can you remember what you just asked me? Because I can't and I'm trying to answer it for you.

The Guardian column for your advice. Are you good at taking advice? Or you're good at giving it or you're good at both? Let me think. Let me think. I like advice. I'm good at taking good advice. Are you?

Yeah, I do. I appreciate it a lot. I've got a couple. What's good advice you have? Like, what does your husband give you good advice? He gives me. sort of quiet, well he's a lawyer so he gives a particular kind of

advice. You see it's the rom-com on so, oh she's got the human rights lawyer. I mean that's like a... I don't want to see the waterfall. If I wrote that in a script, they go, they can't be a human rights lawyer, I'm good-looking. It's ridiculous. Helen Fielding always calls him Mark Darcy. She goes, oh, where's Mark Darcy today? Did you like him when you first sight?

No. Didn't you? Not my type. Totally not my type. And some successful and kind? Well, successful and kind. Which is you all free things. But I'd always liked really Yeah, that's our little waterfall. I love it. Okay. Now Helen's describing this as

that's our little waterfall. This is extraordinary. It's so beautiful. There's a bench overlooking an incredible I mean this garden is amazing. That's all, Jason. That's where, that was a little bar, a little kind of shed

when we, no, I swim in there. Do you swim in the sun? Yeah, I mean, not when it's really cold, but I try, I feel like I should, but I don't do it now. In the summer, I definitely do it. I want to put a swing up here. It'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Oh, I like that. Because you could swing out over, wouldn't that be nice? It's sort of Marianne's Phonette, you know, and she had the strange house that she had on the property he built for her. I don't think you should give people the wrong impression. If it's a small,

Can I say it's not like Versailles. Three gardeners cottages knocked into one. No, but the swing is very much like those language sort of them. This is so beautiful. So go on. So we were just going to say about the advice thing and you and Jason. Oh yeah, just bossy eldest. And advice, I do take advice.

I think that we all go to the person that we think is going to tell us what we want to hear at any given moment. It's so true. So I do that quite instinctively. Do you? Yeah. But the best advice, really, I've got two, you know, oldest best friends who I go to Gina and Natalie, and they really give good advice. Yeah, do that?

Very different. If I want to kind of cut loose and do something really stupid, I'll go to Natalie because she always advises that. And if I want to do the really sensible, sane and mature emotionally thing, then I'll go to Gina, who'll pick that route. And if I don't want to do anything at all, I'll go to Penny Smith, who'll just. go, oh, it's all fine, you'll be fine. Do you, I've got another thing which I always like to ask people. What do you most fear people saying about you when you leave a room?

I've had it said. Poor Morley, honestly about 35 years ago. Yeah, he used to be like a really cool enemy. I've made it up with him since. But I really did. I didn't speak to him for about 15 years because he said I was bland. And I thought that is just, I was devastated by. I had people who said terrible things about me

and it really hasn't bothered me at all, but bland. Did you hear him say that behind your back? He said it in a piece. You know, one of those pieces where they don't do an interview with you, they phone up loads of people who don't know you and ask them what they think about you. And he said to me then, he used to write about you too a lot. And he said to me at a party that you choose manager had.

He said, I'm really sorry. I've always regretted saying that. I don't know why I did it. And I said, it was devastating. and he said, really, just bland? And it's devastating. I think that I was secretly feared that I'm a bit bland. No, I think that's really interesting that they said that

because you're not, and I think what it's about, is a woman considered traditionally beautiful who takes up space and is outspoken is dangerous. So that was an attempt to dismantle you and your power, I think. At a subconscious level, I think, by calling it, it sort of weirdly, I think there was an understanding, intent behind that. I might come to you for advice in the future because you're quite wise too aren't you and ever so clever. I'm watching. Oh I didn't want to leave. What can we do? How can we stay?

Just stay. Just go into the little, you know, shodgy bit there. Someone's arrived. Who's that? That's Dave. What does Dave do? Bedlock Dave. Well, I'm not sure what he's up to today. This is better than anywhere. Oh, look nice in the boots as well. David, they really suit you. You want to get yourself a pair of those. You can probably get them tax-free because of for the job you know I've got pink hunters and I think I didn't wear them because I thought oh I can't be the Londoner turning up the pink hunters and so you thought you'd turn up in a designer boots there's a bad it's a bad smell isn't there I think it's the septic tank I'm going to have to call that guy again

oh Jason's going to go mad I said I'd do it while he was away it's not asked I think no no no it's a bad smell all right Mariela, I love your dogs. Thank you very much. You've got a full type and that is the one that is switched on. Okay, I'll see if it works then. I want that to be the final word in the podcast. I've got a full bottle of gas.

I know you're really busy. You're the busiest from the ride and we've got to let you go. Honestly, I'm getting a train. I'll probably be on the same train as you back up to London. Are you going back up to London? Yeah. So come in. Okay.

We'll take the mics off. We'll give me a paddle. Oh, I love Mariella. Honestly. Thank you very much for coming to visit me. You're every bit as fabulous as I hope. Oh, you're very kind. Kind and clever and wise.

Oh, I'm going to cry. I really hope you enjoyed listening to that and do remember to rate review and subscribe on iTunes.