A must read if only for the glimpses of ourselves so lyrically vibrant in its wit dripping pages. Read our review in full. She was a sparrow-sized woman, very warm and seemed constantly to be making homemade marmalade from her council house, whilst singing along to Patsy Cline records. I suppose I was very attracted to the way that Northern women exchanged stories⦠and still am. There was a woman who lived a few doors down.
She was a one-armed nail technician, single mother-of-two and a weed dealer. Of course there were my grandparents, whom I lived with later on. That all helped as a backdrop, both as a writer and a gay.
From my early years there there will be β The Lady Grey Years. When was the first inkling of it? Probably around the age of 10, but it was just notes to get through the dreariness of school. Again, a way of understanding what was going on rather than consciously recording what was going on. Oh, I know. It sounds very s kitchen-sink that a teacher might whip her bunions out for a massage but it happened. However, rather than let that set in as something to feel horrified at, I wrote a horror story inspired by it, which was the first time I was published.
Looking at it now, the only way I got through school was because of occasions which required bunting or Hallmark cards. Was there anything in school which suggested you were being torpedoed into a writing career? Only incidentally. I started skipping school and spending the day at Moston public lavβ¦ not lavatory β library. Freudian slip. So, she certainly spurred you on. How did Moston feel at the age of 10? I know. Life might be easier if I knew the last line-up of Sugababes rather than the life and times of Muddy Waters.
When I think of my childhood, for example, I was in a stolen car with my brother when I was 4. I grew up facing a pub called The Lightbowne which was perpetually shut because of people bottling each other β so much so that The Bill used it as a regular spot to film in. She was a towering inspiration and the lights of Manchester forever dimmed when she died. She was gut-wrenchingly funny, incredibly kind β though formidable β and she remains the rhythm of a great deal of my writing and indeed my life.
