WEBVTT - Ruthie's Table 4: Mariella Frostrup 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.880 Welcome to Ruthie's Table four, a production of iHeartRadio and 0:00:03.920 --> 0:00:05.440 Adamized Studios. 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.560 I'm often asked if it's intimidating cooking for celebrities who 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.439 come to the River Cafe. My response is that the 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.800 guests who really worry me are other chefs. It's a 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:21.959 bit like that today, as I'm about to interview the 0:00:22.040 --> 0:00:26.040 interviewer mary Ella Frostrop, especially since I was watched the 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:29.880 subject for the Guardian's Lunch with mary Ella, Mariella wrote, 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.640 despite such eloquence that Ruthie is a disaster of an interview. 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:38.440 My questions get longer as her answers get shorter and 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.920 inevitably end with a question for me. She's all, don't 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:44.400 you think? And do you find? And have you noticed? 0:00:44.760 --> 0:00:47.519 But I'm reminding myself that I'm not here with Marielle 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:51.040 the journalist, but Mariella, my good friend. When Mariella books 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:53.640 a table in the River Cafe, it's most often for two, 0:00:54.360 --> 0:00:58.440 usually with her husband, human rights lawyer Jason mccute. Watching 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:01.360 her is watching someone who's diverted only by what she 0:01:01.520 --> 0:01:04.720 is eating and drinking, as she's entirely focused to the 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:10.160 person she's with, sitting close, talking, smiling, laughing and listening. 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:13.479 Her daughter Molly, who's working here as a bar back, 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.640 told me about growing up with her mother, cooking together, 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:20.960 eating together, traveling together to Norway, to Greece, all over 0:01:21.000 --> 0:01:25.000 the world. Now, Mary Elle and I will do the same. Intimidated, 0:01:25.480 --> 0:01:28.920 why would I be? Don't you think? Do you find? 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:30.360 Do you notice? 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:35.080 Oh, Ruthie, that's the best introduction I've ever had, ever, 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:39.080 ever in my entire life. Don't you think? How would 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:44.080 you like to be described? Ruth I'm sorry I said that, 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:45.000 but it is true. 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.240 That's true, said, it is really sweeter, he said, you 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:50.840 just kept turning the questions back coming. So today I'm 0:01:50.880 --> 0:01:52.880 just going to listen to you and not tell you, 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.040 don't you think? But before we do, first of all, 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.000 I'm so happy you're here. I love having Molly here. 0:01:58.360 --> 0:01:59.400 She's just fantastic. 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.840 I think she feels like she's at a West End 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.520 show every night of her life because. 0:02:05.600 --> 0:02:08.200 She's a bar back. So she's behind the candy. 0:02:08.600 --> 0:02:11.799 Who did the cooking? When you were in your house, well. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.400 In our house, it's very it was very fifty to fifty. 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.160 Do you have Sunday lunches? Was the one meal that 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:17.600 you would have. 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.400 That would be we would have Sunday lunches, and I'd 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:22.720 say the most important thing of our Sunday lunch was 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.799 probably the Yorchhire puddings. My dad was obsessed with them. 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:27.160 He'd have like fifty. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:29.200 At least your mom grew up in Norway. Do you 0:02:29.200 --> 0:02:31.400 have a connection food connection to Norway? 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.800 So we go to Norway sometimes on holiday because I mean, 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.240 it's so beautiful and obviously, like mum likes the fact 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.520 that we all get to see we sort of web. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.160 We're from and stuff. 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:44.160 But I wouldn't really say that that was a sort 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.160 of dish. But that's this sort of cheese that Mum's 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:48.840 obsessed with, but none of us. 0:02:48.800 --> 0:02:49.480 Like so much. 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.360 Yeah, it's something it's like and it's a very brown color, 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:56.200 and it's very smelly and sweet and weird. 0:02:56.360 --> 0:02:57.040 It's not for me. 0:02:57.520 --> 0:03:00.120 I can't understand none of my family of conversion to 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.760 all with them. I think it's probably heavily processed and 0:03:03.840 --> 0:03:06.280 not necessarily good for you. But it is a taste 0:03:06.280 --> 0:03:10.400 of childhood. It's called ya toast and it's a goats cheese. 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.880 But it's I'm going to make it sound disgusting. It 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:15.640 looks sort of caramel color. 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:17.160 It's a caramel. 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:20.720 Broone cheese. Because the thing about Norwegian is that it's 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:22.640 very literal. You know, if you pass a lake and 0:03:22.680 --> 0:03:25.320 it's got brown water, it'll be called Brune Lake. You know, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:26.960 if you pass a house and it's the first one 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:30.080 in the road, it'll be called Who's one, And so 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.200 Brune cheese cheese called okay. 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:35.520 This gives us a chance to start at the beginning, 0:03:35.520 --> 0:03:39.080 at the very beginning, Norway. You were born now. 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:44.160 Where born in Oslo in nineteen sixty two, where my 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.520 dad had moved back. He and my mother met at Edinburgh. 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:52.360 She was a very young art student. She was sixteen 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.040 when they first met. She started Dark College two years early. 0:03:56.080 --> 0:04:00.400 She was an incredible talent, but this was the end 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:04.080 of the nineteen fifties. He was studying English at Edinburgh University, 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.200 as a lot of Scandinavians so they still do. But 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:09.640 a lot of Norwegians particularly go to Edinburgh. So they 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:12.520 met there and when she was eighteen she gave up 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:16.400 Art college and went back with him to Norway, where 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:19.120 I was born, and then my brother and then my 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:21.440 sister in fairly quick succession. 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.479 Do you remember the food that you ate when you 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:25.880 were in Norway. What age did you live? 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:26.560 Six? 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:28.240 Oh, so you might not remember. 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:29.960 Yeah, but you know, there's a really weird thing I 0:04:30.000 --> 0:04:33.840 think that happens. I mean, firstly, my main food memory 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.600 of Norway is actually because at that time, in the 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:40.080 nineteen sixties, they really didn't have many ingredients at all. 0:04:40.200 --> 0:04:42.680 You know, there wasn't this sort of globalization of food, 0:04:43.120 --> 0:04:46.159 and you know, you'd get strawberries, but only in midsummer. 0:04:46.920 --> 0:04:52.080 There was a lot of pickling fish and vegetables, salt cord, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.800 which I didn't like at all, but I do remember, 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.120 and I still love it. There's an arctic charred Arctic 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.560 chard that they did. That's just I mean, I think, 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:04.320 one of the most delicious pieces of fish or fishes 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:08.240 in the world. But because of that, I think most 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:11.840 I do remember things like cheese. We would always have 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.040 cheese at breakfast. And strawberry jam wasn't like strawberry jam 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:18.240 that you get here in jars and things. It would 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.680 be fresh made strawberry jam. They'd make it and then 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:23.359 it would last until the next summer, and so you 0:05:23.360 --> 0:05:26.880 would have a saucer full of it and you would 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:31.080 just spoon it onto your cheese, on your crackers, or 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:32.719 on your rye bread. 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:35.280 And I remember things like that. 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.840 But the thing I remember most was I think it 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:41.440 was difficult times, and I think it was difficult with 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.520 my parents, and they weren't very happy in Norway, very young, 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:47.400 and my mom had sort of given up all of 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:50.640 her artistic expression to go there, and suddenly she had 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:53.320 three children. And it was the nineteen fifties and Norway 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.880 was very very conservative then, and my father used to 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.560 travel a lot because heat of his work. He was 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:06.320 a journalist. And he came back from Tanzania, a trip 0:06:06.360 --> 0:06:09.200 to Tanzania, and he arrived back and this will show 0:06:09.200 --> 0:06:11.400 you how long ago it was, with a box full 0:06:11.440 --> 0:06:15.359 of fruit. It had things we'd never seen before. It 0:06:15.480 --> 0:06:21.920 had mangoes and these extraordinary melons and then breadfruit and 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:24.960 just all of these things, and it was like a miracle. 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:27.400 It was like sunshine had just it was like all 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:32.479 the windows had opened and sunshine just blazed into our apartment. 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:34.200 And I'll never forget it, you know. It was a 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.159 really really strong and striking memory from a period of 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:38.520 time where I don't have. 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.359 That many memories. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:42.760 But what I was going to say about sense memory 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:44.800 to do with food is I don't remember much about 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:47.240 the food there, but when I go back, I'm like 0:06:47.320 --> 0:06:49.159 the you know, the woman in the tin drum in 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.640 the film, I'm like her, the one who can't stop 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.960 eating fish. I'm sat there with jars of herrings. I 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.280 can't get enough sourcial. You know, I can't pickle everything, 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:01.520 pickled gerkins, everything. 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:03.800 And did your father miss it? Do you think did 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:05.080 you have any of it in Ireland? 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.120 Or oh, we used to get suits, We would get 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.360 pickled fish and jars because you couldn't get that in Ireland. 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.200 Then I'm not sure that he missed it. He was 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:16.680 never much of a food man, my father. He was 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:20.320 more of a drink man, okay, so his interest in 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:21.920 food was sort of minimal. 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.880 Can you remember sitting down at nels with them? And 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:28.040 as a child, and was for dinners and lunches. 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.720 It was the nineteen seventies, really, and I don't think 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.400 we did a lot of sitting down for meals, And 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.040 also because it was always complicated, they split up when 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.240 I was eight, so I think those sort of family 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.320 moments were very few and far between, which is probably 0:07:45.400 --> 0:07:48.160 why Jason and I have been so kind of committed 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:50.760 to creating them to appoint where my children are like. 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:53.520 Oh no, not Sunday lunch please. 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:55.960 But as you grew up in Ireland, so what was 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:58.520 it like growing up? You were quite poor? You said 0:07:58.520 --> 0:07:59.760 that you had very little money. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:01.600 Yeah, and so food. 0:08:01.920 --> 0:08:06.760 You know, in terms of, you know, defining childhood food memories, 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:08.600 they tend to be not very. 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:12.280 Not very warm and cozy ones. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.840 I mean the awful, awful memory ones when we really 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.400 had run out of food. And my brother, who was 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.400 always the one who tried to beat emmolient, he is 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.760 still the kindest man you'll meet, and he was trying 0:08:26.760 --> 0:08:29.000 to make light of the fact that there literally was 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:31.200 nothing in the cupboard, and he was like, look, look 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:34.760 I've got spaghetti and I've got golden syrup. 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:36.200 It'll be delicious. 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:38.679 So you wouldn't have he wasn't going to have the 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.920 golden syrup. After the spaghetti he made it for us 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:44.160 with the golden syrup. 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.920 Was one of the most disgusting combinations I've ever come across. 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:51.000 Did you say that at the time, No, No, we 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.840 grained him and yeah, this is good lovely sugar, sugar 0:08:53.880 --> 0:08:56.040 and starch I can have. 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.760 It's like rice pudding. I suppose how long did you 0:08:58.760 --> 0:08:59.839 live in Ireland. 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:00.920 For till I was sixteen? 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:02.360 So your father died? 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.760 He died when I was fifteen, he was forty six. 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:12.280 He had a heart attack for years seventy eight, and 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.440 then I moved to London in seventy nine. 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.320 So when you came to after the tragedy of your 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.080 father's death, is that when you moved from Ireland right 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.880 after that? The whole all three of you and your mom? 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:24.240 No, no me? 0:09:24.800 --> 0:09:26.840 What by yourself? Yeah? How old were you? 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.760 Well, I'd already left home. I left home when I 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:34.000 was fifteen. I lived with my mom for quite a while, 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.720 but my stepfather and I didn't get on and he 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:39.160 was not nice, okay, And so then I went to 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:41.640 live with my father, but that was very difficult because 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.360 he was by then a sort of fully fledged alcoholic, 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:50.240 and when my stepmother left him with the two children 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:54.839 that they'd had, and I ended up living with him 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.320 on my own and trying to go to school and 0:09:57.400 --> 0:10:02.439 kind of manage what was really a fast deteriorating situation. 0:10:03.040 --> 0:10:05.120 And he and I were living in some rented house 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:08.000 in the far reaches of Dublin, and i'd get home 0:10:08.040 --> 0:10:11.320 from school and there would just be stuff piled in 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:15.440 the in the kitchen and everything, and so I decided 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:18.440 I had to leave. But going back to my mother's 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:23.160 wasn't really an option. So a very nice pair of 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:27.200 lesbian sisters, not a couple, but they said I could 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.000 rent a room from them. I'd met them working in 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.319 a restaurant in Dublin called the Blackboard where I used 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:34.760 to work at weekends. 0:10:34.240 --> 0:10:36.360 And there as. 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:39.319 A waitress, yeah, and or a waiter as we say now, 0:10:40.400 --> 0:10:42.800 And that was for too, A lovely gay couple called 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.319 Peter and Melvin, who really looked after me very well, 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.680 because I mean, what kind of a state I must 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:49.599 have been in? No idea, but apparently I was a 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:51.280 very good waitress, I can imagine. 0:10:51.320 --> 0:10:52.839 I loved it. It was my favorite jodea. 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:54.000 What did you love about it? 0:10:54.440 --> 0:10:57.400 I loved the interaction, and I loved that it made 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:02.560 me feel quite efficient, and I loved the whole I 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:08.000 think the theater Robert actually really drama. Yeah, And I 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:09.640 just used to love get But I think maybe I 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:12.160 also just loved getting to work because it was it was. 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:14.679 Spike, you were still going to school but working. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.600 When I first started working there, and then I worked 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.040 there full time for about four months, and then a 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.320 friend of mine gave me a job in his recording 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:25.840 studio and so I did that until I left for London. 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:28.439 In Dublin, yeah, that's when I met, you know, all 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.719 of the people that we have in common. I recorded 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:36.680 U two's first demo tapes when I was, yeah, fifteen 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:38.000 and he was seventeen. 0:11:38.080 --> 0:11:41.840 He hates it when I remind him that he's older. 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:44.840 But yeah, that was all when I was working at 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:48.640 Keystone Studios. But after my father died, Dublin started feeling 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.080 I don't know. I think my father got off at 0:11:51.080 --> 0:11:54.839 a job at the Sunday Times, probably about four years 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.600 before he died, and I think in my head that 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:00.400 lodged as that would have been the moment that he 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:04.079 could have changed his life. That was the pivotal moment 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:07.080 where things could have changed for the better, and he 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:08.839 didn't take the job. And I think he didn't take 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.040 the job because he was afraid and because he was 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:16.000 an alcoholic, and so I think for me that always 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.600 represented this sort of golden light that you could you 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:24.040 could fly towards. And so after he died, I became 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:27.080 quite resolute about getting out, So I took the ferry 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.360 from dune Leary with my friend. 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:30.600 Oh you had another friend. 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:33.480 She didn't know. She just had an address for us. 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.080 There was a she had some Irish friends who were 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.960 living in a squat or friends of friends who were 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:43.560 living in a squat in Stoneleigh Street in West London, 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.080 actually not very far from here, off Latimer Road. And 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.440 we arrived there on a bright summer sunny morning and 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.360 were greeted at the door by just this crowd of 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:56.559 Irish men mostly, And I was like, married, what was 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:58.520 the point in coming all the way here if we're 0:12:58.559 --> 0:12:59.959 just going to live with the whole house full of 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.320 Irish people. But they were incredible to us and made 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:09.840 they were so hospitable. Sixteen sixteen, she's eighteen, and they 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:11.960 gave us a room that there was already two of 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:13.760 them living in, but we were allowed to share it. 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:14.480 I mean, there were. 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:16.679 Amazing days, you know, I think it was It was 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.480 a really great time to be young. You know, there 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.960 was huge adversity, but at the same time life just 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.120 felt full of possibility and you could afford to rent 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:28.000 places for cheap. You know. We were only in the 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.679 squad for about three months, and then I got a 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:34.120 job at Blushes on the King's Road. I don't know 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:36.080 if it's still There was a wine bar and it 0:13:36.200 --> 0:13:38.280 used to be so amazing on a Saturday. Then you 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:41.560 know Bob Geldof and Paula because they live right around 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:44.000 the corner from and they used to arrive on a 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:48.440 Saturday morning at about eleven o'clock at the tube station 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:51.640 on the King's Road and then they would promenade up 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:53.840 the King's Road and they would be followed by this 0:13:53.920 --> 0:13:57.480 sort of retinue of It was like a medieval you know. 0:13:57.520 --> 0:13:59.400 It was like Henry the Eighth that arrived and all 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.360 these people would following along in their wake. And again 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:04.400 it was like theater watching, you know, and it was 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.480 punk and it was just incredible and exciting. 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.120 Do you remember what you ate at the time? Would 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.360 you would you go to restaurants or would you cook 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.439 at home? Or would you I'd cook at home. 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:16.400 I'd cook at home. 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:19.120 Food wasn't great in London then, you know, it wasn't 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:22.320 and I didn't really care so much. I mean, I 0:14:22.360 --> 0:14:26.760 was so obsessed with just survival and getting on, survival 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.200 and getting on. I mean, it was the nineteen seventies, 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.320 it was quite a bit of sort of beef Burgignon 0:14:31.520 --> 0:14:35.400 and you know, black Forest ghetto, nothing to write home about. 0:14:35.720 --> 0:14:39.200 Everyone was eating spaghetti bolonnaise because that was very exotic 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.240 and Italian, but not. 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:47.240 Baudelais Nouver. That was always quite exciting. 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.560 Yeah, I remember that through the eighties, but not so 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.440 much the food really. 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.360 Yeah, so you're you're a sixteen year old in London, 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:59.240 You're working in blushes, you're living in the Irish house, 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:04.080 You're father has just died, and and you have a vision. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.600 Did you know what you did? You know you wanted 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:10.920 to be the writer or the journalist or did you 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.600 did you go back to school? So you left school 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:14.160 at fifteen? 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:17.400 Yeah, wow, I did my you know, the equivalent of 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:25.280 GCSEs And then yeah, it just wasn't possible. And for 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:27.680 a while I thought I'll go back to school, and 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:30.200 then I just realized that that wasn't going to happen. 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:33.600 And then I didn't really have a dream, you know, 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:36.960 because it was very much about survival really, and it 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.560 was day to day and I think I was just 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.360 very lucky, you know, I had lots. 0:15:41.360 --> 0:15:44.040 I think you probably must have been fantastic kid. Just 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.680 to have that courage and to you know that. 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.080 They had courage when you're that age, don't you. I 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.640 think maybe because you don't know you know, now I 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:53.520 think I'm much less brave than I was when I 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:57.120 was sixteen years old or eighteen years old, because now 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.240 you have the benefit of or not of having, mean 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:03.960 what the world can do risk for risk and the 0:16:04.080 --> 0:16:08.800 risk and the jeopardy, whereas then it's just about you know, possibility, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:12.080 isn't it. And I felt possibility in London, you know 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:18.280 that energized me and just kept me going, you know, 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:21.200 I mean it was it wasn't of course, it wasn't easy, 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.840 you know. And I missed my dad so badly, you know, 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:27.240 because I think as a daughter, when you lose your 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:31.920 father at that age, you kind of deify them, and 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:35.400 so I'd elevated him to this impossible. 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:38.080 Kind of Olympian height. 0:16:39.040 --> 0:16:43.040 And so I spent an awful lot of my late 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:47.400 teens in early twenties, you know, finding really broken men 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:51.280 and trying to fix them because I felt guilty that 0:16:51.320 --> 0:16:53.400 I hadn't fixed my dad. And I really think it 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.640 took me till my thirties really to escape from the 0:16:56.720 --> 0:17:00.360 kind of tyranny of his perfection, which you know and 0:17:00.480 --> 0:17:03.200 realize who he was, you know, which doesn't make me 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:08.520 love him any less, but it certainly helped to create 0:17:08.560 --> 0:17:11.240 a more functional life for myself. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.399 And did you drink? It was the fact that he 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:14.920 died of sort of alcohol? 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:16.920 No, I think I drank, but I don't think. 0:17:17.160 --> 0:17:19.680 I mean, I've never I'm not a very addictive apart 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.640 from cigarettes, which I was hopelessly addicted to for sort 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:26.320 of all of my twenties and early thirties, which is 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:28.960 mad because my father died of a heart attack and 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:32.520 was chainsmoker. But drink, I mean, you know, it was 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:34.919 the nineteen eighties. I was in the music business. I 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:37.760 had a lot of fun then, Yes, because the next 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:39.160 thing I did was get a job at a record 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.679 company because of the studio that I'd worked in in Ireland. 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.560 You know, it was always people who you'd met who 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.280 then would introduce you to somebody else, and you know, 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.399 sometimes you'd get a little chink of an opportunity and 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.040 you would grab that and then you would and the 0:17:54.560 --> 0:17:58.080 journalism and the television only happened again just by accident, 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.359 you know, I worked for this record company, worked with 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.920 Bob Geldof. I worked on band aid and live Aid, 0:18:04.080 --> 0:18:08.640 and he stole my desk to sort out band Aid 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:10.680 from and you know, I was there on the day 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.359 when we all went to that studio in West London 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:15.600 and all of those people. It was a kind of amazing, 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:19.520 magical time. Then I set up my own little PR company. 0:18:19.520 --> 0:18:22.240 But at the same time they were looking for a 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.560 TV presenter for a music program that Channel four were making, 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:28.719 and it was going to be all world music. And 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:30.600 that was what was really exciting about it to me 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:33.720 because it was my father always used to bring back 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:40.919 amazing records from Africa, Miriam mckeeba and just incredible music, 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.960 and so I was really excited to get involved in it, 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:45.400 and they gave me the job. 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:46.639 I was appalling. 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:49.840 I mean, someone sent me like a YouTube clip the 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:51.720 other day, you know how everything lives on. 0:18:51.600 --> 0:18:53.200 YouTube of me presenting. 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:57.400 Yeah, it was called Big World and I spoke in 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:01.199 a monotone like that, and I was clear, just shit scared, 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.200 really self to do that. But but so I did 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:08.400 that recovery years and then it. 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:10.880 Just did you have a domestic life as well? Did 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.320 you live with anybody and have to think about a 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:16.439 kitchen or food or bringing shopping home or did you 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.320 just basically food was smoked and. 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:22.120 Smoked and drag. 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:25.760 But I did get married when I was eighteen to 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.720 another lost soul who's a wonderful and old friend of 0:19:29.760 --> 0:19:32.760 mine now called Richard Jobson, who was the lead singer 0:19:32.800 --> 0:19:36.920 in this punk band called the Skids. 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:38.200 Yeah Skids, great. 0:19:38.640 --> 0:19:42.440 Yeah, into the valley working for the Yankee dollar, come on. 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:45.800 Anywhere. 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:50.240 But Richard was a really interesting and unusual character. He 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:54.920 was another lost kid. He's left home at sixteen. He had, 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.600 you know, huge intellectual aspirations, many of which he went 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:01.280 on to realize a huge determination. And I think we 0:20:01.320 --> 0:20:04.399 sort of fell together out of loneliness and we tried, 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.199 you know, we gave it our best shot for two kids, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:09.879 and we stayed together till I was twenty one. 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:11.399