Book Club Meets: Homelessness and addiction, with Lorna Tucker

Bare is the vital true story of Lorna Tucker’s fight to survive living on the streets of London. She had to lie, steal, strip, and just about everything in between to survive. This really important portrait of female homelessness was April’s Happy Place Book Club read. In this chat with Fearne, author and filmmaker Lorna explains how chance – those five minutes that seem insignificant at the time – can send your life in a completely different direction. She talks through the reality of all the different reasons people might end up living on the street, and why she has so much empathy, and a desire to understand, what drives addiction and violence. Plus, Fearne and Lorna share how their brains can spiral into dread and insecurity, and offer advice on how to work through shame about perceived flaws. Thank you to Brazen for the use of Bare audiobook, narrated by Lorna Tucker. If you liked this episode of Happy Place, you might also like: Listen to Book Club Meets: Clare Leslie Hall https://pod.fo/e/2c28eb Listen to Book Club Meets: Holly Bourne https://pod.fo/e/2b5d15 Listen to Book Club Meets: David Larbi https://pod.fo/e/2a9766 Child on the line is a three-part documentary podcast series celebrating the Volunteer Counsellors of Childline, and the brave children & young people who contact the helpline service. Listen here: https://www.childonthelinepodcast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Hi, I'm Natalie Dormer and I'm proud to be an ambassador for Childline. This year, Childline turns 40. To market, I've made Child on the Line, a three-part documentary podcast. We hear why children needed a helpline in 1986, how it was built against the odds and the challenges children face today, from abuse and mental health to social media and AI. Search Child on the Line and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:28Speaker 01

  I have lived in Watford.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  I have lived on many streets and many pitches, deep in the shadows, within the stinking and filthy parts of city in London.

• 0:40Speaker 00

  Today, Bear by Lorna Tucker.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  I have lived in hostels as a single mum. I have lived all over London and many cities around the world. I have lived with almost every boyfriend I have ever had. I have lived with and without a daughter. I have lived with an abuser. Then I finally lived with a man who looked after me when I had two more children. Now I live alone with all of my children. The only thing I can tell you today is that I, Lorna Tucker, have lived. I am an addict. This is something that I must always remember, remind myself of each morning when I wake up. There is a history of addiction that runs through my blood.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  The insanity of how the mind works when you're gripped by this. This, what I can only describe as a disease, is madness and chaos. Nothing really makes sense, but when you're living it, whatever drug you choose becomes all that matters. It comes before absolutely everything. But you don't realise it's taking over because that devil on your shoulder is very convincing and tells you that everything is justifiable. I don't use that iPod anymore. I might as well sell it. We never watch TV. I should sell it as it's just sitting there. My daughter never wears these shoes anyway. I'm ashamed of so much. The shame I carry from my past.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  There is so much that has held me back from living for so long. I don't want to be ashamed anymore. This is my story. All the truth I can remember. Nothing but the truth.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Please don't judge me, God, but I don't believe in you anyway.

• 2:31Fearne Cotton?

  Bear is the absolutely vital, but I'll be honest with you guys, agonising, true story of Lorna's fight to survive living on the streets of London. She had to lie, steal, strip, and just about everything in between. As I say, it's a painful read at times, but it's a really important portrait of female homelessness, and I loved reading it. You've been reading along with us and joining in on the chat on Instagram, which I love at Happy Place Book Club, which is obviously the best part of Book Club, having a big old natter about it. Amy says she thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's such an important read that centres around an issue that we should all be more aware of. Thank you so much for telling your story, Lorna. Jen agrees that it's an incredibly powerful

• 3:15Fearne Cotton?

  book. I've never read anything like it before. I felt wiser and more educated from this read. I'm forever changed, to be honest. God, how amazing is that? What beautiful little summary. Thanks, babe. And Talitha, this is gorgeous from you. She says, I definitely resonate with this book. I also fell into homelessness as a child, so I have a lot of understanding and empathy, and I find I'm less judgmental of others in similar situations. That's actually something that Lorna and I got on to in this chat, because she's been seeing the crisis of hidden homelessness rise in kids in particular, and is really keen to introduce empathy back into the story of homelessness, addiction,

• 3:53Fearne Cotton?

  and violence. Lorna is now a completely brilliant filmmaker. Her first feature film was a documentary about Vivian Westwood, which she talks about in this chat. We also get into how our insecurities might manifest physically, like mumbling or covering your mouth. It's really interesting stuff. And chance as well, those five minutes that might seem insignificant at the time, but that send your life in a completely different direction.

• 4:26Speaker 03

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• 4:56Speaker 04

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• 5:41Speaker 04

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• 5:50Speaker 05

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• 6:22Fearne Cotton?

  Okay, here we go. This is the show.

• 6:46Fearne Cotton?

  Hello, Lorna.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Hey, fun. Lovely to meet you.

• 6:49Fearne Cotton?

  So nice to meet you. First of all, congratulations on your book Bear, which is our Happy Place Book Club pick for April. This is an incredibly raw and honest, emotive, at times confronting book. I couldn't put it down, but I'm imagining for you it was hard work to write that book. It's, you know, you're, you're bearing your soul, you're telling your story. What, what was that process like for you?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's an interesting one because I think if it was a fiction, I'd be shouting about it. I would be, you know, promoting it. And I think that's been the hardest thing over the last few weeks. First of all, people writing going, I love your book. It's really changed me. You know, you're an inspiration. And I'm like, no, I'm not. I cry every morning. I'm the messiest person in the world. And I, what do you say to that? Because it's just your life. It's not some incredible piece of genius work that I've come up with. So there's that, it coming out is quite a strange thing to handle. But the process of it was more different to anything I've ever done. You know, my job is to stare out of a window all day and then come up with ideas and get so overly excited.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  I'm like a kid and then you kind of believe in something and you turn it around and then, and then you put it out there. Whereas with this, it was spending my mornings ruminating over my past and trying to remember why I was doing it.

• 8:15Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 8:16Speaker 01

  You know, it's something that I'd had offers quite a bit over the years. And the only reason I took this one is because it was the right mix of an incredible publisher, the editor that, you know, was so inspiring in her own way and, and kind of held me and, and allowed me to kind of tell the story in the way that I wanted, which was very much trying to set it today, looking back and taking someone by my side on this journey. So instead of preaching to people or going, you know, this is what's, you know, what my life was, or this is what happened. I'm like, well, why didn't I show you? And you can, you can come with me and then maybe you'll be a bit kinder when you go out into the world afterwards.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  And, but then to get that balance of also.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  Trying to not make it too dark. So the process was hard because I was sitting there going every morning trying to remember. And I think my whole life I've tried to forget. So it last year was just such a strange time for me because I'd done a documentary as a response to the governmental cuts into the spending and mental health addiction and everything. And that was kind of having to again confront my past and then to go and do a book where you're actually reliving your own story. It just, it was difficult, but there was something really healing in it because in the last three years I've seen the numbers of kids on the streets rise. I've seen this crisis of hidden homelessness of

• 9:48Speaker 01

  kids staying on sofas, sofa surfing, nowhere to live. I've seen kids getting into gangs and I know where that comes from. I know where that anger comes from. I know where the violence comes from. I know where, why kids carry knives. And it's in, and in my career now and in this sphere I operate in now, I, I hear the other side of people going, you know, kids guns and, oh my God, society's fucked. It wasn't like that in my day. And these kids, they should be locked away. And I'm like, oh my God. Why are these kids angry? Why are kids killing each other? Why are they stealing? Why are they getting into drugs? So, you know, they were babies. They were children once. And I'm not excusing behaviour. And there are sadly people that are so disturbed. They

• 10:30Speaker 01

  need therapeutic help. They need to be somewhere safe to help them. But I think this last few years, hearing that and seeing this kind of divide build up, it was, that's the thing that kept me going. So I've gone on a complete rant of like, every morning I was like, you know what? I can't do this. I don't want to touch this. I'm, I've got kids now. I've got my life back. You know, I have struggled with addiction for 25 years and everything's going great. And I've got all these film projects and my life's perfect. Why am I sitting down at five o'clock every morning before I go to work to do something else, another project, and pulling up and trying to piece together my life? And then you'd

• 11:11Speaker 01

  open the newspaper or I'd overhear a conversation or I'd speak to a kid that was, you know, high on a street corner. And it was like, no, I need to do this because there's so little understanding and so little empathy. But it was.

• 11:25Speaker 01

  The hardest thing I've ever done, because like I said, from the moment I first came out rehab, which wasn't even a rehab, it was a um a children's ward on a hospital, because I was too young for rehab. And I was in a private room. From that moment to, you know, Westwood coming out, I'd hidden my past and I kept running. And I never kept a friendship group and I was always lying and hiding and trying to fit in and never quite fitting in. And and then to sit down at a point in my life where I'm like, I don't want to fit in. I'm just me. This is my past. Now everyone knows it's like, there's nothing to hide from anymore. They either like me or don't, but still kind of keeping it

• 12:05Speaker 01

  to one side. And yeah, this last year has been an incredibly uh real process that also has led to so much freedom in a way.

• 12:14Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, oh my god, I bet.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Claim back my own narrative, because I think the press, you do, and you'll know this, you do so many interviews for for my Greta Garbo film or for this film or that film. And I spend the whole time talking to this journalist about the artistry into what I do. And then it comes out and they've just grabbed headlines from other things. And it's like, ex heroin addict, you know, prostitute, drug addict, da, da, da, da. And you're like, I didn't even talk about my past. I talked about my film. So I feel like this was my final kind of say and doing it for a reason with hopefully a positive message. But also now it it's like any press I do, it's like, now you can buy the book.

• 12:53Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, well, that's your chance to have it in your words, verbatim. No one can take it out of context. That's your your story told. I mean, it's brilliant that you've got that extra layer of motivation that, you know, you're you're meeting kids who are living on the street or you're hearing this judgment that still exists and the stigma around it that you want to change. And that's motivating, obviously, but there is also. Like you say, the, the hard graft of 5am, sitting there and facing your past, you know, let alone typing it out eloquently, but it's something, when you've been through tricky things in life, it is very hard to revisit those times and not re-traumatise yourself again and again. I mean, there's a line towards the end of the book where you say

• 13:38Fearne Cotton?

  that your past is close enough to remember, but far enough away not to touch it. How do you think you've got to that place? How have you managed to, it might not be land on peace with your past, but get to a place of, a level of acceptance to be able to actually write this book in the first place?

• 13:54Speaker 01

  I think to be really honest and to hopefully make other people feel better about their lives who have been through any kind of trauma, addiction or, or mental health struggles. It's a day to day. When I wrote that line, I felt in touch with my past and I felt like I'd gone through this healing journey. But, you know, last week, as the book was coming up and you're doing press every day, I would come home and, and go like, I'm still full of desire to use, or, or I feel like I'm going mad, or, or, or I should be doing better with my life and, and, oh, I hate my hair and why am I do, you know, and you project onto everything else. There's nothing wrong with my hair. There's nothing wrong with the way I look. There's nothing wrong with my career. There's

• 14:36Speaker 01

  nothing wrong, you know, I'm not a terrible mother because I were, you know, like I spiral and I spiral and I'm not kicking out on everything. I think the only thing that's different now is I've been through this cycle so many times, I'm getting better. It, it doesn't happen instantly. It's like two days of self-hating and then you're like, who gives a frick about what my hair looks like? Who cares? You know what? It's not about that. It's because I'm actually really scared. I'm really scared someone's gonna say, your book's rubbish, which means, you know, or this is terribly written, or because I'm so insecure and I tell everyone I'm insecure because I want everyone who feels insecure to not think I'm an amazing person. Because you get so many people going, oh, you're so amazing. You're an inspiration. You're so strong. I'm like, no, we're all the same.

• 15:21Speaker 01

  We're all fragile. We're all broken and, and not every day is easy. And I feel such a responsibility to talk about that side of things because it's very easy for when you're on the outside to think somebody's life is a very certain way. And It's just catching yourself quicker and I think I'm getting a little bit better at it.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, I went off on a complete tangent.

• 15:43Fearne Cotton?

  No, it's so relevant though, because I think, you know, what you've talked about there is what so many of us feel where we do start to spiral and we start to pick ourselves apart. So that other people don't get there first. You know, I've done it a million times where I've thought, I'm going to be really bloody awful to myself because anything anyone else says, I've already said it. And it, you know, and I'm in a similar place where I can do that a bit quicker now. And also I'm a bit bored of going into that cycle of, oh God, I can't do this again. It's so boring. I don't want to do it. Let's just fast track this bit. It's a fucking bore. And it's, you know, maybe that comes with age as well and experience, but it's so great when you have the awareness that, you know, you can speed that cycle up.

• 16:23Fearne Cotton?

  And I think especially when you're talking about such delicate matters and things that not only are massively real to you and things that you're still working through, but will hit other people for so many reasons. I mean, I found so much of it triggering in the best possible way because, you know, it's confronting stuff that you're writing about. And we need to hear about female homelessness because we don't hear about it enough, teen homelessness. And also what you've done so brilliantly is so clearly show the extremely thin veneer between having a quote unquote, regular life to then losing everything.

• 17:00Fearne Cotton?

  And, you know, I grew up in a really similar area to you. I was down the road in Eastcote, Ryslip. I used to go out in Watford all the time, North West London Crew. And, you know, I hung out with the wrong crowd a lot and I got in with the wrong people a lot. And, you know, there were times where you could see, you could have, you know, I could have gone off on a tangent that wasn't best for me. And I was really lucky that along the way I met.

• 17:23Speaker 01

  You could have.

• 17:24Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Moment that can.

• 17:26Fearne Cotton?

  Five minutes.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  Your life.

• 17:27Fearne Cotton?

  Completely. And that's why I think when I was reading it, I was like. Fuck, like this is so close to home and feels so very, very raw and real in, in the best way. And I think it made me extremely grateful for the positive people that came into my life and, and ways that I was steered. But I felt it so viscerally that I could have so easily gone down. And, you know, we all could. We're all moments away from, from, you know, whatever. We don't know what's going to happen next in life. But I think it was very, very brilliant and brave of you to explain that process of how your life unraveled and how you ended up homeless and how, you know, even

• 18:07Fearne Cotton?

  meeting Toni, a lady that you talk about in the book, who was using heroin and that led to your own heroin addiction. These little moments of chance of fate that leads you down a completely different path. I think that's the crazy thing about reading your story is that becomes extremely real for, for any reader.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And also the chance that I'm alive because so many are not. And you know, what you just said is, is exactly why I wanted to write the book because I don't know one person and this, God, there's so much you've just talked about. But first of all, it's like age when we're talking about us spiraling. And that's why I think I feel such a responsibility to always be honest in the book or in interviews or when I'm talking to, and I always do talks, even though my insecurity is like, you sound like an idiot. Why are you telling everyone you're fucking soul? Why are you telling everyone you're insecure? And it's like, because you want younger people to know it does get easier. You know, and it's like, it crippled me from my, you know, I used to talk with a mumble

• 19:07Speaker 01

  because I had really bad teeth and because I was really insecure. I didn't know big words. I couldn't read and write properly. And it was Vivian that was just like, take your hand away, sort your teeth out, talk up. I can't hear you. What are you saying? And I thought, I thought she hated me at the time, but then within two years of filming her, people would be like, oh my God, you're, you're talking, you're, you know, and it's this thing, isn't it? So it's like, we, we, we expose ourselves and we try and be honest, even sometimes if I'm like, oh God, I've got verbal diarrhea. Why don't I just shut up? It's like, there is something beautiful about age, you know, I woke up when I was Forty and I was like, oh, I just don't care what men think about me anymore.

• 19:46Speaker 01

  Um, and just like, I just wanna have fun. I just wanna go out again with my mates. I just wanna feel good and. Um, but also it's like, I, as you said, we've been around in this cycle long enough to know that. If we can keep walking at our darkest times, or when we're feeling at our worst, it, the light does come out again. We do start to feel better. Um, so, you know, I've lost a lot of friends to suicide and addiction and. That's why when I see young kids, I can just sniff it when I see someone is is in in a funny place and. You know, I'm like, hey, come with me. Let's have a chat because you know what? It gets better. And I think part of my language. You know, I was so stunted from competence for so long. So storytelling is my medium, whether I'm making a big glossy film like.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  On Greta Garbo with a Hollywood actress, or I'm making a documentary about homelessness. It's like. Let me tell you a story. Here's a big fancy story with puppets and an actress and I'm gonna tell you something, but it's really about. Insecurity, the pressure we're put on women, like, why are we doing what we're doing? Is this end result gonna bring up, you know, so there's always this. This thing of like, how can I get through to people to tell them that life will be okay if we can just keep going? And sometimes. It's not okay and that's okay. Um, and I've gone off on another um, thing, but. Chance as well, you know, there were kids on the streets that I knew that had come from a lot of money. There's someone I knew that was on the streets that had even come.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  You know, they were titled and the reason they ended up on the streets because they went out to a rave for one night with their friends. And she saw a boy, she was sixteen, and he was fit and he had tattoos and she was like. Oh, my god, he's dangerous. My parents are gonna hate him. I love him.

• 21:30Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  And she started dating him and he he had a drug problem, you know, and she just loved him and wanted to be cool. And within six months, she was a heroin addict. She ran away from home because he was in trouble with the police. So she stepped on the streets so she could be with him. He was arrested one night, something happened to her. That was her life destroyed. So this isn't just, yes, I'm quite sadly, very, very textbook.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  But it's also, I knew people, women who were in their fifties that were doctors that ended up on the streets because they had their husband left them. And they had a breakdown and that led to them losing everything. And it's that spiral, but then also. The death, you know, people getting clean and then something happening or a memory trigger and they just have one. Hit to take the pain away and that was the overdose and they died. You know, it's like the fragility of our. Us as humans anyway in life, but in those situations, it's amplified and. When you have people living on the fringe of society that are very vulnerable, there's always.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  People out there that are seeking out the vulnerable for their own gain. So it's. You know, this is again, why I chose to tell the story. I was like, how can I tell a story that's not like. Too depressing, too dark. It's not like a journal of homelessness. It's like, how can I tell a story of as if I'm telling a film, but with. But having to relive everything and see myself and take them with me because. We're, you know, the world is fucking crazy right now, like. Yeah. Everywhere around the world, you know, we're fearful of war, poverty, you know. Everything is crumbling, but also we know we've been here before and we can come out of it. So. What helps society while artists coming together, us using our voice in any way we can, putting it into our art, people.

• 23:26Speaker 01

  Resistance activism and I'm a storyteller. So it was like, well, I can't change the world. I wish I could. But if we can just focus on the one thing we know something about. And we can do it in a way that's not preachy and isn't like, I'm gonna stand on my soapbox, but. Truly using our art to to pass on a message, then we've kind of done what we can. I keep ranting.

• 23:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, no, this is what I need to hear because I think, you know, the one thing that you have absolutely changed and will continue to is people's perception of homelessness. If you've, you know, if you've not got a broad understanding of it, or you're not necessarily compassionate or empathetic towards people that are living on the streets or are hidden homeless people, then I think what you've done is is articulate this story that allows you to see that fragility and allows you to see that this could quite literally happen to anyone. And when you walk past someone on the street, you can't have that judgment. You don't know what their background is. You don't know why they've ended up there. You don't know anything about them. They're they're human beings. And I think, again, you know, looking at

• 24:34Fearne Cotton?

  how you're using your art in a plethora of ways with this book specifically, it's storytelling to connect us all. We're all human. We're all human. There's no, there's no hierarchy. We're just all humans wandering around, trying our best. And there's good luck and there's bad luck and there's good opportunity and bad opportunity. And, you know, it's

• 24:54Speaker 01

  And we could have good opportunities and then everything could fall apart. You could go back.

• 24:57Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  But you can keep going and you can find your way.

• 24:59Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  That that like walking and like you said, storytelling and and elevating. But it's, there's, there's definitely, I think, for me as well, it's like trying to give people that are suffering language, because, you know, I think the thing that the reason I didn't tell anyone that I'd been homeless or I was a drug addict and everyone knew I was, I couldn't keep clean. And I'd get a year and I, you know, and I'd get some opportunities because I'm a grafter and I'd start working my way up. But then something would trigger me and I'd relapse and people are like, oh, she's just a junkie. Why can't you sort your life out? You've lost custody of your daughter. Is that not enough? Why are you fucking everything up for yourself? So people just thought I was this crazy rock and roll junkie that you just, you know, and

• 25:43Speaker 01

  Basically, I didn't, I could, I was living in hostels, but I'd been scouted to model. How weird's that? And I would go and do castings, but nobody knew that I was living in a hostel as a single parent. So everyone's like, let's come back to yours. I was like, oh no, I can't, you know, I'm doing this thing, doing that thing and crashing on sofas. And it was shame. And that almost led me to relapse in the end anyway. And I think if kids are sleeping on sofas and they're not telling people and they feel ashamed, or someone is having a breakdown because they're having a mental health crisis and they can't talk about it because they feel shame. If you have struggling with addiction, the shame, you know, and I just think if we can remove that layer off people and go, but look, you know, there is a way out. And it's about, you

• 26:24Speaker 01

  know, if I do talks, I always wear a suit or I always dress up and will try to and get it drastically wrong a lot of the times because I feel all responsibility. Because I'm like, I want a kid that's in a really difficult situation. Like if I was fourteen and I was sitting on that street corner and I saw someone dressed up with a smile on their face and they sat down next to me and they were like, you're right, kidder, I was where you are. And I got out. And I know you don't feel like you can get out, but let me tell you, I would have listened to me. If I had a preachy, judgy person going, do you want a sandwich? You, you know, can I do the, or telling me things or just, or feeling sorry or pitying, that wouldn't have inspired me to make change. So it's this thing of like, you know, I just want to walk around in holy

• 27:07Speaker 01

  leggings and, you know, looking at a mess. But you do feel that thing of like, okay, but today I'm talking about this. And today, if anyone's listening or anyone sees me, I want them to be like, there is something for me. I wish I was like that because I know like as a kid, you would have looked up, you know, if you think of you at fourteen, looking at you now, you'd have been like, she's so fucking cool. Like, I want to be like that. And so it's like, well, you can be like that, but come on, you know, you're gonna have to get me halfway.

• 27:40Speaker 03

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• 28:38Speaker 06

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• 29:10Speaker 07

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• 29:43Fearne Cotton?

  What's so interesting as well, like, hearing you talk about the stuff that you were so keen to not only run from but hide about yourself and, you know, I've certainly done the same with certain bits in my past. They strangely end up being the parts of you that allow you to connect so much more deeply with other people and actually the parts of you that people end up liking the most because you've got a story and you're fucking interesting and you've lived a life and you know pain and you know suffering and as most people do and that's where you end up connecting with people. It's so weird that we desperately try and hide those bits of ourselves and go, "No, no, you mustn't see that bit. Just see the shiny bit or the bit that I know I can..."

• 30:27Speaker 01

  I can dress like you. I can be like you. But why am I not like you? And you know, you hit the nail on the head because I remember, you know, the reason I first spoke about my story is when Westwood was premiering at Sundance. We caught wind that a red top newspaper was gonna publish a photo and they'd found out about my past and all of a sudden it was like, "My career's over. Everyone's gonna hate me." Like, "What the fuck?" And then you're like, "Oh, this is why I self sabotaged all these times, all these years." And it's like that fear of... And I just remember having the kindest woman, Kate Lee, just was just like, "No, we'll get the Guardian to run it first," you know, "and in your voice." And I'd never done press before

• 31:10Speaker 01

  and behind the camera, you know, I don't wanna talk about these things. And I just remember the response was exactly not what I expected, you know. It was not only mothers of children that were struggling and everything like that, but so many people from my past reached out and they were like, "I wanna fucking hug you. Why did you not tell me? Like, we loved you. We just didn't wanna see you destroy yourself all the time. And if we'd known, we'd have been able to support you better." And it wasn't what I expected and people in the industry were just like, "Proud of you." And it was so, it was this fear for like 20 years of fear and hiding and people were like, "No, we really..."

• 31:48Speaker 01

  Thank you. And it it's funny, isn't it? It's like, we always think things are going to be worse than they are. And even if they're bad, they're never as bad as you think they are. So it's like the the thing that prolongs you healing or or or moving forwards in your life are generally the unknown, or how you expect people will react, which is never true. Because even think about your life, the toughest things you've had to move from. Even when they've been hard and they've hurt, they've never actually, you're still here. They're never as bad as you thought they were. And even when they are bad, it goes, you know, and it's

• 32:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 32:21Speaker 01

  move on. So it it taught me so much about that kind of like just confronting. And now I'm just like, got no filter. Every like, my truth is like in the moment.

• 32:32Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  Sometimes people are like.

• 32:36Fearne Cotton?

  That's the best way to be.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Hiding anything anymore, is all they.

• 32:39Fearne Cotton?

  No, no, no, we haven't got time for bullshit. We haven't got time for bullshit. We're just, we're saying it.

• 32:44Speaker 01

  Having a really, really delicate day today. I'm going to answer in a really brutal way. If you keep on C C ing me into these emails, take me off for twenty four hours.

• 32:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  And they're like.

• 32:55Fearne Cotton?

  Yes, I love it. Look, we've got no time. We're we're women who've got stories to tell and, you know, we're moving forward. I'm here for it. I love it. There was one line at the end of the book, which again, I just loved. And I think many people will resonate with this line and desperately want to be living it. You say, well, it's actually something you're saying to your husband, um, towards the end of the book. You say that you spent the first chapters of your life running and the next chapters you want to spend dancing. Do you feel like you are dancing? Or is there a bit of oscillation between there are days when you're still on the run a bit? And then there are days where you can have that sense of freedom and feel like you're gliding through the day slightly more.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  Exactly, as you said it, you know, it's like, as you said, it's not a fairy tale, like, you know, I had this pain, messed up a lot. And now it's like, I wake up every morning and it's like, rise and shine. What it is, is that, you know, some days are better than others. Some days I find it really difficult to get out of bed. But I found something.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  That helps me live, which is creation, which is art, which me and you can go into a whole other situation of my next thing that I want to focus on is art being taken out of schools and the funding taken out of teachers and look at most of us were saved through art, right?

• 34:15Fearne Cotton?

  And Yes.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  You take that out of society and we're going to be really screwed. So that's next year's mission, but um.

• 34:21Fearne Cotton?

  Good, I'm I'll help you, I'm there, like I'm I'm part of the alliance, I'm there.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  We've got to do this, but um.

• 34:27Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 34:28Speaker 01

  But you know, the the truth is, is like, art set me free and write if I couldn't, didn't learn to write. And if I didn't teach myself storytelling and have incredible people around me to to teach me and support me and love me. I think I I don't even know if I'd be here. So even when I'm feeling my worst, I know that I have to drag myself to sit at my desk at five every morning. And some days I write one sentence. Before I went to New York last week, I had two days in a spin, pulled all my cupboards out, fricking organised everything in alphabetical order, tidied my kitchen, decided to wax my floor. I had a deadline for five P M.

• 35:10Speaker 01

  Something I hadn't even started. And then I wrote one line of dialogue and this new script commission was like, sure, hand it over. That was my day. Sure.

• 35:20Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  And over. And I was like on the phone to my husband, saying, I wrote one line of dialogue and he's like, but I bet the kitchen cupboards are tidy. I was like.

• 35:29Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah. I've done this so many times, so many times.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  And he's like, but I but even that, I'm like, oh, part of my process is I'm not a robot. I don't write, you don't. You know, I don't sit at desk and I write for five hours every day. I might spend my everything in one day. But to get to that point, I have to cry, hate myself really.

• 35:51Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  All this kind of stuff. And I only learnt that last week, that this is okay, this is my process and stop putting pressure self. I shouldn't have done everything by today. It will all happen when I'm walking down the street, scratching my bum next week. But I'd had to tidy the house, repaint the living room, do all this stuff manically in order to get to the moment where I could walk down the shops and then the idea comes and it's.

• 36:13Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  So it's like there's there's this different thing. And the dancing side of it is that I every morning I am so lucky to be alive and we are all lucky to be alive. And it's like every time and it's going back to what we first started talking about is that I spiral. I'm full of dread, I'm I'm full of insecurity, but then I catch myself now because I've learnt to just meditate a little bit. I'm very hyperactive, find it very hard to meditate, but I've

• 36:41Fearne Cotton?

  Same.

• 36:41Speaker 01

  Pause sometimes before I go absolutely mental and just take a bit of reflection and my reflection is always, oh my god, how lucky am I? Oh my, like, you know, I am so lucky. I'm, if you had told me five years ago when I was, I'd spent nineteen years trying to make films, I'd have a film premiere at Sundance and then in four years make seven films and and be able to learn, you know, write a book that hopefully will really start a conversation or just make people be kinder to one another. Like if I you'd have told me that, I would have been like, well, that's my dream. Like, if if if I can just do one of those things, I'd be so happy. So I have to remind myself, you know, it came to me later in life, but now it's like,

• 37:26Speaker 01

  okay, I'm here, I've got a lot of catching up to do, I've got a lot of ideas and I've thank, you know, I've got a massive caffeine addiction, so I'm like, let's go, let's go.

• 37:34Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Let's like, cause chaos in my house.

• 37:39Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  Mad, but I'll get there in the end and that's.

• 37:42Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, I mean, I I needed to hear that today because I I'm writing something at the moment and I'm really bloody tired today and I just, I don't feel clear headed to write. I I was just a bit all over the shop. I was sort of doing laundry this morning and I was just, I can't even open my laptop and and I can really give myself a hard time. Like, well, you've just wasted a whole day. You've got a deadline in June and you've done absolutely fuck all. And actually, what we're trying to do is is force this free flowing creativity into this weird industrial revolution working week and we're like.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Patient system, every kid needs to be able to sit down and focus for five hours and they all need to be at this

• 38:26Fearne Cotton?

  It's mad.

• 38:26Speaker 01

  Level at this point of day at this time. And we are so structured, I think, because of the education to to be like that. And it's that thing of like, actually, if you do your washing and your laundry, because I'm the same. If I have to travel to do a talk, I'm like, I've missed twenty four hours. I should be writing and I haven't got any work done because I've been bloody travelling. And you're like, I can't, just, just chill out. It's okay.

• 38:49Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Actually, you need to do your drawing. You need to stare at your kid's brain deck because you're tired. You need to not be able to open your laptop because today's your day to just settle. And then tomorrow, or it might not even be tomorrow, it might be next week, it will come. And it's like, but it's frustrating, isn't it? And like I said, this is something I've only learnt this week.

• 39:09Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  It's like, I'm like forty three. I'm like.

• 39:12Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, we're learning every day.

• 39:14Speaker 01

  And it's a constant learning, but it's like, it's okay, you know, and actually.

• 39:18Fearne Cotton?

  How what? I wonder if we were ever in the Harlequin Centre in Watford on the same Saturday.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  You know what? I, I would love to do a film, not now, later on in my life, a black and white film. And it's about these angels watching and trying to put people together. Because I say that with my husband, we were friends for fifteen years before we got together. But we found out like his mum had her purse pickpocketed in Lilywhites. I was arrested for pickpocketing in Lilywhites around the same time. And we were like, I wonder if there was like these people trying to put us together, you know?

• 39:52Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  The same thing. It's like, you know, we would have been around the same.

• 39:56Fearne Cotton?

  Same age.

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Causing mischief, like in the same area. And there would have been like, if you'd, if we could rewind time, we were probably in the same nightclub causing.

• 40:04Fearne Cotton?

  I know, in Destinies in Watford.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 40:08Fearne Cotton?

  Marisa.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  Walking down the high street and shoes too big for you.

• 40:14Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, my God. But we're so cuddled. This is freaking me out.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  I've got some hilarious pictures when I'm.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  When I got off the streets and I had no self-confidence and I was really just trying to be like everyone else. And, you know, it was like footballers' wives was all the fashion. So everyone had tan and the nails. And I remember I just.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  Bright orange, like I've got really pale skin. I've got a bit of colour at the moment. This is me with colour because I've been round in the sunshine. But I mean, like. Bright orange skin, like the, you know, the darker lip liner.

• 40:52Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, the dark lip line.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  A silver top from Mark, was it Mark One?

• 40:57Fearne Cotton?

  Mark One.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And a silver miniskirt and a belly button.

• 41:01Fearne Cotton?

  Yeah.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  And high shoes, I couldn't walk in. And I mean, my kids just saw it and they're like, what the hell was going on? I was like, I remember thinking, I looked so cool.

• 41:13Fearne Cotton?

  Oh, yeah. We were the bee's knees. That dark, that brown lip liner with the heather shimmer lipstick, that was chef kiss. Absolutely dreamy.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  It was so bad, it's come back round again, hasn't it?

• 41:23Fearne Cotton?

  It has. Oh, my God. I know. I'm looking at like my stepkids and I'm like, wow, okay, this is what we're doing. It's it's unbelievable. But yeah, I I'm pretty sure we were in either the Harlequin Centre or Barisa at some point at the same time, which is wild, wild. But look, I I just, I can't express with words how much I loved this book and how important I feel it is, as many people will and do. And we just can't wait to talk about it on our book club and get people chatting about it and talking about all of these issues that that really need dissecting. And you, you know, you've told your story so beautifully. And I'm sure it's not easy to keep talking about the same thing over and over again when it's, you know,

• 42:05Fearne Cotton?

  so personal and so deep. But I massively appreciate you talking to us today and just wish you all the luck with the book and all these other brilliant projects and saving art, which I'm here for.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yes, we're gonna do that. That's the next one.

• 42:17Fearne Cotton?

  Yes.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for your support, though, and thanks for helping get the message out there.

• 42:23Fearne Cotton?

  Do you know what? I haven't stopped thinking about that chat with Lorna. I think she's one of the most incredible people I've ever talked to. I love how completely open and honest she is with her story and that she's willing to talk about things that are so difficult so that she can educate us, give us a completely different perspective on homelessness, but also tell us all that there is so much opportunity in life to make great changes and walk down a completely different path. Lorna, thank you so much. So, look, we're in May now. God, we're in May. Do you want to? Juicy summer read recommendation because that's what you're getting this month in Happy Place Book Club. This month, we're going to read Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.

• 43:08Fearne Cotton?

  I love this book. So, two writers are competing for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a famous reclusive heiress. One of them is going to uncover the truth behind one of the most scandalous families of the 20th century. The thing is, heiress Margaret is giving each writer different tantalizing little pieces of her story. I loved reading this book. I read it over Easter on holiday. I loved it. If you want to read along with us, you can join the chat on Instagram at Happy Place Book Club. And I really hope to see you there. All right, for now, a massive thank you again to Lorna, to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios, and to you, you bloody gorgeous.

• 44:16Speaker 07

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• 45:14Speaker 05

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• 45:46Speaker 03

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