Pod Insights Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth More Rosebud - Matt Haig About this episode Matt Haig, the international best-selling author of books such as The Midnight Library, Reasons to Stay Alive, and his new release The Midnight Train, is our guest today. And this is one of our most in-depth and fascinating ever discussions of mental health and the true nature of depression. Matt's observations are genuinely illuminating, and full of hope and advice for anyone who has experienced despair. Matt also talks about shop-lifting as a teenager, being ADHD and autistic, and the first book he fell in love with. He talks about meeting his wife, going to Ibiza, and getting drunk in his French oral. He talks about why he writes. This is a refreshing and open conversation, full of wisdom and perception. Our thanks to Matt for this brilliant conversation.
Matt's new book The Midnight Train is out now, published by Canongate.
Enjoy this.
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Transcript 13,223 words · 5 speakers
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0:32 Speaker 01 This is Gyles Brandreth and Harriet Jane. We're together with you again for another episode of More Rosebud. Cue the music. We're here, we're ready, and we're quite keen.
1:01 Speaker 01 Welcome to More Rosebud. I'm Gyles Brandreth and with me, well, actually not actually with me today, but on the other side of London. Because our More Rosebud and our Rosebud, they come to you from London, England. And I am in southwest London. My name is Gyles Brandreth. And in, is it north London that I find you?
1:22 Speaker 02 Yes. North London.
1:24 Speaker 01 North London, north and south London. I used to live north of the River Thames all my life. And when I had to move south of the River Thames, I felt so embarrassed. I felt ashamed. Have you always lived north of the river?
1:38 Speaker 02 No, I used to live in Brixton, Hearn Hill, various south London places. I love south London, actually. Yeah, I'm very open-minded about areas of London. I think I've lived in all four, east, west, south and north.
1:54 Speaker 01 You are a very open-minded person.
1:57 Speaker 02 I am.
1:57 Speaker 01 Fantastic. And I'm becoming more open-minded. In fact, I was on television yesterday morning and the subject came up. We were discussing people reading raunchy books on the tube.
2:12 Speaker 02 Oh, that's a good subject.
2:14 Speaker 01 It was a good subject because apparently a lot of people wouldn't do this, though they would admit to reading raunchy books.
2:23 Speaker 02 Is it because they don't want to get hot under the collar on the District Line, which is fair enough, I think?
2:28 Speaker 01 Yeah, because on the District Line you sometimes do, only because the air conditioning is so poor on an old line like that, whereas on the Elizabeth Line, it's always cool. I, as you know, as a child, loved the London Underground and went round and round on the Circle Line.
2:42 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah.
2:43 Speaker 01 Yeah. It was also, I confessed, on the programme, where, when in 1960, D H Lawrence's then notorious novel, Lady Chatterley's Lover, was first published, and I, regular listeners to our diaries, which we're not doing today, that's next week, will know, as a boy, I sent off for a copy when it was first published. It had been banned from the 1920s up until about 1960. An unexpurgated version had not appeared in print, but Penguin Books published one, got away with it, and I wrote off. And a copy was sent to my school, was seen by the headmaster, confiscated it, but I was given it back at the end of term.
3:27 Speaker 01 And I took the book back to London, where I lived, and I didn't feel I could be seen to read it at home.
3:34 Speaker 02 Yes.
3:35 Speaker 01 So I thought, where am I going to go to read the book? And I was only a little boy, you know, I was 11 or 12, so I didn't feel like I could go and sit in the Lion's Corner House with a cup of tea and a penguin biscuit. I didn't feel I could go to the museums, they were one of my other haunts, you know, the Natural History Museum, the Victorian Album Museum, didn't feel like I could go there.
3:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
3:55 Speaker 01 So I thought, I'll go on the Underground. So I went round and round on the Circle Line, reading my copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
4:04 Speaker 02 It's quite a strange, sorry Giles, it's quite a strange choice, because it's much more exhibitionist to do it on the Tube, because everyone can see what you're reading on the Tube. In the Natural History Museum, you could have just sat in a corner, had the book on a desk, and no one would have, everyone would have thought, oh, that sweet little boy's reading something improving about birds or Darwin. But as it is, you sat on the Circle Line with your, the book in full view of all the other passengers.
4:33 Speaker 01 It was a very recognisable book too.
4:35 Speaker 02 Of course.
4:36 Speaker 01 A lot of publicity about it. It was in the Penguin Book Colours.
4:39 Speaker 02 Yeah.
4:39 Speaker 01 Had on the cover the eagle, I think it's an eagle, that they'd had on the cover of all the D H Lawrence novels. So you couldn't, it was, you had to recognise it, but it didn't bother me because even though I was only eleven or twelve years old, I owned a briefcase. Which I've kept, it's in my memoirs boxes, a old fashioned, middle aged businessman's briefcase. Which had a big top that I could open and I positioned Lady Chet's lover inside this briefcase. And the briefcase was on my lap and I went round and round on the circle line, turning the pages.
5:21 Speaker 01 And but I tell you what I confessed on the television yesterday. Is I read this book, but I don't think I really got it.
5:31 Speaker 02 No.
5:32 Speaker 01 I got the bits that I knew were the saucy bits because I could tell because there was, you know, rude words. But I don't think I really quite fathomed what was going on.
5:44 Speaker 02 Well, I'm sure you didn't, Giles. I'm very glad to hear it.
5:48 Speaker 01 Um, anyway, uh, so they were quite surprised on the programme to find that I'd become, I was more uninhibited than they realised. And I think this is due to the influence of spending time with you, Harriet Jane. I think because of that, some of my inhibitions have begun to disappear. I've become, I'm hanging a bit looser.
6:10 Speaker 02 Hmm.
6:11 Speaker 01 I used to do. Something else that we discussed on the programme yesterday was this, and it's relevant to our special guest today. Because we're not here to talk about saucy books, though, can I ask you if, before we go on to what I want to say. Uh, where are you on the, the, the saucy book, um, arena?
6:32 Speaker 02 I've just read such a good one.
6:34 Speaker 01 Ah.
6:35 Speaker 02 I haven't got on, you know what everyone's into now, which is fairy. Is it fairy porn? Yeah. I haven't got on to that, but you never know.
6:45 Speaker 01 This is fairies and demons and.
6:47 Speaker 02 Yeah. A mixture between fantasy and erotic, which I guess is a good crossover. Um, but no, the one I read recently, I might have mentioned it before, is called All Fours by Miranda July. It's so fun. It's raunchy, but very clever, very original and very funny. And it's brilliant. I highly recommend it to anyone listening.
7:14 Speaker 01 Have you finished it?
7:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah.
7:17 Speaker 01 When we next meet, would you lend it to me? I have just been reading Georgette Hair. And this will be quite a contrast. I read the Georgette Hair because we found ourselves talking about her the other day, and she was hugely popular in the nineteen forties, fifties, sixties.
7:34 Speaker 02 My mum loved her.
7:35 Speaker 01 You said your mother patients really loved Georgette Hair. And then you told me about your mother reading books in bed, smoking her silk cut.
7:42 Speaker 02 Uh, and. With a teesnade. She had a teesnade.
7:45 Speaker 01 And I thought, that's such a lovely, comfortable picture that I actually, you know, but I don't smoke. I almost imagined myself with my silk cut, with the nicotine rising to the ceiling. I love a cup of tea in bed and reading the Georgette Hair. So I've been channeling your mum, reading the Georgette Hair. And I thought, I'm going to read this. Uh, and I've so enjoyed it. That's what surprised me. I've been reading it every night. I've been reading, and I've read quite a lot of it. I've been reading about twenty pages a night.
8:15 Speaker 02 Oh, it's a real page turner, is it?
8:17 Speaker 01 It's well, it's a murder mystery. It's really pretty obvious. Uh, so, uh, I might swap my Georgette Hair for your, what is this lady's name? What's your author called?
8:27 Speaker 02 Miranda July.
8:29 Speaker 01 Miranda July.
8:31 Speaker 02 Um, no, she's a writer, a film director, a thinker, a brilliant person.
8:36 Speaker 01 When is she appearing on More Rosebud on a Tuesday?
8:39 Speaker 02 She must, she must. She lives in America.
8:41 Speaker 01 Let us do that. Let's make that happen. Also yesterday on television, we had another item talking about marriage. And people, they interviewed, the survey had been done of, I think, two thousand couples, married couples across the United Kingdom. And where they were happiest, where married couples were happiest. And people answering this survey, there were two thousand of them all over the UK, by a long way, and you asked if you were extremely happy, happy, quite happy, not very happy, unhappy within your marriage. And we focused on the extremely happy people. And the extremely happily married people were all in the north of England, all of them,
9:26 Speaker 01 by a long way.
9:27 Speaker 02 Oh.
9:28 Speaker 01 The least happily married people were in Cambridge. Only sixty percent there expressed themselves as being extremely happy. The presenter said, oh, that's because it's university people, although, you know. I said, no, no, no, no. Oxford, in the city of Oxford, thirty-two percent say they're extremely happy. But if you go up north to places like Leeds, to Bradford, but most of all to Sheffield, they are, the majority of people in Sheffield are reporting themselves as extremely happy in their marriages.
10:02 Speaker 02 How wonderful. I must move to Sheffield.
10:05 Speaker 01 And our guest today was born in Sheffield.
10:09 Speaker 02 Oh.
10:10 Speaker 01 This is the whole point of why I'm leading up to this. So I, we're going to discover what his family's story was like. But the point is, it was a blessed union, at least at the time of conception.
10:20 Speaker 02 Jolly good.
10:21 Speaker 01 But like many of our Rosemary podcasts, life is more complicated. We don't want just black and white stories, we're being extremely happy or extremely sad. Life is full of complexity. That is what I have learnt from you, Ariatrain.
10:36 Speaker 02 Good.
10:37 Speaker 01 This has been a very strange few years for me. I know today I'm talking all the time. But actually, what I've discovered in the last three years is it's more interesting to listen than to talk. We're going to be listening in a moment to a remarkable writer called Matt Hague.
10:55 Speaker 01 If people have heard of him, probably the first time they heard of him is because he had a number one bestseller called Reasons to Stay Alive, which I think, given the title, I'm not surprised, was about forty five weeks in the bestseller list. I have to say, I found this both a hugely enjoyable conversation, at times a very moving conversation, and another conversation that for me was a learning experience.
11:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly.
11:23 Speaker 01 I am honoured by the openness that people show in our conversations. I think that Matt Aig is a really delightful human being. I now respect him as well as like him.
11:36 Speaker 02 Yeah, and I should say the new book that he has out now is called The Midnight Train, highly recommended.
11:42 Speaker 01 Our fair dealing with him, because that's why it came in. Before we go, you'll be pleased to know, Harriet, that our show that's coming to the Edinburgh Fringe in August continues to be the top selling show in Assembly George Square. People are buying tickets in advance, and I don't know if you saw this on our Rosebud Reflections, but there is people, there are people coming from Australia, just flying from Australia to Edinburgh to see our show.
12:22 Speaker 02 Oh, gosh.
12:23 Speaker 01 Which I think puts some obligation on us for the show to be okay.
12:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
12:28 Speaker 01 Also, I want to work out how we're going to meet people afterwards, because that's part of what we want to do. And so instead of, oh god, we've got people to come, actually thinking, wow, people have done us the honour of coming from Australia to Edinburgh to meet us, to see our show, let's actually have some, you know, cookies and cream ice cream waiting for them, and we can have a chat.
12:50 Speaker 02 Absolutely, yeah, that would be fun. I mean, I'd probably enjoy that bit more than the show. I think I'm going to be terrified when I do the show, Giles, but hopefully you get used to it after a while.
12:57 Speaker 01 I think you'd, well, you do. I mean, I was doing one this weekend in Worthing, and I was interested, I thought, do you know this theatre in Worthing where I'm performing today, they told me in June it will be a hundred years old. I thought a hundred years, for a hundred years, people have coming out of this stage. And everybody comes out, they bring out, you bring out your own problems, nervousness, anxiety, gifts. Everybody brings who they are to the party. And that's what I have learnt from Rosebud. I, I think, till I met you, Harriet, until I started doing Rosebud, lived in an echo chamber, or in a series of rooms where I met similar people,
13:42 Speaker 01 similar backgrounds, similar university education, similar interests in, say, politics or theatre or broadcast, the things I've been doing. And thanks to you, and thanks to our guests, and thanks to our listeners, my world has been expanded. And in the next hour, I think your world will be expanded too, because Matt Haig is one of the world's most successful bestselling authors, but he's also a fascinating human being and a delightful fellow. So I think you are in for a treat. So Harriet and I are going to sit back and listen to the conversation that we recently recorded with bestselling author and human being, Matt Haig.
14:22 Speaker 02 A quick trigger warning before we begin. In this episode, there's some discussion of depression and suicide.
14:30 Speaker 01 Cue the music.
14:43 Speaker 01 Matt Haig, international bestselling novelist and delightful human being, born on the third of July, nineteen seventy five. Let me simply ask you, what is your very first memory?
14:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, it's a simple question, isn't it? But it's, I think, you know, I, I, I know one of my first memories was definitely falling into a patch of stinging nettles in our back garden. When we lived in North Nottinghamshire, in a village called Ramby. Wasn't a picturesque village particularly because we had the A1 just literally beyond our hedge. And my nan had been looking after me. My parents were out and I fell into a patch of stinging nettles. And the thing about stinging nettles and being a toddler is if you're trying to get out of the stinging nettles,
15:41 Speaker 03 you're making the situation worse because you're getting stung in your effort to escape. So I think that was my first, certainly my first unhappy memory. But it may also be tied to a slightly happier one because my favorite thing to do in the garden, when my nan or my mum was out, like hanging washing on the line, they would have a little yellow plastic wash basket. And I used to occupy myself by throwing it in the air and trying to catch it on my head. And that's, that's my, that was my main hobby for a year or so.
16:17 Speaker 01 We have two significant early memories. One, the happy one of playing with that yellow laundry basket.
16:22 Speaker 03 That might be why I fell into the stinging nettles. So they might be interconnected.
16:26 Speaker 01 They could be. And the stinging nettles, and it making it worse when you scrabble around.
16:30 Speaker 03 Yeah.
16:30 Speaker 01 It's possibly a metaphor for life.
16:32 Speaker 03 Well, absolutely. I think so. Certainly my life. I mean, yeah, absolutely. A writer's life.
16:37 Speaker 01 A writer's life and also a life of, in the early parts, a lot of suffering. We get to be discussing that, I think, I hope, in detail. You mentioned your nan and your parents. Who was your nan? She was your mother's mother?
16:51 Speaker 03 Yes, but my mother was adopted. So she wasn't her mother by blood, but my, my nan was a very special person. I'm pro, you know, after my parents was the most significant person in my life, at least when my sister was born when I was little. She was probably the kindest person I knew.
17:07 Speaker 01 What was her name?
17:09 Speaker 03 Flora. But she was a very strong willed, let's say, kind but strong willed. She was the person you'd go to if your tooth needed pulling out. And she would do the whole thing with the string and the door handle. And.
17:25 Speaker 01 Literally with the string and the door handle?
17:26 Speaker 03 I think she did once, yes, but I, I can remember her always being the person, and there was blood involved. And she was not particularly strong on corporal punishment, but I can remember wooden spoons.
17:40 Speaker 03 Um. Her standing there, her silhouette in the doorway when she babysat for me and my sister. If we'd been naughty, she would stand in the doorway. We'd see this big silhouette of my nan. She'd be holding a wooden spoon, not actually to use it on us, but to sort of look threatening and menacing in the doorway. But she was, she was a great, um, kind person in lots of ways and very strong-willed. And I have lots of very happy memories.
18:09 Speaker 01 Was she a widow?
18:10 Speaker 03 She was, she was never divorced, but she separated from my mum's adopted father. They had a very difficult marriage. He was a farmer. I don't think he was ever fully on board with the adopting. So there was all kinds of problematic things. And I think my mum herself, as well of having the insecurity of being adopted, she also saw a lot of domestic turmoil. I mean, he was a farmer with a gun. And I think at one point he threatened my nan with, with a gun. And there was, he, he was drank heavily. And yeah, there was a lot of, uh, stuff.
18:52 Speaker 01 So your mum, how was she about being adopted? She was clearly very aware of it.
18:58 Speaker 03 Very aware of it. Um, my mum, I think, has had lots of insecurities about that. And when I was born, uh, my mum had, uh, postnatal depression for, uh, quite a while because she still had it when my sister was born three years later. Yes. And I, I know all this because she gave me to read. She had one of those five-year diaries. And you'd read sort of like the same day in nineteen seventy-five, nineteen seventy-six, nineteen seventy-seven. And it should be in roughly the same situation and having to call my dad from work because she couldn't look after me and things like that. So yes, it's quite.
19:33 Speaker 01 And what was her life? What, her name, her age? How did she earn a living?
19:39 Speaker 03 My mum.
19:40 Speaker 01 Yes.
19:40 Speaker 03 My mum's still here and she's, uh, called Mary. And, um, she ended up being a head teacher of a primary school. So she did a lot of good things.
19:49 Speaker 01 And who was your father?
19:51 Speaker 03 My dad, my dad's Richard and he was an architect. When I was growing up, he always, he, he worked in London, but he commuted. So he was always back very late. Often I didn't see him until about 10 P M. At night. But if I was still up, I would take our springer Spaniard for one last walk to the train station and pick him up. And no, my dad's a very gentle man, very, very good role model in the sense that he didn't present one idea of being a man. I mean, he had a very, quite privileged upbringing, went to boarding school and everything, got a place at Oxford.
20:31 Speaker 03 But then had what I think was a kind of breakdown at Oxford in his first year. Left to, because he wasn't doing what he wanted to do, which was architecture. And then he left to Sheffield University to do architecture. And I think within his life story, there was a lot, you know, I, I always had this sense that it's better to do. And sometimes even life saving to do what you want to do with your life, rather than what outwardly looks academically the most impressive.
21:01 Speaker 01 So he did what he wanted to do ultimately. And did he marry who he wanted to marry? Was that marriage a success?
21:07 Speaker 03 They're still together and.
21:09 Speaker 01 And doesn't necessarily mean he's a success.
21:11 Speaker 03 Well, I mean.
21:11 Speaker 01 What was his name again?
21:12 Speaker 03 Richard. Richard Hague, yes. And yes, they've, they've been together since their student years. My mum was a teacher trainers college and my dad, yeah, my mum.
21:24 Speaker 01 Can you picture them together? What's the best of them together? Describe them having a good time together, your parents.
21:31 Speaker 03 Well, they love, they, they are quite inspirational, but they're very active and they love going to the theatre. So my mum, my mum definitely loves going to the theatre. My dad has slept in a lot of theatres. So when I picture them together, it's probably my mum taking my dad to see a play.
21:55 Speaker 01 And the worst of them together?
21:57 Speaker 03 Well, I've probably been involved with a lot of those. Probably my, I mean, I caused them a lot of stress in my uh.
22:05 Speaker 01 In the shoplifting years, which we'll come to.
22:07 Speaker 03 Teenage years, yeah.
22:08 Speaker 01 Yeah. Let's stick to you as a small boy. You are born and your sister's born three years later?
22:13 Speaker 03 Yes.
22:14 Speaker 01 And postnatal depression is part and parcel of this story. Are you aware of that as a little person?
22:19 Speaker 03 No, I don't think you are. I I mean, you know, it's beyond my memory anyway, but I don't think I would have been or ever really was until my mum talked about it to us.
22:30 Speaker 01 And do you feel in a sense guilty about it? The benefit, it's called postnatal depression.
22:35 Speaker 03 Yeah.
22:36 Speaker 01 Somehow links it with the birth and so.
22:38 Speaker 03 Well, I think, I think. Yeah, I do. I think I feel like, I feel, I think this has been, and I don't think it's totally tied to my mother. But I think I've always had a profound sense of having to justify or prove my worth or justify my existence. And so that possible uh uncertainty at the start um was probably always there. Not that it was anyone's fault, it was just there. And I think it's possibly passed down from my mother
23:18 Speaker 03 because of her insecurity over being herself abandoned. So I think as her first child, that came with a lot of complicated issues because her mother abandoned her at that point. So I was born and she loved me almost too much in a way, in the sense that she didn't feel she could be responsible for me because she'd never known family in that sense herself.
23:44 Speaker 01 And when she phoned your father at work saying, I can't cope looking after Matt, what does that mean she couldn't cope? She just?
23:52 Speaker 03 She literally didn't feel equipped. She felt like something bad was going to happen to me and um she wouldn't be able to.
24:03 Speaker 01 So it's almost like a panic attack. I don't know what to do next. Please come and help. Why do you describe even this early part of your life as not being very happy?
24:13 Speaker 03 Um, well, no, actually, my, up until the sort of adolescent years, it wasn't unhappy. I think I was a little out of place always.
24:25 Speaker 03 Um, much, much later, I'd be diagnosed with autism and ADHD. And that would make sense for a few things, but I, I, my parents had to move my primary school at the age of ten, I think. Because there'd been no incident, but I just wasn't fitting in. I'd just stare out of windows and sort of like um be very distant.
24:48 Speaker 01 Did you have friends outside of the family? How were you with your sister? Were you good with her?
24:52 Speaker 03 Very good. Me and my sister were very close. Still are. Um, but yeah, we were very, very close because we had a lot of time where it was just us two.
25:03 Speaker 01 What's she called?
25:04 Speaker 03 Phoebe.
25:04 Speaker 01 Phoebe?
25:05 Speaker 03 Yes, Phoebe Rose Haig. I was always jealous because she had a middle name, Rose. And I, I was just playing on Matthew and no middle name. So I, at the age of eight. I saw my granddad on my father's side was into the family tree. And so he traced it back to seventeenth century. And he's, he's, there'd been someone in the line called Zeribabel.
25:30 Speaker 01 Who? What?
25:33 Speaker 03 With a Z, Zeribabel. It's an, I think it's.
25:36 Speaker 01 Zeribabel? I never heard of this name.
25:37 Speaker 03 It's in the Old Testament, I believe.
25:39 Speaker 01 Zeribabel. Great. How do we spell this?
25:41 Speaker 03 Z E R E B U B E L, I believe.
25:47 Speaker 01 Wonderful. There's going to be a whole flurry of them now.
25:49 Speaker 03 I, I decided to, especially as, at that time in the, what was it, early eighties? There were a lot of Matthews about, a lot of young boys called Matthew. And I think we had five Matthews in my class. So I felt so ordinary. And then I thought, if I just insert a Zeribabel right in the middle of my name, that'll, that'll make everything better.
26:09 Speaker 01 And it did, did it? For a while.
26:11 Speaker 03 Well, in my head, Matt Zed.
26:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, and it's brilliant. That Zed is so strong.
26:15 Speaker 03 Exactly. But no, it was never official. But I've still actually to this day on, um. You know, blinking social media, Instagram, my name is Matt Zed Haig.
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27:05 Speaker 01 And the next school you go to is what, after 10?
27:09 Speaker 03 Well, at 10, I was moved again because that was the school I wasn't thinking into. So I had a year in a very small, idyllic little primary school with, I think, only 28 people. It was so small, I was in the football team, which, you know, I mean, they had everyone in the football team. You know, so I was there for a year and that was heavenly. But then that made the sort of juxtaposition of going to big school a bit scarier. And at secondary school, that's when I started to struggle socially, I'd say, in a big way, where I went inside myself and had difficulties.
27:49 Speaker 01 What does this mean? Try to explain how you're behaving at school.
27:52 Speaker 03 Well, internally, I just felt very different and sort of had feelings that I couldn't explain in terms of just not fitting in. And I think, again, going back to, even though I wasn't adopted, I often felt like, my mum never knew, you know, where she fit on like any sort of identity, so like class. So she would often make herself very middle class. And so, you know, should have your radio for and, you know, all the symbols of middle class, as my mum would be. But then we lived in a very working class area.
28:34 Speaker 03 So I didn't know where I fit in because my mum was a teacher, my dad was an architect. But I was in this quite tough working class school. So automatically, there was a kind of disconnect of where I fit in. So to fit in, often I would sort of be very downwardly mobile and sort of like be the naughtiest one. Or gravitate to the naughtiest.
28:56 Speaker 01 Any subjects you were good at?
28:58 Speaker 03 Um. It's interesting because one of the subjects I ended up doing at university, history. Um. I was told I was special needs by the history teacher at that time. I was told I was special needs. In history and in art, but I was never told. What those needs were or what was the special. It was just.
29:19 Speaker 01 It's a very odd way of using the term special needs, isn't it?
29:23 Speaker 03 You know, I didn't know anyone who was uh labelled autistic. Autism. Was Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, wasn't it? That was autism. And then, you know, obviously the spectrum's been widened and the definition's been widened since then. But but I I just had this difference. It wasn't a naughtiness specifically. But I was difficult for teachers in that I wasn't concentrating ever. I would be chatting away, staring out the window. Being very blank, doing something else, fidgeting, being on a calculator when I shouldn't be, whatever.
29:57 Speaker 01 And now you've been told now that you this this presents as actually what would be called autism. And does that stay with you forever? Are you still autistic?
30:06 Speaker 03 Yes, because it's a state. It's not like a mental illness, like anxiety or depression where you can, where it ebbs and flows. It's kind of a condition.
30:13 Speaker 01 It's a state of being.
30:14 Speaker 03 But obviously, as with everything else in life, yeah, so I don't know. I don't know if in a hundred years' time. I will be diagnosed with something else or whatever, but in twenty twenty six, if you have this thing, you know, which. I believe is autism, you are, you know, different in lots of ways.
30:34 Speaker 01 We're going back to nineteen eighties when you are at school, you are an undiagnosed person with autism and undiagnosed suffering from ADHD. And you're feeling a bit of an outsider, not in the way that some of our, we often have guests who felt like outsiders. But loved being it, loved what was going on in their mind was exciting to them. They felt I'm slightly different and they enjoyed that. Whereas you are feeling in a grey dark space.
31:00 Speaker 03 Not always. I mean, I I I liked.
31:05 Speaker 03 Imagining and I liked stories. I did like writing stories and I like reading stories. And even though I grew up in a town without a bookshop and without a cinema, so it's the archetypal small town that you kind of want to escape from. We did have a very good library in the centre of town. And it's still there. It was brand new then. And it's unusually for a library, it's it's got a lot of glass. So it was like a giant um conservatory greenhouse uh in the centre of town with a park around it. And I I would sit there after school before my parents um got home from work and I would just read whatever it was.
31:45 Speaker 01 What was the what was the one book that you bring back?
31:48 Speaker 03 Well, I often mention uh there was a book by an American writer called Essie Hinton called The Outsiders, which is uh fitting as I was a bit of an outsider, which I loved because it felt so different at times. But everything teachers had encouraged me to read because it was a book about quite problematic teenagers who were in teenage gangs and different things. But at the same time, they had this sensitive side to them. They liked Robert Frost poems. They liked sunsets. They appreciated art and music. I thought, oh, this might be me, a little bit, you know, not perfect in lots of ways, but it had this sensitive side. So that was the book. And Essie Hinton herself was, I think, nineteen years old when she wrote that.
32:29 Speaker 01 Did you have a teacher who took a particular interest in you?
32:32 Speaker 03 Um Mrs. Curwell, my English teacher, was a very good teacher and she encouraged me to write creatively. And she was one of those who wasn't so bothered about your academic performance, but just had a passion for books and the subject. There's an amalgam. A lot of my characters are either Mrs. Curwell or my nan as a sort of hybrid with a little bit of my mum in them sometimes. So between my nan and Mrs. Curwell, there's been a lot of fictionalized versions.
32:58 Speaker 01 Did you have a girlfriend when you were at school?
33:01 Speaker 03 Well, I, at the age of eleven, I, I, I wasn't particularly successful with girls as a teenager. But at the age of eleven, I had a sort of girlfriend with a capital F friend called Ruth. For six months, we was, we called each other boyfriend and girlfriend. That basically meant we just occasionally held hands at school. And also we went to see Santa Claus the movie together.
33:25 Speaker 01 Hmm.
33:25 Speaker 03 With, um, who's that, Dudley Moore, I think.
33:27 Speaker 01 That's lovely. That's a proper relationship. Exactly. Holding hands for six months and going to Santa Claus the movie. That's a proper date.
33:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, exactly.
33:35 Speaker 01 That's a Christmas movie.
33:36 Speaker 03 But I remember when we broke up, neither of us were particularly sad about it.
33:40 Speaker 01 You moved on. That's good. This is the way to approach relationships, actually. Go to a good movie and then move on.
33:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:46 Speaker 01 That's lovely. But when, a little bit later, did you have proper girlfriends?
33:49 Speaker 03 Uh, not, uh, I think I had something like five years of wilderness. And then sixteen, I, I had a girlfriend for three weeks. And I was a terrible boyfriend because I think I broke up with her by letter. Rather than face to face. But I like to say that's because she wasn't in when I called. But I don't know, I think I knocked on her door and didn't wait around very long and then just.
34:15 Speaker 01 What, what did the letter say? This isn't, this isn't working. Thank you and good night.
34:20 Speaker 03 Yeah. Oh dear.
34:22 Speaker 01 Well, at least you did it. Look, nowadays people ghost one another.
34:25 Speaker 03 This is true.
34:26 Speaker 01 You at least dropped a letter around at her house. Which was a nice thing to do. So these are the wilderness years in which shoplifting becomes a feature.
34:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:34 Speaker 01 Explain how this began. Can you remember the first time you did this and tell us precisely what happened?
34:41 Speaker 03 I, I had a friend, uh, I, I, I won't, uh, yeah, I won't give his real name. Because he's probably managing Tesco's by now and yeah.
34:50 Speaker 01 He's probably in charge of security at Tesco's because he knows how it should be done. It's a big problem for Tesco now, shoplifting.
34:57 Speaker 03 Yes.
34:58 Speaker 01 But anyway, go back. What age are you?
35:00 Speaker 03 Uh, well, I was very young when I stole my first, I I I was eleven, eleven, let's say eleven. I was eleven and um he was already a shoplifter. He was one of the few kids who was friendly to me at that time, so I was his friend. And we were in a sports shop, a little independent sports shop, which is terrible. And I think the first thing I ever stole was a tennis ball, which is a ridiculous thing to steal.
35:32 Speaker 01 Why?
35:33 Speaker 03 Because he was, he did it and I wanted to prove to him that I was proper, like proper, like not, not this sort of like posh boy. I was just like, I don't know why. And it was just ridiculous.
35:49 Speaker 01 And did you get an adrenaline rush from it?
35:51 Speaker 03 But, no, I didn't. I felt massive amounts of guilt and I imagined ways in which I could give the tennis ball back to the shop. And I didn't do it again for quite a while after that. Um, and yeah, I just hated myself. I think what happened later on was I was back into it when I was like thirteen, fourteen. And my, you know, I'm not making excuses, but I'm contextualizing. My nan had died. Um, my, I moved school again because we had to move school at fourteen. And there's lots of sorts of turmoil going on. I'd discovered alcohol. I just wasn't feeling a very good person.
36:33 Speaker 03 I didn't like myself very much. And so by that.
36:37 Speaker 01 You discovered alcohol. What what does that mean?
36:40 Speaker 03 It means I used to get very drunk.
36:46 Speaker 01 You're age fourteen?
36:47 Speaker 03 Well, fourteen, yes, I was starting to drink. I was certainly starting to smoke at that age.
36:53 Speaker 01 And where do you get the alcohol and where do you get the cigarettes and how do you afford it?
36:57 Speaker 03 There were sort of like older boys and who who, there was always an older boy who you would give the money to. And then he would get you the alcohol.
37:06 Speaker 01 So you're in a state of turmoil.
37:08 Speaker 03 Hmm.
37:09 Speaker 01 You're doing shoplifting, you're drinking. Smoking, you're, as it were, in some ways consciously wanting to be down there with with these other chaps.
37:16 Speaker 03 Guilt's coming back now, Giles.
37:17 Speaker 01 Uh, and what are your parents? Are they noticing this? Are the teachers noting this?
37:21 Speaker 03 My parents only noticed it when I got arrested, which is how you notice things.
37:26 Speaker 01 But hold on, I would, I remember being very sensitive with my children to the smell of tobacco. They thought you couldn't smell it. You can smell it. Yeah. Yards away and alcohol.
37:37 Speaker 03 Yes.
37:38 Speaker 01 So.
37:38 Speaker 03 Well, what I used to do. Well.
37:41 Speaker 01 Or not.
37:43 Speaker 03 I think she must have, but actually I used to smoke ten cigarettes. And I used to smoke all of them on an evening. And then I'd wait half an hour before my mum said, and I would have extra strong mints for my breath. And on my route home, I remember, uh, like if there was a particular sort of smelling plant, I I'd just pick up leaves and rub my hands lots. And it probably didn't work, but I, uh, well, they might have been in denial, but I never had that conversation.
38:14 Speaker 01 So you were smoking, you were drinking and you were shoplifting and one day you were arrested. Tell us about the day of the arrest.
38:22 Speaker 03 It was, it boots the chemist. And I was showing off again. Um, to a couple of my friends, because by this point, and I may have been living in Nottinghamshire. But I'd fooled my foolish teenage brain into thinking I was like a modern day Robin Hood. Because I I had these little rules. I didn't at this point steal from like small local businesses or. And I I always gave, I I stole things I didn't want and just gave to other people and stuff like that. So I had this silly little. Fake moral code. And so anyway, I went in to booze and the two items I stole.
39:06 Speaker 03 And I do remember this vividly was a crunchy bar and some wet look hair gel. Back in the days I had hair. And it was the nineteen eighties where everyone had wet look hair. And. There were a lot, uh Boots was not the place to steal from because plain clothes detectives who must have followed me and my two friends to the precinct in town and
39:35 Speaker 03 the, I just remember seeing the police officer and the store detective and the store detective pointing over at us and saying that was him. And at that point,
39:47 Speaker 03 I was hit by a wall because I was, I was a nervous, sensitive person. Uh, you know, who, who, who just did stupid things. And so as soon as I got into trouble for said stupid thing, it all, and I am so grateful I did get arrested because that was obviously the last time I did that.
40:08 Speaker 01 What happened at the moment of arrest? What hap- what happened?
40:10 Speaker 03 While we were put in the police car.
40:12 Speaker 01 I mean, the policeman says, you, I'm arresting you. Is that what happens?
40:16 Speaker 03 I can remember the shame of being asked if I would need handcuffs and I said, no, I will go to the car. And the shame because it was a long walk because this was a pedestrianized area to the police car. I knew it was a small town where everyone, if you didn't know everyone, you recognized pretty much everybody. So you're walking past people that your mum knew and you're sort of like going, you're just excruciating, you know, when you want to just sort of like disappear outside of your own skin. And I ended up in the police cell at the station, which was around the corner from our house. And just the dread of knowing they were phoning my mum, who was a head teacher at this point
40:59 Speaker 03 from school. So it would, it would look bad on her, knowing how furious my mother was going to be with me. She was furious, but the fact that she was furious at the police station uh saved me from getting any kind of record because they thought, okay, he's going to get more than, more than enough punishment. And I was grounded, you know, pretty much forever. Yes, I, I, I look back now and wonder, you know, if I'd have known things about my mind, like no, new, you know, ADHD famously has a impulsive streak.
41:33 Speaker 03 And you you can have medication for ADHD. You know, when when you look at sort of prison populations, they've they've done a survey. I can't get the percentage exactly right, but I think it is something as high as forty percent of prison populations have undiagnosed ADHD. And I so I do play it back in my mind and wonder why I needed such a big shock like to get arrested, to actually stop doing silly things.
41:56 Speaker 01 Did your mother drive you home or did you?
41:58 Speaker 03 Um, we walked home because, yeah, really close to the police station, walked home.
42:02 Speaker 01 And did you speak to her while you were walking?
42:03 Speaker 03 I can picture her face. I can't remember the words. I can just remember this face like thunder. She was very good at that and I just felt so small. And it was the last time I shoplifted, but definitely not the last time I had that feeling of regret. I think I was sort of training my brain to have that sense of sort of self loathing.
42:29 Speaker 01 And was it, would you describe that as the worst moment of your life?
42:33 Speaker 03 Up till that point, no, I wouldn't really. I really struggled when my nan died because she'd looked like she she'd gone through breast cancer and looked like she was on the mend and then suddenly she'd, so it was quite a shock the way my nan died. And even though, you know, she was well into her eighties and
42:52 Speaker 03 it wasn't a shock in that sense. I hadn't known anyone die before and because my nan had been so close and I think she'd been a s- something that had held us all together and certainly held me together and kept me, sounds silly, but kept me good.
43:07 Speaker 01 You said you were grounded by your mother. That meant you couldn't go her out, I mean, basically.
43:11 Speaker 03 Yes.
43:11 Speaker 01 And did you stop the smoking and the drinking? Did you?
43:15 Speaker 03 No. Um, I possibly did for about a week, but um, I used to.
43:22 Speaker 01 How was your father reacting to this? Was? Did he talk to you about it?
43:27 Speaker 03 He was just very disappointed. He wasn't a shouter. So I thi- but I think in a way that was worse. Because it was just like this confusion and disappointment is actually as powerful as anything, isn't it? Like when someone expected you to be something and you're you're not bad. You know, because if if if someone's screaming at you, then you've got something to re- react against and defend yourself. But that disappointment. That that that actually hurts more than anything.
43:54 Speaker 01 But you went on going to school?
43:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, went on going to school. And I I went to sixth form and I somehow managed to get um some A levels. Um.
44:05 Speaker 01 Well, good enough to get you into the University of Hull.
44:07 Speaker 03 Yes. Um, I mean, my French is what let me down. I I I I chose French. As a subject, wasn't particularly good at it. And again, was struggling very much, Giles, with my confidence. I couldn't speak very well. So in the French oral GCSE. I felt to boost my confidence, I should have a glass of French wine.
44:32 Speaker 01 Of course.
44:34 Speaker 03 Before the oral exam.
44:37 Speaker 03 And so I went in there, and this is in the morning. So this is ten in the morning. And I went in there and I had clearly red crimson teeth.
44:50 Speaker 03 Um, I think I I might have even been inventing French words. Everything sounded.
44:57 Speaker 03 But it might not have been.
44:57 Speaker 01 Well, you should have got an A mark, a hundred percent. Entering into the spirit of it. Well, well done.
45:06 Speaker 03 Oh, not really. But so so I I yeah, I I did very well in English and history. So I ended up um going to. University something somehow, I yeah.
45:16 Speaker 01 And you arrived at Hull and are you still in turmoil in your head? Are you still?
45:20 Speaker 03 Yes.
45:20 Speaker 01 You're you're a bit all over the place still. You're still smoking.
45:23 Speaker 03 I've still got very.
45:24 Speaker 01 Drinking, but you're not shoplifting anymore.
45:27 Speaker 03 No, I had a very intense freshers week. I remember that because. Uh, you know, I was always bad at being responsible for myself. So freshers week got very ill all the time. Um, I can remember getting very drunk. They had a drink called Blast Away, which was a mixture of um. The Cardi Breezer and Cast Away. And I had pints of it. And they had some retro band, I think it was Sister Sledge. And so I was, yeah, dancing to Sister Sledge and then being very um closely acquainted with a toilet uh for the leaning over. So toilet for the rest of the night. So I was very ill um and very drunk a lot of the time in my first week.
46:12 Speaker 03 And then throughout, yeah, throughout my first year, uh until I met Andrea, basically, um who.
46:18 Speaker 01 And Andrea becomes your wife. And she's your first proper girlfriend. She rescues you. What? Give us the moment that you meet Andrea. She is also a student at Hull University.
46:27 Speaker 03 I was nineteen and it was her nineteenth birthday. She I was a year and three weeks into university. She was just three weeks into university. And we were at a disco, but I wasn't very confident approaching girls. But my friend at university was quite confident approaching girls and he was um copping off with her, Andrea's roommate. And so anyway, we went back. Uh nothing happened then, but we had very deep chats. We had a conversation where it's our relationship started. And in fact, that's how I sort of see our relationship, really. It's just like a very long conversation. That's.
47:09 Speaker 01 There's nothing better.
47:10 Speaker 03 No, I mean, sometimes it's an argumentative conversation, but it's a it's a long conversation.
47:15 Speaker 01 I would argue that deep chats can be better than sex. I would argue that. Uh we will.
47:22 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, yeah, I I I think it's a better basis for a relationship if you're a friend.
47:28 Speaker 01 And when you were having these deep chats, was it because she was in a similar place or because she wanted to rescue you? What was the what was the attraction of the deep chats?
47:37 Speaker 03 She's very different uh to me. Uh so she's she's from uh near Sunderland. And very working class background, very strong sense of morality. And she's very organized and passionate and kind. And she's she was just interesting. We were talking about music and doing that thing of like looking at. Uh while I was in her house, looking at her cassettes and just talking about music. And and she's very um, she made me.
48:13 Speaker 03 This sounds terribly sexist as a reason to fall in love, but she made me a toast with black currant jam on top of it and um and it was just perfectly perfectly made and buttered and it just seemed a very I don't know at university when you feel very on your own and you're fending for yourself to have just another human being slightly care for you.
48:39 Speaker 01 It's wonderful. There's nothing sexist about that. She gave you a gift of this wonderful toast and jam and you reciprocated by what did you give her? What do you think you did give her?
48:49 Speaker 03 Not um I I don't know. I think I was I think we were we're having a lot of laughs here. I think we gave each other the space to be ourselves. I think she had felt a little bit, you know, she grew up in a quite a tight knit community and quite repressive community and she she had a lot about her and um I think we just we were both quite nervous people. I think that was a common commonality. Andrea showed it less because she could present very well. But um I think she we both were people who hid quite a lot of ourselves away. So together we had that space.
49:32 Speaker 01 Yeah, you felt free.
49:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
49:35 Speaker 01 And secure and cared for.
49:37 Speaker 03 Yes.
49:37 Speaker 01 And she's still with you.
49:39 Speaker 03 Yes.
49:40 Speaker 01 Wow.
49:40 Speaker 03 I know. Big wow for her. Big capital W.
49:43 Speaker 01 Well, she's getting, she's married to one of the best selling authors in the world. So that's not bad.
49:48 Speaker 03 Well, I mean, but but that was very recent, really, relatively in our relationship. I mean, we've been together since nineteen ninety
49:57 Speaker 03 four and um we've been married since two thousand and seven.
50:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:04 Speaker 01 But she married somebody who does have, and she forms a ratio of somebody who does have problems, even though they're, you're close, you're intimate, you understand one another. Because you have this big breakdown following, is it a trip to Ibiza? Tell me that story.
50:17 Speaker 03 Well, I was doing a mas-, I did a lot of masters in English literature at Leeds University. And I was commuting from Hull. And so my brain was filled with all these sort of French critical theorists and all this very intellectual stuff. And I was going a little bit insane and uh.
50:38 Speaker 01 Excuse me, what does that mean, going insane?
50:40 Speaker 03 Well, I was, yeah, I mean.
50:42 Speaker 01 If this is somebody called Daddy Da, is he one of these people?
50:46 Speaker 03 Yes.
50:46 Speaker 01 Even the first holograph would drive me insane in the sense of, oh, I'm feeling insane. This is crazy.
50:51 Speaker 03 Well, it's about over analyzing everything until it's not there anymore. It's the sort of deconstruction was the sort of theory. So your head is sort of that.
50:59 Speaker 01 Yes, so explain, explain what that means, because people use these phrases casually. You know, oh, I was going mad, I was going insane.
51:05 Speaker 03 Yeah.
51:05 Speaker 01 What is it actually, what's happening inside your head?
51:08 Speaker 03 Well, again, people say casually, but I, I felt like I couldn't switch off, like I had very fast thoughts. Sleeping was difficult. Um, relaxing was impossible unless I drank. And so, and I was very, you know, so I was wanting to escape. That was a big thing. Up until the age of 24, when I had a full blown breakdown, that was the theme of my life, always trying to escape. So Andrea provided some kind of escape, but there was this other kind of escape, which was very, you know, I, we would definitely not still be here if I'd have never had a breakdown.
51:47 Speaker 03 Because as with the teenage arrest, I think without the breakdown, I, I, I kind of, in those days, especially not understanding my own mind, I always needed to hit a barrier to stop.
52:03 Speaker 01 Is a breakdown a moment or is it a passage of time? And what happens in a breakdown?
52:09 Speaker 03 Well, in my, you know, it's not a medical term breakdown, um, but that is definitely how it felt to me. It felt like a breaking down. I mean, what I was diagnosed with was panic disorder, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, so, you know, compulsive little things.
52:28 Speaker 03 And thoughts, but it was a panic attack, but you think of a panic attack, if you say to someone you're having a panic attack, they think, oh, it's ten minutes, you can walk it off or breathe into a paper bag and then get back on with it. That's what I've always thought a panic attack was. And so we were, I, I, I, I was panicking and we were, we were near the sea and I, I asked Andrea, I said, we need to walk to sea. Even though I'd been unhealthy and there had been drinking drugs in my life before that age, there hadn't been at this point. We were actually, we were living in Ibiza, but this was our third year there. Andrea had a proper job. She was a, an office manager
53:09 Speaker 03 for this big firm there. And I had a job. It was a little bit more casual. It was selling tickets um in a bar.
53:17 Speaker 01 You'd gone to Ibiza for a kind of alternative life, had you?
53:20 Speaker 03 Yes, we'd gone to Barcelona on holiday. I'd always been a bit snobby about Ibiza and I didn't want to go, but these, these local Barcelona people, oh, if you want to party in the week, you have to get on a ferry and go to Ibiza. So we went on a ferry and go to Ibiza and we had an amazing time. And so then we wanted, then after another winter in Hull, we were just.
53:42 Speaker 01 The choice is Hull or partying in Ibiza.
53:46 Speaker 03 I love Hull, but there was one thing great about Hull and that's that it really makes you want to go to Spain. That's what it, though, I do love Hull and we had a great time in Hull. But at that point, when you're only having winter in England and you could have summer in, you know, a place with palm trees, I was always fantasizing about that. But it was absolutely the wrong place for me because it was a place where everyone was um out of their minds and.
54:16 Speaker 01 On, on drugs.
54:16 Speaker 03 On drugs and alcohol and everything else. So I, it, it was a very normal thing.
54:22 Speaker 01 What were your parents at home thinking about this? Because they were obviously pleased, I imagine, with Andrea.
54:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, but very pleased. Well, I think they felt. Andrea, you know, I, I, I think so long as our relationship survived, then I'd survive. And they were kind of right, but it, it, it got as rocky as it could get. Because, as I say, I, I wasn't in my worst sort of state of drink and drugs when I got ill. It was eleven in the morning. I'd been for a run. I was trying to get healthy. And I just, my heart started to beat really fast and it wouldn't stop. And I thought, am I having a heart attack? And, uh, uh, and, and then things started to happen in my brain, physical sensations.
55:06 Speaker 03 And I was just in this state of panic and they, they took me to hospital and, um, I was given diazepam and that made it.
55:14 Speaker 01 This was in Ibiza?
55:15 Speaker 03 This was in, yeah, Spanish hospital.
55:17 Speaker 01 And who took you to the hospital?
55:19 Speaker 03 Andrea. And then I, I, I got even more out of it. And then the next morning, I, we were beside some cliffs and I, I literally, and it sounds dreadful to say because I loved Andrea, Andrea loved me. I had parents alive, I had sister alive. But the only way I can explain the sort of suicidal ideation is that you are trapped in a burning building. The person in a bu- burning building doesn't really have a death wish, but they just don't know how to cope. They, they, they're just choosing one alternative over another. And I think that was how I felt.
56:02 Speaker 03 And it was distorted thinking, but it was such an intense feeling of terror and depression. But it's very hard to explain to people who may have known depression, but maybe not known it to that degree or to that sudden nature. What that felt like and I I did not think I could get out of it and I did not think I could survive another minute of feeling that depression.
56:32 Speaker 01 And where were you physically at when this moment?
56:34 Speaker 03 Well, we were living in a very nice place, in a very quiet part of the island. Um, with the people who were employing us, they had a villa and we were in this villa. And the people who owned the villa weren't there at this point. And so it was just the two of us in this villa. And I'd had this second sort of totally sleepless night. And I was sweating and I was trembling and I I just didn't know what to do. And so I I yeah, I I nearly uh took my own life. And Andrea didn't stop that happening, I stopped it happening, I'd sort of somehow.
57:16 Speaker 01 And what stopped you?
57:18 Speaker 03 Um, I've thought about this a lot, I've written about this a lot, but I think I think it was just uncertainty stopped me. Because I just so- something new that I hadn't always felt like this. So I wouldn't always feel like this. So it was a mixture, and thank God I was a coward, but a mixture of cowardice, of not wanting to do it, and also of um being able to to see a future where I could make my parents happy, or I could make Andrea happy. And it'd be okay.
58:02 Speaker 03 And I think the, as well as Andrea, as well as my parents. My sister was in Australia at this point.
58:14 Speaker 03 Ah, uh, yeah, I'm ju- I'm just remembering this for the first time, so I'm sort of like getting emotional with it as I say it. But my, my sister had been in Sydney um for over a year, so I hadn't seen my sister for ages. And my sister, when we were little, I said, but we used to get on, we used to sort of like do a sort of our own kind of Morse code uh between our bedroom walls. And so I remembered that, and I imagined my sister sort of knocking
58:43 Speaker 03 through um to get to me there. So I think, you know, that's sort of like sentimental moment.
58:50 Speaker 01 She got through to you?
58:51 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
58:52 Speaker 01 And helped you survive?
58:53 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
58:54 Speaker 01 And what was the road to recovery? Was it a medical road to recovery after this breakdown? Did you come back to England?
59:01 Speaker 03 Um, it should have been more of a medical road than it was because uh we went back. Uh, it was incredibly hard because I was instantly agoraphobic when I was in this state. So at the moment I was outside, I was like panicking. Getting on an aeroplane was incredibly difficult, but we somehow got back home to Nottinghamshire, to my parents' house.
59:21 Speaker 03 And we lived there for about a month. And I could hardly leave the house, but I did leave the house to go to the doctor. And the doctor wasn't particularly knowing what to do or particularly useful. And I wasn't offered therapy. And um so basically, I, the path, apart from calling a couple of hotlines here and there, was a very sort of like me and Andrea working it out together.
59:53 Speaker 01 You're throwing that, phoning a couple of hotlines, this is relevant because they're often giving signs, you see notices. If in doubt, you know, if you're feeling depressed, do phone. Did you not find them useful? I'm sure there are people who are well-meaning who are answering.
1:00:05 Speaker 03 I did find them useful, but I can't remember, uh.
1:00:11 Speaker 03 What what I found most useful at that time was actually, my mum was insistent. I'm not someone who uh believes in uh much alternative medicine and things like that. But my mum's friends swore by a homeopath. So I went along to this homeopath and I don't think the tinctures or anything did that much for me. But the homeopath herself was a widow and she'd had just been through, I think, three years, she said, of intense grief and depression and was coming out the other side.
1:00:53 Speaker 03 And to have someone in front of me who clearly, you know, she was sort of shaking on the edge of tears, who who had been through such pain and come out. That, to me, was always the the thing that carried me through, that there are examples of people.
1:01:15 Speaker 03 And I know nowadays there's quite a little bit of cynicism around the mental health conversation and it seems like every celebrity has a mental health story down. But if you go back quite a short space of time of just two or three decades,
1:01:31 Speaker 03 the mental health conversation, the people I had in mind who'd gone through depression, were the famous suicides. It was, you know, Sylvia Plath, Hemingway, Kurt Cobain, rock stars, poets. It was this tragic trajectory. And so I think that to me, seeing this woman in front of me, who had gone through something and was now in a better place, that showed me it doesn't have to be this eternal descent.
1:02:06 Speaker 03 It sounds ridiculous, but that's how depression presented it to me. Even at my worst, the main feeling was it is going to get worse.
1:02:14 Speaker 01 And from then on, has it got better?
1:02:18 Speaker 03 It's, it's, no, it took a long time. I mean, I was properly ill for three years. In fact, when I wrote my first ever novel, I was still very much agoraphobic. In fact, that's why I wrote my first novel.
1:02:33 Speaker 01 Couldn't get out.
1:02:34 Speaker 03 I literally couldn't have done a nine to five office job. Um, I mean, there were warning signs before my breakdown because, you know, I, I, I, I wasn't that good at sort of like holding down part-time jobs and things. But at that point, I could not have gone to do even the easiest, to even sit in a library. You know, I, I couldn't have done it.
1:02:58 Speaker 01 And during these three years, when you write your first novel, are you on a medical regime? Have you been given drugs to calm you down and keep you on an even keel?
1:03:07 Speaker 03 No, um, I discovered my own, uh, because as I said, I'd, I'd been given anti-anxiety pills, which hadn't been right for me. I wish I'd pursued, uh, other medical routes because I think I would have found one that did work for me. But I became a little bit phobic about medical health because, because I tried a pill that had made me feel a bit worse. I was then reluctant about, um, trying other things.
1:03:34 Speaker 01 Were you still drinking and smoking on the side?
1:03:36 Speaker 03 No, I mean, I gave it all up then. And, um, you know, I relapsed later on, but I, I, I stopped drinking, smoking drugs, uh, all at the same moment in nineteen ninety-nine, I was the age of twenty-four. And, um, yeah, that was the easiest decision in the world.
1:03:58 Speaker 01 Where are you today mentally?
1:04:01 Speaker 03 Mentally, I, well, I no longer ever say I'm like, in inverted commas, better. Because that's what I used to say. And the moment you sort of have this binary between wellness and illness, and you start to feel ill, then with mental stuff, you can start to feel very ill because you think, oh, oh, I'm not well, so I'm ill. And then you become really ill. Uh, so I never sort of play those sort of tricks.
1:04:27 Speaker 01 When did you have the last bad bout, though?
1:04:29 Speaker 03 Oh, well, but really bad bout, um.
1:04:35 Speaker 03 I'd say about four or five years ago.
1:04:40 Speaker 01 Gosh, so Andrew's put up with a lot.
1:04:43 Speaker 03 Hmm. I mean, it wasn't, it's never as, but it's not suicidal, but. But it's, cause I, I always, but the, the thing is, you, you, you, you tend to know. Um, but you will get through it and, and to ignore your brain, cause your brain is telling, your depression is telling you. That you won't get through.
1:05:02 Speaker 01 The best way of coping is to actually fundamentally know this tool will pass.
1:05:06 Speaker 03 It's that old thing, isn't it? But to actually feel that, it needs to be more than words. You must have sort of lived that. That's why I feel like there needs to be a lot of, uh, education around people when they first become. Especially young people who don't have that sense of life, sort of peaks and troughs yet. That first experience of depression is so dangerous because you don't think. And depression is very keen to tell you that you won't get out of it and all of this. So that is when it feels like a prison. Um, and also with time, you learn things that are good for you and learn things that make you feel better. Sometimes it's physical stuff like running or, you know, what you eat and how you eat and whether.
1:05:50 Speaker 03 Coffee's good or bad or, you know, different things that work for you. And your sleep and everything else. So you have to become a bit boring and just to sort of know, know yourself, but you sort of your own. You're, you are your own laboratory and you're always tweaking your own mental health.
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1:07:16 Speaker 01 And clearly, the writing had helped you the first time, the first novel. Well done with that.
1:07:22 Speaker 03 Well, I was not an instant success, Giles, at all. I was a struggling writer for a very long time. And I think I got dropped from a publisher after three books. And, you know, was not really, you know, very reliant on Andrea at that point in terms of money and everything else. But eventually, yes, I stuck with it and out of necessity, as I say at the start. And I think, I think kind of ambition and confidence came out of depression in the sense that when I first recovered from that really deep breakdown,
1:08:02 Speaker 03 it gave me a kind of invincible sense because my brain had told me it was impossible that I would recover. So when, when the thing that had been imprinted into you had been impossible to recover from, other things that seemed vaguely impossible before, like getting a book published, or suddenly it's like, well, I can do that because I've done the most impossible thing in staying alive. So actually, getting a book deal, it doesn't matter how many rejections I get. This is just part of the process.
1:08:32 Speaker 01 Did Andrea ever think of leaving you?
1:08:34 Speaker 03 Lots of times. She packed her bags on more than one occasion.
1:08:39 Speaker 01 I mean, literally packed her bags.
1:08:40 Speaker 03 Literally, when we were still living in Leeds, I can picture the suitcases. And she was packing. And it was just because she felt like, she got frustrated because she thought I wasn't trying and that I was wallowing. And it was all true. I mean, there's a great, you know. The trouble is with mental illness is that it's so inward looking. It's very hard when you're afrodisiac to be a good partner because you are so literally wrapped up in yourself. And so the way out is always through other people, other things.
1:09:23 Speaker 03 Finding just the spark of curiosity in something outside of yourself. A passion that's as big or could be as big as the fear you're feeling. And to sort of supplement all that darkness with lightness. Uh, you know, I always think, and I'm saying this because it's you and I know you've written a book on the subject, but I always think of A A Mill. And Hundred Acre Wood and that being his sort of like imaginative space because he'd obviously known a lot of darkness.
1:09:57 Speaker 01 He created an enchanted place for himself where he could feel safe and where there's generosity and kindness.
1:10:03 Speaker 03 Exactly.
1:10:04 Speaker 01 But Andrea's provided that for you. She didn't. Why do you think she stayed? How did you persuade her to stay on that day in Leeds?
1:10:09 Speaker 03 I don't, I think.
1:10:14 Speaker 03 I, it, it, it's always hard to explain a relationship to people outside the relationship because every relationship is its own strange world. But I think with us, we'd all, we'd always been there for each other. And certainly in our very early years, there'd been arguments where, you know, there'd been times where she was less than perfect as well. And behaved badly and there's, and there'd been forgiveness on both sides.
1:10:43 Speaker 01 It's a relief to hear that.
1:10:44 Speaker 03 It's a relief to hear that. I mean, I was definitely, I definitely take the trophy for worst. But, you know, she wasn't perfect in her, in her younger years either. But, um, I think we both felt like as well as being partners, we were primarily friends. Like proper friends and it's really hard to walk away from friends. And it doesn't mean you have to stay in a relationship with someone, but I feel like.
1:11:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, I feel like on paper, she should have left me quite a few times and certainly in our first ten fifteen years and I I don't know, I mean, I'm so, I think, I think she's glad now that we've stuck the course because I think we're the couple we always saw in ourselves.
1:11:31 Speaker 01 Did you decide to have children?
1:11:33 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:11:34 Speaker 01 And did you talk about, given your histories, whether that was a responsible thing to do?
1:11:40 Speaker 03 Yes, I mean, y- yes, we did, but I will say I I I struggled with the idea simply because of my mum's history and, you know, her being adopted, my own insecurities, my own sense that I wasn't a responsible person. But as with so much of life, you need to sort of like experi- experience the thing to do the thing and so I actually ended up loving being a father and it changed me as much as anything changed me but not to say it was all easy or that I was a perfect father but it, you know, it's again having that thing outside of yourself.
1:12:24 Speaker 01 Now, look, your breakout books, I mean, they are breakout books, Reasons to Say Say No Then Midnight Library. Just in a nutshell, why do you think they were, I mean, we're talking about literally more everything with Midnight Library, we're talking about literally tens of millions. What do, I mean, and how did that change you?
1:12:45 Speaker 03 Midnight Library, I think, I try and just write to, because I was a little bit sort of lonely sometimes as a kid, I I try and write um to connect and to have a sort of
1:13:02 Speaker 03 Send out a signal, I suppose, to the world and get connected back. So I don't know, but I just try and write honestly. And sometimes you can do that more in um fiction. And I think everyone wants to be understood and books are a way. Writing and reading books are a way we can.
1:13:19 Speaker 01 Also, if I may say so, you do it brilliantly. Before we get to the end, the the new book is where a character can go back and change anything.
1:13:28 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:13:29 Speaker 01 And I'm wondering what you would change. Would you change the breakdown? I'm guessing you wouldn't. Because the breakdown has helped make you who you now are, and maybe you wouldn't have been the writer that you have become if it hadn't been for all the uncertainties and the turmoil of the earlier years. But that's just me guessing. And you're saying here, no one can change the past, but the midnight train can take you there. We've been on this midnight train with you now. Is there anything that you would change?
1:14:07 Speaker 03 Well, you always have to say, I I I feel myself, it's a no. Um. There's lots of stuff. I regret in the sense of, you know, like, anything that has ever sort of impacted other people or hurt your parents or hurt your partner, obviously. You regret. But to become a better, kinder, less selfish person. I don't, you know, that has been my route to that. And it's still, I'm still on that route. I'm not a saint. But, you know, I I so I I feel like there's a massive danger nowadays, especially with
1:14:49 Speaker 03 the internet and everything else, that we're in this age of comparison, to always imagine how our lives could have been if we'd have done this or done that. And we will never know. So all we can do is just sort of learn as we go. And um. Yeah, I I've had a lot of troubles with my mind, but I'm also kind of like.
1:15:09 Speaker 03 Had a lot of amazing experiences as well. And like when I was younger, more pretentious, I used to love the word, there's an Italian term that art historians use, chiaroscuro for the contrast of light and shade. And you need a lot of shade to sort of like have the light and to appreciate things. And it's something I try and tell my kids that, you know, not everything has to be happiness all the time. In fact, we're not meant for that. You know, we're not robots. We're meant for struggle and we're meant for, you know, ups and downs. Some of my very, very best moments in life and best relationships in
1:15:51 Speaker 03 life have come out specifically of those hard times.
1:15:56 Speaker 01 Before I ask you my last question, is there anything that we haven't touched on that you would like to touch on? Anything you haven't said?
1:16:04 Speaker 03 Um.
1:16:05 Speaker 01 Apart from, please read The Midnight Train by Matt Hay.
1:16:11 Speaker 03 No, just to say that, you know, I'm, you know, I, I'm very grateful for my upbringing and my parents always did the best they could with what they're given, which is what I try and do too.
1:16:33 Speaker 01 I suppose there isn't a single explanation of why you've had the life you've had. It's more complicated than that, isn't it? And that's what, in a sense, this train journey has been.
1:16:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:16:43 Speaker 01 As we've gone along the train, we've seen out of the window the different experiences, episodes that have led to this trouble. There isn't one answer. Why is, why has this been your story, Matt?
1:16:55 Speaker 03 What I mean is, what I mean is, like, if you have a difficult childhood in some ways, that doesn't mean that childhood was devoid of love entirely or laughter entirely. You know, there's a danger sometimes when you're creating your own stories of your life to always sort of like view it either as a comedy or a tragedy or this, that and the other. And it's everything all at once. And I, I, I feel like.
1:17:23 Speaker 03 Um, you know, my parents, like everyone else I've ever known, are imperfect people, and I'm an imperfect person. And the only way, uh, to sort of like not become bitter in life is to sort of like carry a sense of forgiveness, not just for other people, but for yourself too, and to learn, you know, as you move on.
1:17:48 Speaker 01 In a nutshell, what's life taught you?
1:17:52 Speaker 03 Um, I think it's mainly taught me, um, about the sheer unpredictable, um, nature of existence. You know, it's just like, every time my mind has been certain about something, good or bad, um, it's been wrong. Thankfully, you know, in the case of depression, it was wrong. You know, I, I go back to the point when I was twenty four and I was convinced I knew one hundred percent I would not live to be twenty five. And yet, I am now fifty, I'm still here. I have no idea if I'll be here when I'm seventy five. But, you know, that's life, isn't it?
1:18:32 Speaker 01 That's life. I'm very glad you are here. Before you go, remind me of that middle name you wanted to give yourself?
1:18:38 Speaker 03 Zeribable.
1:18:40 Speaker 01 Zeribable.
1:18:40 Speaker 03 I think that's the pronunciation, but I'm only used to seeing it written down.
1:18:44 Speaker 01 Only a few people are using it. Matt Zeribable, hey.
1:18:48 Speaker 03 Thank you, guys.
1:18:48 Speaker 01 Thank you so much for finding time to be with us today.
1:18:50 Speaker 03 That's lovely. Thanks for nearly making me cry as well.
1:18:53 Speaker 01 It's the least we can do. And I'm going to be finishing The Midnight Train. You're brilliant.
1:18:58 Speaker 03 Thank you.
1:18:58 Speaker 01 Well done.
1:19:55 Speaker 00 At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.
Previous Anne-Marie Duff Next Will Self Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated