Get Booked – Matthew Ross, The Red Admiral’s Secret

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio. Here at Get Booked, we love talking to authors about their new releases, going into detail about the topics covered, the mental health and well-being elements, publishing and writing tips, and giving you that extra special insight into a different book each week. On today's show, we'll be talking to Matthew Ross, the author of The Red Admiral's Secret, which is the second in the series of darkly comic crime fiction novels featuring the beleaguered builder Mark Pointer, aided and hindered in equal measure by his trusted crew of slackers, idlers, and gossips, and the lengths they go to to earn a living. And this second book is set in the COVID furlough world of those self-employed and/or employed by those who can't guarantee work in the building trade. It's absolutely hilarious. Various. I've been loving it. Matt, hi, how are you? Hi Hazel, how you doing? Nice to speak to you again. It's about a year, isn't it? So, um, have you been up to much? Been out a lot? I've been on a lot of exercise walks. I mean, we, we actually had this, uh, our first interview just at the start of COVID didn't we? We did, yes. It's, uh, and it's amazing, it's a year later, isn't it? Well, you've managed to crack another book out and managed to perfectly kind of capture the whole COVID world as well, which we're going to go into a little bit more detail of. Why don't you tell our listeners a little bit more about you and how you got into the whole writing world? About me? Okay, fine. Yeah, so my name's Matthew Ross and I'm an author. This is my second novel. The first novel Death of a Painter, featuring the characters Pointer and Perry, came out around this time last year. My own personal background is in the building construction and engineering trade, where I've been for about 25 years, having worked on everything from the age of 15, from small domestic little repairs up to a billion-pound infrastructure and probably most things in between. But as a hobby and an interest, I was into comedy writing. I used to write jokes and sketches for a well-known comedian for their nationwide theater tours and their corporate gigs and their appearances on things like Mock the Week and Have I Got News for You. But then a few years ago, I thought maybe the full-length novel is more where I'm at. So I had a go, started writing, and Death for a Painter was my first result. As I say, that was released last year, and we join them, the characters, about a year later in The Red Admiral's Secret, which came out at the start of February. I do remember saying to you in our first interview that my family are all in the building trade, my brother's a sparky, and because we were all at that stage where we couldn't actually go and see anybody when the first book came out, Death of a Painter, I was saying to you how it made me feel a little bit closer to my family because the terminology you used is bang on. I mean, there's not a chance that you haven't been working in the industry coming out with half the mannerisms you come out with in both of the books. I find it— you know what, it's just like sitting back in the pub with my brother and all of his mates who basically— I don't know what it is, but you're not really allowed in the building trade unless you've got a really dry and dirty sense of humour and a kind of knack with similes and metaphors that, you know, you don't get anywhere else, do you? No, it doesn't have its own, um, shorthand and vocabulary of its own. Yes, it's, uh, and it's, uh, one of those few industries nowadays where I suppose there's not many doctors, maybe policemen, maybe Jedi, I don't know, where, um, fathers follow sons into the, uh, and so yeah, you do get complete families, generations of families who all follow each other into the same trade? Well, it's just, you know, like with your situation, you know, you want to earn a bit of money and your dad says, right, come on then, soppy so-and-so, I can't say the words that you would use, you know, get some kit on and let's do some backbreaking work. And it is, it's kind of the easy way to earn cash. And then you kind of, it's very much a family kind of thing. Everybody sits in the pub together, everybody knows what's going on. Nobody probably knows, I mean, I know people in the pub that, you know, when I go back home up north and I've known them for 20, 30 years, I wouldn't know their real names. Yes, there's a lot of that as well going on. Yeah, you've got your Discos, you've got Ginger Rob who isn't actually called Rob in any way, shape, or form, and my northern accent's coming back in now as well because it's been reminiscing. And it's interesting It's interesting because even with the first book, you know, even though the Medway towns, it's kind of Kent way, I always had it in my head that it was Northern Territory just because of what that ignites within my psyche, that kind of terminology and that kind of, you know, nobody would sit there and say, "How's your mental health today?" You know, "How are you doing, mate? How are the kids?" or whatever. It's all kind of done in a kind of You ask in a way of kind of putting people down, is their way of being quite affectionate? Yes, I suppose it is really, isn't it? It's that kind of, yeah, that little sort of little niggles at each other, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I mean, you must have had— I mean, I don't know whether just when you were back in the building trade, did you write down all these different terminologies, or how did you come up with— I'm making it sound posh by saying similes and metaphors, but just, I mean, I recognize nearly all of the terms I think, did you go out on Twitter and say, right, all you builders out there, remind me of what you call your mate when you're trying to be affectionate, and come out with all these sayings? No, I didn't. I just tried to write dialogue that sounded plausible and sounded like I was having a conversation. I tried to make it as conversational as I possibly could. As there's nothing that drags me out of a— when I'm reading a book, there's nothing that drags me out of the story more than clunky dialogue. I find that the worst. And so I'd find myself writing something and then pretty much sort of speaking it out loud, and if it didn't feel comfortable in my mouth, then I'd change it until it did feel right. Yeah, I do get that. I mean, I know at some point throughout this chat I'm going to end up calling you Mark because I see you as Mark Poynter. That wouldn't be the first time that's happened, so I wouldn't worry about it if it does. Well, I know for a fact I'm going to be calling my brother over this weekend because it does— oh my God, I can't get rid of my Northern accent now! It does kind of make me go, "Oh, I miss that!" I mean, I was known by my brother as Fathead. I mean, I've been called Fathead since I was 4, and I knew that when he called me Fathead that he was being really affectionate and that, you know, it's his way of saying he loved me. Oh, sweet. Bless you. But you know, what is quite interesting, there's so many different— I mean, this book has been an escape for me. It was— I read a lot of books that are mental health based or autobiographical or biographical as well, and I need books like this every now and again that are a bit of an escape, that kind of give you that sense of just delving into the past a little bit more in a really fun way that kind of puts a smile on your face. And I have absolutely loved reading this book, and it kind of feels like you had fun writing it as well, but it just means I do want to kind of delve back into it. It kind of reminded me of hanging out in Huddersfield again and hanging out in the spit and sawdust pubs, all the ones that you mention in The Red Admiral's Secret, and it kind of made me miss home a little bit, and I want to, you know, I never really want to go home, but, you know, your book is making me want to sit there and basically be abused for a bit verbally. Well, good. Yeah, thanks for that, Matt, I really appreciate it. For the building trade, I mean, I actually have another job as well where I work in the building trade as well, in the wellness industry, so, and it's interesting because, because this book is set in the last 12 months where people have been on furlough, people have been, you know, building industry, it We got— they got stopped going on to building sites for a bit. It's happening now, you know, everyone's out there at the moment, and especially London, it is horrific. It is, you know, COVID is so rife on these building sites, but they're keeping on going because, you know, it is the economy that they're trying to keep going. But people on furlough left, right, and center, half of them are self-employed, you know, if they don't do the work, they are not getting paid. And if you don't work for a company, it's quite scary. It is, yes. And, you know, on the bigger sites, that's where people are getting COVID like no one's business because you've got people from all over the place who have different ideas on, you know, how safe they want to be. And there are certain sites that are more COVID compliant than others, and there are people on there, you know, you've got your 18, 19-year-olds all the way up to, you know, your 60, 70-year-olds who all have different ideas and ways of being and different vulnerabilities. Responsibilities, and I think you captured that quite a bit because, you know, Mark Pointer couldn't guarantee work for everybody, but he's forced into situations where, you know, whether he wants to work for some of the undesirables, he's got the responsibility to the people that he employs, let alone the bills that he's got to pay. Exactly, yeah, it's certainly a very worrying time for people in the trades. And, uh, yeah, you see these guys on, on the big sites, and things like social distancing are nigh impossible. I mean, particularly if you're handling materials and, uh, you are handling big lengths of timber or steel or sheets of board or something like that, there's no way you can be 2 meters apart if you're, if you're doing things like that. It's a, it's certainly a very worrying worrying time. They all come in through the same controlled entrances. It's, it's, uh, it's not good. And but, um, I've got to admit, I did debate long and hard whether or not to talk about COVID when I, um, came to finish this book, because unless, unless a story is specifically set around a historical event like, uh, like Wolf Hall, for instance, or something about I don't know, JFK's assassination. Uh, I prefer my settings to be a little bit more generic so I can think about them and picture them in my own imagination. So it's like a generic 1950s or a generic 1970s or whatever it might be. In the moment I'm reading a book and it says, I don't know, um, I bought, I bought a house in Chelsea for £65,000. All of a sudden I'm dragged out of it thinking, oh, I wish I could go back in time 30 years and do that myself. So I didn't— I don't particularly like little anchors that, um, really nail something down. But the more I thought about it, the more I was thinking, I want to build a series out of these guys, of Pointer and Perry and the rest of them. And whilst The Red Admiral and all the future books will be, um, written a standalone, a standalone installment, so any casual reader could pick up any book and not have to worry about knowing the history, and it's all self-contained. They could just dip in and out as they please. But there's got to be something there for readers of the series who are invested in the characters and their growth and how they move on. And the more I thought about it, more I was thinking, you've got these guys— so you've got Peri, who's a nurse, she's on the front line every day, So it's going to affect her. You've got Mark, who's the, who's the, um, construction worker who's also responsible for the livelihood of others. It's bound to affect him the way he gets, um, closed down and shut down. And then also you've got, uh, his uncle, who's an old fella who'd have to shield, who's, um, been living in Spain where they're all locked down and, um, uh, hating each other by the, by the end of it. So I felt, yeah, you've got to— it's got to be touched upon. Um, and I don't think it's— the book isn't— I should say, the book isn't about COVID or anything like that, but it's— there's flavors of there just to give them— to let it know that it's impacting these people's lives and they are trying to make the best of the situation around it, but how it has affected their lives in different ways and different perspectives. Well, I'm sure when you started writing the book, you didn't know just how long this was kind of, was going to go on, but I think it probably would have been disingenuous to not have mentioned it, but you've just had it as part of life, which I think COVID is going to be part of life probably. I don't think we're ever going to go back to how it was before, so I think you touched on it the right amount, with quite a nice nod to Perri, who you, who Mark got together with in the, in the first book. And I think it's quite interesting how you pointed out the strains on the relationship because, you know, she's knackered, she's scared, she's fearful. And let's be honest, right? Mark is not an easy guy to be dating. No, no. And he appears to need his nurse girlfriend quite a bit with the kind of scrapes he gets into. But I like the way that, you know, you managed to bring it in that they've only just started living together, and yet they haven't quite made that leap to actually get rid of her other place yet. But Jenny, you described it as a decontamination zone, you know, when she came back home from the hospitals, where she could walk in the front door of her old place and shower, take all of her clothes off, and go out the other side and back into his house. And I like the idea of kind of, at the same time, it shows his personality of trying to find a reason to not quite commit because it serves a purpose, but yet at the same time is a bit of a nod to what the nurses have had to do. Yeah, well, that's kind of based slightly in truth. A friend of mine, a very good friend of mine's wife is an intensive care nurse, and that's exactly what she was doing. She was coming in through the garage every day and getting changed in the garage and before she'd come into the house because she was so terrified of bringing it home with her. So she had to create like a little airlock. So yeah, this is what exactly what people are doing. It's the lengths people having to go to. And also what I did see as well is that their relationship is slightly under stress, and the strain you can see is because she's knackered. And they basically had to live— all these nurses that have been working throughout COVID, you know, they're working extra long hours with the strain of not being able to see their family, but worried about, you know, trying to weigh up the options as to how much they should see their family and put them at risk. And, you know, add into the mix the fact that, you know, the main character, Mark Pointer, I mean, he's a pain in the bum. He's so lovely in so many ways that you love him to pieces, but you're just like, dude, why do you always have to be the epicentre of all the problems. And you can kind of see her point where she's just like, I'm dealing with all of this, you know, NHS COVID worry, and yet I never know when he's going to be, you know, put in a house fire or beaten up on his doorstep, or he ends up having to deal with the local thugs because he's trying to get some work for, you know, him and the people he employs. And you just kind of, you know, as a woman, I was there going, 'Oh, Perry, I don't know how you put up with it, love.' Oh, brilliant. But it was quite funny, but on top of that, I was giggling away. There's something about, as I was saying before, the terminology as well, it's so endearing that, you know, you can also see why she loves him as well. But you must have written this book quite quickly and got it published quite quickly. Um, well, actually, I'd— it was kind of three-quarters of the way there. It was, um, it was the first one that took a while to get published, uh, The Death of a Painter, I suppose because it's a little bit different, isn't it? It's not, um, one of the sort of the generic psychological thrillers that seem to be, uh, the, the current trend at the moment. It seems to be, um twisty, optimistic psychological thrillers, or gory Scandi kill as many people as you possibly can in the most horrific way, seem to be the two sort of bookends of the— or the two, yeah, the two pillars of the, the market at the moment. And this didn't really fit into either of them. So whilst I was, uh, under submission with Death of a Painter, I was, I was writing this one as the follow-up. Um, so it was kind of three-quarters of the way there, and then We published Death of a Painter last year and it got, it got some wonderful feedback and some lovely reviews from people, and that sort of spurred on the encouragement and they wanted a second one. And so Red Admiral's Secret got pushed on very, very quickly after that. Yeah, I mean, it's nice. It's the first book that I've read that has COVID as just a way of life, not focusing on it. You know, there's been books that have been published during COVID where they've been more kind of talking therapy based and they've kind of touched on it briefly, possibly in the foreword, but you know, it's a sign of things to come rather than making it— there's going to be enough books out there that are going to be focused on it, way too much as it is, so this was quite nice. I can imagine there's going to be a lot of locked room mysteries about COVID lockdown, lockdown, locked room mysteries. Uh, yeah, that they're going to be interesting when they start coming out in the next 2 to 3 years, and many conspiracy theories as well. Yeah, so I can imagine they'll be coming out very shortly. But now, as I say, I think just because of the way the characters are and what they do, it needed to be acknowledged that that it has affected them, but it isn't their entire lives. It's, um, it's had an effect and these are the impacts. And, uh, but here's the story over here about something else completely different. Yeah. And do you know what, it's a bit of like relief as well. I mean, I think there's books like this, they play an important role in, you know, our mental health and mental well-being because they're escape. They kind of make us giggle a little bit. For some of us like myself, they make us slightly nostalgic, and it's not— it is light-hearted. I mean, the idea that, you know, he's constantly getting, you know, having his head pushed up against, you know, slammed into a wall and whatnot, you know, in that trade though, you know, if it was me, a radio presenter, and I kind of drilled a drill through my hand, I'd be like off work for 6 weeks and regaling the stories for weeks to come. You know, in that industry, you know, if you hammer something through your hand, you're like, "Aye, it was a rubbish day," and that's it, it is done with, isn't it? And I kind of like the kind of the nonchalance about it, and it's funny. You've managed to make murder quite, you know, light-hearted, as if We can all get shot and it's cool. That's what we need at the moment, is a bit of light relief, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. And have you been reading books in lockdown yourself, or have you been too busy writing? I have been, yes, I have been. There's some good stuff out at the moment, so yeah, I've been quite— I've lost my mojo for a little while, but in the past few months I've got it back again now, so I'm reading up again quite greedily. So what have you been reading? What have you been loving? What should our listeners be reading once they've read The Red Admiral's Secret? Well, I'm a bit late to this party, but have you come across Mike Craven, M.W. Craven's Tilly and Po series yet? No, but I keep on seeing it coming up on Twitter where people keep on saying, oh, you've got to go for it. But so you think I should go for that? Oh, they are, they're spectacular. Yeah, they are absolutely amazing. What do you like about them? I've got the new one to read yet, so the Curator, I haven't got that one to read that one yet, but I've read The Puppet Show and Black Summer, and they're just— it's just a new, uh, take on, uh, on sort of a police procedural. So you've got, um, Poe, who's, uh, very much sort of a blunt instrument, and then Tilly, who's his analyst, who's, uh, on, on the spectrum, and she's, uh, takes everything literally. So it's an unusual sort of buddy dynamic at the moment. Oh, I like that because it kind of points out that unique dynamics are— they have so many plus sides that, you know, people don't always associate rather than just, you know, your standard platforms back in the '80s and '90s. Yeah, so he's very much kind of your old-school, blunt instrument, gets things done type of detective, whereas she's an analyst, but she's kind of, as I said, on a spectrum, so she's all very socially awkward and very literal and single-minded the way she does things. But bang on with her doing her job because she's quite focused. Yeah, but because the way, I guess, certainly the way that M.W. Craven just describes this police department. Both of them are outsiders for different reasons, if you understand what I'm saying. Yeah. And so they form an alliance, and it really is gripping stuff, and, and so tightly plotted, it's absolutely amazing. Well, I'm gonna— yeah, I'll give that one a whirl, because I like I like the kind of escape and the fiction and just kind of mixing it up. I'm a huge fan of you need something funny, you need something that kind of has a bit of escape, and then you can go on to something where you learn something as well, like mixing it up all the time. And I'm doing a lot of Audible at the moment for my many exercise walks. Okay, so it's, um, yeah, they're set up in Cumbria in the modern day, and, uh, I've only read the first two. I've got I've got, uh, The Curator's to Read on my pile, but they are absolutely brilliant. Um, We Begin at the End, which is the one everyone's talking about, I've just read that one. I keep on seeing that one coming up, I'm writing this down. Which was, uh, astonishing. It's, uh, set in sort of small town California about, uh, um, life there where sort of the, uh, the popular lad who, uh, high school, who went to school as a teenage killer comes back and he's just trying to rebuild his life. And then you've got, um, this young girl, 13-year-old girl, who's sort of deeply troubled. Um, oh, it's just absolutely brilliant, absolutely brilliant. Oh wow. And then I've just also finished a very cute, um, cozy mystery called Banking on Murder by JD Whitelaw. Oh, I like him. That's Jonathan Whitelaw, isn't it? Yes. Yeah. Have you read this one about the three sisters and their detective agency up in Glasgow? Um, no, I read his Devil series. Oh, okay. Right. No, I've not read those. I've, um, got them also to read, but I've heard they're very good. But yeah, so he's got this new series now called Banking on Murder with the Parker sisters. He's, um, I think he's got a style very similar to yours in that, um, it's very satirical. So especially in his Devil series, you know, the devil turned out to be an all right guy. It's just, you know, it's completely bogged down by everyone constantly going on about how, how God is the one that's got all the answers, but he's got to do all the hard work and deal with all the hard people. And, you know, the fact that the headquarters was based in Glasgow, which He's brilliant. I do, um, I do love his books. Um, I think I've actually— I've done a couple of reviews of his books on my website at hazelbutterfield.com as well. Um, and yeah, he's, he's absolutely brilliant. Is he published by the same people as you? Yes, he is actually. That's how I got hold of it. But, um, I totally recommend it. It's a really good book. It's called Banking on Murder, and it's the first in a series of the Parkin Parker Sisters, they're called. Oh good, women! And it's three sisters running a small detective agency up in Glasgow, um, sort of chasing cheating partners and those sort of things. But, um, yeah, one, uh, on this particular case, he winds up dead, and so they get sort of involved in a murder. Oh, oops-a-daisies! But it's, yeah, it's really, really good. It's one of those ones that you can sort of imagine it immediately, think, why is this on TV straight away? So do you ever— I mean, it must be hard when you're a writer, if you like reading as well, to try and make sure that your stuff stays unique because you come across amazing books and you're trying your best to not accidentally take on those ideas, or do you not really have that issue? I've not had that issue novel writing When I was sort of doing comedy writing for people, that was certainly an issue because I think perhaps a joke is— a joke is such— so small, it's almost like a tweet, isn't it? A joke's only sort of a few words. But there is that kind of difficulty by osmosis of taking in other people's ideas or influences or jokes, whereas with a novel it's such a larger full of form that, um, I could start reading a book now, but by the time I finished a book in 6 months' time— writing, I mean— in 6 months' time, and then you go through the editing process and the churn of that, that, uh, all the edges are knocked off anyway. So the influences might be in there, but they're just all mixed in with everything else. So yeah, it's not an issue I've noticed with novel writing, no, but certainly with, um, comedy writing. It's something you've got to be careful. So I never used to watch other people's live comedy when I was doing comedy writing, but books, I'm quite happy for novel writing. Yeah, I can see that because you do— I guess with all these chat shows as well, these panel shows where everyone's closely with each other, that they must absorb everybody else's styles as well. It's interesting. It is a different kind of form of comedy. And I do— you've started on the third, haven't you, of Mark Pointer? Yes, I have. Yeah, I have. So I've written a third novel which is— which was all actually about Hamlet, the sort of the villain character of the piece, which was just an exercise really because I I like him more than I expected to, so I started writing something. Um, also because the point of— point of Perry books are written in first person, from the person's point of view, which can get a little bit exhausting to keep doing after a while. So I just, I just wanted to, um, have a change a little while. So I've started writing a Hamlet book, which, if you— to create like a Marvel Universe it's kind of a sideways spin-off. So it's him making amends, if you like, for what he does in book— in the Red Admiral's book. Um, so it gave me a chance to write third person. And also, as I was writing third person, I could get a little bit darker. And, uh, it's one of those books, so like, if you like chewing on the bad guys kind of book. So that's there. And that's just— so just, just for our listeners, um, just for our listeners, Hamlet is the character that's basically the Phil Mitchell Yeah, he's the— he's a friendly, but he's the villain. Yeah, he's, um, he's, uh, the local head of the local underworld and black market. Who, uh, I love that idea that you're going off into kind of going off on a slight tangent, I suppose you'd say. Yeah, kind of like a sideways sequel, if you like. Have you read Kerry Wilkinson's books? No, no, I don't know that. Right, so he now lives in Canada, but he was brought up kind of in between Bath and Manchester, and he did a series called the Jessica Daniels series where this is a rather gutsy, a little bit like Mark, if Mark Poynter was a copper. So, and she's very much like that, the northern charm, and she has various people that she relies on to help help her. And one of the people who always seems to help her, he ended up doing a spin-off and they're now on their 8th book of that spin-off of the forensic guy. So he's kind of gone off on a tangent as well. Alright, okay, so it does work then. Yeah, no, it does. And it's because, you know, everybody that helps somebody else, they've all got their own lives and it's sometimes nice to create a family. I mean, I got to a stage where I'm on the 11th of the Jessica Daniels books, and it makes me— it's one of the longest relationships I've been in, really. So in a way, I was like, I kind of wanted to read the spin-off, but I was like, oh, but I'm with Jessica Daniels, you know, I kind of don't— I want to stick with her because she's my girl, and, you know, I've been in a relationship with her for 10 years now. Yeah, that's the kind of sitting in the bottom drawer now, just fermenting, um, and, uh, to be fine-tuned and then sent out for submission. But yes, essentially I just wanted to have a little, um, exercise writing sort of third, third-person point of view, um, and it's, yeah, following him again. Again, it's, uh, it could be completely standalone. Someone could just pick it up not knowing anything at all, and it's completely standalone. But then there's little in, uh, clues and Easter eggs for people that, uh, follow the Poynter and Perrys. And I've been working on a— I'm about a third of the way into a third Poynter and Perry story, but I found working this whole lockdown has just kind of completely disrupted and thrown out my, my routine. And I just— so I parked it about 6 months ago, uh, whilst I thought we found my mojo. But I'd look at it, um, funnily enough, at the weekend, and there's some good stuff in it. I'm going to go back to it, but it's just, it's just parked on the shelf for the time being. So you don't know what's going to happen to him yet, or— no, no, it's all— it's a teaser. It's all very much plotted out, but, um, I'm very much a plotter. I don't— these guys who I hear about who just sit down with a blank page one day and say, right, I'm going to write something, and they just write from a blank page— that just— oh, that thought, that terrifies me. I can't tell anybody does that. So I'm very much a plotter. So I've got a, a very detailed plot worked out for it, so I know where it's going. But, uh, it's just When all this started, when we sort of spoke a year ago, we were all working from home, and working from home sounded kind of a little bit naughty and a little bit, oh, I'm getting away with it, like wearing your clothes to school. It was that kind of thing. But we're not working at home anymore now, we're living at work, which is completely different. And it's, uh, living at work sounds like the drudge that it actually is, isn't it? Uh, yeah, I mean, I said the other day, um, when it was snowing, you know, back in the day, like, yay, snow day, we're not doing work. No, you're already at home, you're already locked inside, so you don't even have that excuse, whereas that used to be the excitement, you know, if it snowed then, you know, it was kind of the unwritten rule that you'd skive off work and say that you just couldn't get the car out or the trains weren't working, but we don't even have that. And I'm doing, I write a lot, whether it's my blogs, I am actually writing a book as well, and I have to, well, I don't have to, I love reading, but I read a lot to get booked and for my book blog, but It's so much harder. Like, I used to read while I was commuting. I used to read in a café, which we can't do either. And also I'm at home homeschooling my kids, so you can't read or write or concentrate on anything when every 10 minutes or so you're gonna get the, "I don't understand this quadratic equation, I wanna give up," and then you have to help them or, you know, feed them for the 82nd time that day. And we're not getting to do half the things that helped us and inspired us and gave us that space beforehand. That's not just for writing, that's for anybody who's trying to work and juggle absolutely everything, you know. Cafés, they're not just there so people don't have to make their own coffee, it's to get headspace, it's to have people around and to socialise, and we kind of feed off that socialising element, whether it's for mental health reasons, whether it's because we can't work at home because the dishwasher's running and we know that we've got tasks to do, and we're missing out on all these other elements that just used to help us function. And, you know, even while I have this chat with you, my son's sitting in a different room waiting to do his schoolwork because he likes me to sit there and help him do it. And he kind of openly has said, you know, if you're not there kind of forcing me to do it, I get a little bit bored. We've all got different limits now. I mean, I don't know how it's been with your children. How old are your children? I've got two. I've got one who's 10 and one who's 7. And one, one's in school because he's got, uh, he's got special needs, so he's, um, they've been absolutely brilliant to him. But the other one, the 10-year-old, he's, uh, he's working remotely on Microsoft Teams lessons. And he's doing well and I'm proud of him, but it— I can see he's finding it difficult now. And, uh, I've caught him a few times sort of sloping off and playing video games on the— but he should be on screen things. But I can, I can, uh, yeah, for the poor— I know he's finding it difficult. Um, he should be there with his friends and run around the field and play, throw snowballs and things. Yeah, I mean, it all started off quite differently in the first lockdown, you know, my my then 10-year-old was, he would phone his friends and they'd all sit, you know, in the kitchen on the phone as if they were chatting to each other in a desk situation. But that was when this time round they actually had to make quite a different educational, run a different educational strategy because before it was possibly for 2 weeks and then it was 6 weeks and then they kept on having to adjust because they didn't know when it was going to happen. And this time around they've known that, you know, it's very likely going to go on for longer. So it's been more strict and more thorough and there's proper work. You know, the kids that are actually in school, whether, you know, their parents are key workers or they've got EHCPs, then, you know, they're doing exactly the same lessons as those at home and it's completely different. And, you know, I just, I love maths. So I'm a huge fan of it and I can help him with it, but I just think to all these parents that are trying to do 10-hour days as well with Zoom calls and, you know, they hated maths 30 years ago and now they're expected to go back into it. I just— it's hard work for all of us and, you know, it's— luckily my other child who's 14, he's at high school so it is completely school-led, you know, they register at 8:45 and they keep on going, but it's just, it's hard work for everybody, and it's just, I can, I'm sure it's very hard to find the mojo to write and to keep on going, so the fact that you've managed to, you know, churn out this book is incredible. Yes, as I say, it's working from home and living at work are two completely different things, is And, uh, yeah, my wife, um, I called her because she was looking at some emails. Why are you looking at work emails on a Sunday? And she was, oh, am I? Because every day is just sort of now blurred. And weekends, even, uh, back when, uh, well, back in the old normal, you used to have a weekend and you're not doing anything at the weekend. How was your weekend? I didn't do anything. And you think it was a waste, but now You can actually see you needed those weekends, didn't you, where it was just to switch off and just do nothing. This is it, yeah. But like, you know, there's quite a lot of the conscientious people out there that are saying, do you know what, out of that 10-hour workday, I've probably spent 3 hours really focusing on helping my kids, so I need to catch up somewhere else. Because people are scared that if they're not seen as being, you know, a good employee, then they could be more disposable in a quite scary economy. That's it, isn't it? If you can't— if, um, yeah, that's— I've heard people say that about— yeah, if, um, if they can exist on people working at home, why can't they exist on people working abroad? And, uh, yeah, buying in staff from cheaper areas like from India or somewhere. Well, well, yeah, as well. And, you know, people are a little bit scared that, you know, the longer they're on furlough, the more people will just find a— I hate the word, I hate the term new normal— but they'll find a different way of doing things with less people. And so there is, there is a lot of that worry, but you know, likewise, people are at least getting to spend more time with their kids and engage with it. Yeah, it might be harder, but sometimes the hard things are what makes everything a bit more worthwhile. I mean, I know a lot about what my kids are doing in school now. And I wouldn't have done before. I would have just gone, well, you know, we've got parents' evening, parents' evening tells us whether the kids are doing all right, and we'll leave it to it. This is what the teachers do, it's what they're good at. And now we're like, ah, we've really got to engage with this. And so hard for those where, you know, the kids don't have a reason to be in school, and yet it's very hard work for the parents to get them motivated at home. Yeah, I was trying to give my boy some positives, and I was saying that I absolutely worshipped and adored my dad to pieces, um, but he worked hard to provide for the family and he'd be up and gone at 7 in the morning and home again 7 in the evening. We wouldn't say so, we wouldn't see him as much as we'd like to. So having this time with them is actually, actually worth, uh, quite a lot to me. And hopefully they'll remember it and they'll remember us all being around, when they were growing up. So hopefully that is the positive to be taken out of it. But, um, as I say, it has— going back to the writing— it has completely thrown out my, my routine that used to have for the sort of the Pointer and Perry situation. And so as I've parked that one now, um, and trying to— I was trying to get my mojo back, so I started something brand new, uh, which more of a cozy crime, um, kind of thing. Oh, I love a cozy crime. Well, I, I just started as a bit of a palate cleanser, to be quite honest, just to try and develop a brand new routine and a brand new mindset. And, and I've actually got quite into it, so, um, I'm pushing on with that. I'm hopefully gonna have that finished by Easter, but I'm, uh, I'm quite excited by this one, so hopefully this could be, uh, a new series coming out this one. Brilliant. Well, just because you said just before we started our chat, The Red Admiral's Secret, which has been published as of the 3rd of February, you've offered it up for a competition for us here at Men's and Women's Radio Station. So what I'm going to do is put all the details up of the competition on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, and anybody that likes and retweets it, we'll put all the names In a Hat, and randomly you're going to send a copy out to the lucky winner, aren't you? Yes, I will. Yeah, so I hope they enjoy it. And, uh, yes, so thank you for arranging that. That'd be great. So I'll put the details up on my Twitter @NuttyButty, and we'll make sure that the station retweets it so it's nice and easy for everybody else. But where can people find out about you? What's— what are all your details, your social media handles? Um, well, really, I'm Terribly bad at this. It's mainly Twitter that I'm on. I've got a Facebook account which I don't really use much anymore, but I'm on Twitter, so please find me on Twitter, which is @MattWRoss, so Matt W Ross, one word, on Twitter. So please find me, follow me, and say hello to me there. I'll tag you in the post as well, so make sure that it's a lot easier for people to find you. Okay, and I've got an Instagram too, which is the same, so @MattWRoss. So again, please find me, say hello to me. Hello! You can have somebody doing it. Hi mate! So just talking a little bit about what's been going on in the world recently, what I like to ask all of my guests here at GetBooked is, who do you think out there is absolutely smashing it out of the park in terms of somebody in the public eye saying the right things and just somebody to look out for in whatever way you deem fit. Is there anybody out there that you think is great? I guess Marcus Rashford, I suppose. He's the one who's turned out to be the star of the recent months, isn't he? Yeah, do you know what? My youngest son would love you for that. He thinks, you know, all of his kits this Christmas had Marcus Rashford on the back, loving him to pieces. He's doing it and he's not just a celebrity picking up a cause, he genuinely is rooting for it and I think it's fantastic because it's coming from somebody who everybody respects across so many different genres, so I think that is brilliant. What an excellent suggestion. Well, yeah, I mean, as you say, even my mum's heard of him and she's got no interest in football whatsoever. But she knows who he is. He's obviously got into the national conscience and has, yeah, sort of galvanised the nation. I think he's, for such a young person, he's certainly given himself a great platform and good luck to him. Yeah, I think he's doing well. He's using his celebrity for a fantastic cause, which I absolutely love. Something else I also ask all of the guests here on Get Booked is what would be your 3 tips on mental health and mental well-being, which can just be 3 things that you've done in the last year to kind of keep you on an even keel? Oh, they're good ones. Do you know what, we've, we've all sort of joined the masses and got ourselves a puppy. I'm not recommending people go out and buy puppies on a whim. But it's, it's been an absolute godsend because without it, I don't think I'd be getting any proper exercise because I'm the one who walks her most of the time. And just to get an hour of alone time, if you like, just to— I put my mask on, put my headphones on, just go for a nice walk for 45 minutes to an hour, get the daylight, the vitamin D, the fresh air. Peace and quiet, and it's saved me, I think. It's just a nice way to clear my head and sort of get my heart pumping again. I think it's— she's come to us just at the right time. You heard it here, people. The number one key is get yourself a dog. Do you know what? We've got a dog, and I love walking, and I am a huge fan of walking, but even though I'm getting bored of it, but I've got a beagle, and so I have to take her out a couple of times a day anyway because she eats more than the rest of us combined in the household. And it is, it's having that reason, it's having an additional reason of somebody else that you're responsible for, even though we've got kids, to get out there and go a little bit further. Yeah, exactly that. And yeah, we've got ourselves a Vizsla, Hungarian Vizsla, who's a beautiful dog. Yes, I've never had a dog so eager to please and keen to learn, and she's great fun, but she likes— she, uh, needs the exercise. So yeah, a good hour's walk, and we're lucky we've got some woods not too far away, and it's great. Just, I, I could go there and not see another soul and just, uh, as I say, get the vitamin D, get the sunshine, get the fresh air, clear my head, and it's perfect. Um, so I think, well, even if you haven't got a dog, I think just have a little— a bit of a walk A bit of fresh air, it works wonders, it really does. It was a thing, wasn't it, right at the beginning of lockdown, that all these dogs, all these kind of memes where people were borrowing other people's dogs before we all decided to term it, you know, getting a lockdown dog, that all these dogs were going, "I can't be borrowed anymore, I'm all walked out, I've got nothing left in me." But yeah, so then people decided, no, this is the time, you know, this is when something to entertain the kids, but also a lot of people now realize they are going to be working from home, so they're not going to be leaving it, you know, for untold hours. And, you know, the time where you have to train them, people needed to be at home for that time, and they are. So it is a perfect time if it's done properly and it's done with the best intentions. So, well, the right intentions. So yeah, great tip. Um, do you have any more for us? Oh, um, I think it's an obvious one, but just stuff the social media. Although we've been giving out the, um, the handles and things, but there's just, um, I don't know what, what it is at the moment, but it's, there's so much toxicity around, isn't there? It's just everything's so polarized and so, um, angry that Stick with book community on— if you're going on Twitter, just stick with the book community because that's lovely. You know what, they're all really nice, and it's not like, oh no, read my book. It's, oh, by the way, if you like this, I seriously go for this person. And everybody kind of— it's a little bit of a loving, isn't it? Everyone's really sweet to each other. Yeah, you find the right people to follow, and just— yeah, there's a lot of people that don't even believe half of what they're saying. They're just doing it to have an opinion and to try and get likes and It can be, yeah, ridiculously toxic out there. Yeah, it's just not worth the aggravation. But yeah, book community is lovely. It's some really nice people and really friendly and it's really supportive and it's great. But yeah, avoid all the other stuff and don't get into arguments because it'll just drag you down. But stick on with the book community. Follow some nice comedians. Yeah, there's a few of them. Yeah, they'll be hashing out your jokes. Have you stopped that completely now? Um, yes, I have, I guess, really. Um, it was, it was a nice hobby and it was beginning to, um, it was beginning to get some momentum behind it at the time. Um, but then everything just— I had one of those years where everything just collided at once. My father died and then I had a big work incident, uh, and also my my first baby was born, and it was all like too much to handle at once, so something had to give. And so I gave up for a couple of years, and when I wanted to sort of write again, things has moved on. It's very much a young man's game. And, uh, so I thought, no, I'd far rather write the novels. So I've stuck there in that area. We do live in a great world now where, you know, you don't stick in the same industry forever, and we do have the freedom to kind of change our goals and change what we want to do for a living, you know, if we've got it in us to actually search that out. And I love that, you know, back in the day you were, you know, you were a loom tuner for life, your dad did it and so and so, and it's a good reminder that anyone can start something new at any point and there are a lot of writers coming about now who have had the time to finally— I mean, everyone's got a book in them, haven't they? Some better than others, but a lot of people are trying that now as well. Yeah, and also it's a lot of people like myself who are older as well. There seems to be a lot of attention and excitement about sort of people in their 20s writing books, but, you know, I think, well, what have they got to talk about? But there's people sort of who've been experienced and had lives and had careers who are now writing books and debuting this year who are in their 40s, who have got something interesting to say, and I think that's really nice too. Well, have you read Maggie Ritchell Davis with her book The Servant? No, but that's on one of our lists. Yeah, so that's on our pile. It's excellent. I am not a fan of historical fiction and I lapped it up in no time. It was stunning. And that's her first book and she's in her later years. I'm not going to give out her age, but she's definitely, you know, what will be seen as pensionable age. And, you know, you can start at any point. Yes, exactly. And it's just great. That book was— it's Stunning, absolutely stunning. Oh good, yeah, we've got that on our TBR pile, so I shall look out for that one. Yeah, I've got quite a few at the moment where I'm kind of torn between saying to the kids, "Oh, just play on your Xbox and PlayStation for a bit, Mummy wants to read," but also thinking, "I've got to keep them off tech," and I'm like, "Oh, what should I do?" So yeah, if that's on your list, it is stunning. I think I wrote a review of that one on my website as well quite recently. And just a bit of a reminder to all of those listeners, especially if you've just joined us, we are speaking to Matthew Ross, the author of The Red Admiral's Secret, and we are doing a competition for you to win a copy of the book if you go and check out Twitter and Instagram, and it'll be up on my Facebook. We know lots of people aren't bothered about Facebook, but but don't worry, you choose your platform, seek out the competition details, and if you like, retweet it or share, and whichever platform you're on, whatever you need to do to make yourself known. We will put all the names in a bag and we will randomly— maybe one of your kids can choose one of the names out of a bag, how does that sound? That sounds perfectly fine to me, yep. Yeah, they're going to love it. And then we'll announce it on social media, and then you'll get a copy of the book sent out, and people can be entertained with your rather interesting sense of humor. Oh, I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you for arranging that. You're very welcome. And I just— just as a little bit of a reminder, I mean, it is the quick-witted and unmistakable charm of that industry. I don't think I've come across many books books that are focused on that industry, so you really have honed in on a gap in the market, and I just— you must have so much fun writing the book. Yes, I'm really fond of it, so I'm trying to make a series because I'm very fond of the characters, and yes, I think hopefully Pointer and Perry have got some more to go yet. Yeah, yeah, I bet, and it's very similar, Mark Pointer has lost his father as well, like yourself. Did you find it quite cathartic, like, the whole process of writing itself being quite good for your mental well-being, just kind of reminiscing and kind of delving back into some of the— these— what used to be loved and known, you know, that whole industry, that whole family element. Yes, yeah, I don't think I realized that's what I was doing at the time, but now yes, I do, yeah. Now I look back, I realise that's exactly what I was doing. And yes, it is. Yeah, it does. Oh, I've lost what I was going to say now. But yes. Do you know what? I have that so much at the moment. Like, you know, my brain at the moment, because we're not being able— we're having to— there's so much that we're having to do at the moment that there's kind of brain fog a lot of the time, which is interesting when you're a radio presenter. Even I don't know what I'm going to say sometimes. But no, I think, yeah, I didn't realize that's what I was doing at the time, but yeah, I think it was a very cathartic exercise and it helped me kind of come to terms, I think. Yeah, that's— I think that is what's good about writing as well. And people who are listening, you don't have to write because you want to write a book. You can write just for the whole cathartic nature. Nobody has to see what you've written, you know, if you don't want to become an author. Writing has so many helpful elements to it, although over the next, over the coming few days, my kids are going to have to deal with my northern accent because that's what it's kind of brought out in me reading The Red Admiral's Secret, and I mean, I'm a swearer at the best of times. I do it in a nice way, you know, it's not violent in any way, shape, or form, but half— I mean, if anybody that wants to read The Red Admiral's Secret, you know, they've got to be happy with a bit of swearing and some interesting colloquialisms. But I know that my language is going to be a little bit blue for the next few days because it kind of just takes you back a little bit. Yeah, okay, all right. I didn't think it was that sweary, but obviously I'm, yeah, more potty-mouthed than others. Oh yeah, you've completely got a potty mouth. I mean, if you don't use a swear word in a sentence, have you actually spoken on a building site? That, yeah, I guess it becomes part of punctuation, doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, one of the people that I work for in the building industry, they're from Wigan, and you know, I'm not called Hazel, I'm called Numbnuts, and I find it quite cutesy. I'm not some fathead, I know, I'm so lucky. And yet my kids now have to deal with the same. I mean, we're lucky that we managed to call our pets Butters and Charlie because, you know, fathead was in for the running. But on that note, uh, yeah, so I blame you completely for my accent being completely all over the place at the because it's kind of taken me back to that time in my life when, you know, I was constantly around my brother. All my family are up north, even though it's based in the Medway towns, kind of Kent-ish. It's Kentish Way, isn't it? Yes, it is, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so if my kids think that my language is a bit more blue, likewise, I'm going to point them in your direction. Oh, well, I apologize in advance. I think they quite like it, to be honest. Thank you so much for joining us here on Get Booked. For men's and women's radio station. And I assume you're going to come back and tell us all about the Hamlet series and the third Mark Poynter when that one finishes as well. I would love to, I'm very grateful to come back this time and hopefully this time next year see you again. Yes, let's make it a yearly thing. Yes, but I'm very grateful for speaking to you again, Hazel. I've absolutely loved it and hopefully next time it can be in the studio when we're allowed to actually be face to face again Can you imagine that? Oh, let's hope so. That'd be nice to see a different four walls, wouldn't it? Yes, it will. Yeah, even if it's the small studio walls. But there you go. Thank you so much. And thank you, everybody, for listening to Get Booked. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks.