Get Booked – V M Knox & Gillian Young 150822

Hello, welcome to today's Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station. I'm Hazel Butterfield, and here on Get Booked, we love talking to authors and book enthusiasts about new releases, going into detail about the topics covered, the inspiration, the mental health and well-being elements, opening discussions, and offering support via the incredible writing community out there. And giving you the extra special insight into a different book and the author each week. And this week we're going to be talking to V.M. Knox, the author of the Clement Wisdom series, and the author Gillian Young and her book Poppy Loves Devon. For all you huge dog fans out there, it's going to be an absolutely cracking show. Right, today on the show we are talking to the author V.M. Knox about the Clement Wisdom series. Growing up in Sydney in the '50s and '60s, uh, V.M. Knox attended both Ravenswood and Abbotsleigh schools. Following her secondary education, she trained as a primary teacher, then as a nurse specializing in burns care Music and nursing dominated her early adult life. She later worked in an administrative capacity for the Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney, then in the real estate industry. We are going to have so much to talk about, and coming into writing later in life and creating the Clement Wisdom series. Now we're going to be talking specifically about the latest release, West Wind Clear, which is set in late 1941. The Pacific is a very a different place from only one year earlier. Japan threatens the vast number of Imperial Army spies, and they felt infiltrated throughout the Pacific Islands in readiness for conflict. Just as he is preparing to leave Australia and return to Britain, Major Clement Wisdom is seconded to lead a small guerrilla force. Their mission: to rescue Captain John Winthorpe from Singapore and take him and a vital secret he carries back to Australia. While en route to the island bastion of the British Far East Fleet, Clement learns that Malaya, Singapore, and Pearl Harbor have all been bombed and war with Japan is declared. There is so much going on in this latest series. It is available online and in selected bookstores. Stores from June the 29th. Now, Vicky, it is great to finally have you on the show and chat to you. How are you? Certainly is. I'm so well, and thank you so much, Hazel, for having me on your program. It's wonderful to be with you. Unfortunately, the last time we were due to speak, COVID intervened, and I was going to talk to you about my then new release book, Where Death and Danger Go, which was set in Cambridgeshire. For the most part, but we didn't get the opportunity. So now there's a new book out. This is the fourth one, West Wind Clear. Well, it's good that you've been keeping busy. So just, just to remind our listeners, there is In Spite of All Terror. Yes, that's number one. Yes, and set in East Sussex. Right. I love the whole English and Australian— it's all worldwide, isn't it? And then Where Death and Danger Go, as you said, was the Third, and then, and then you decided to keep yourself busy in lockdown and West Wind Clear, which I just said was released on the 29th of June. And tell us a little bit about the Clement Wisdom series. Well, actually it started from a question on QI. Stephen Fry, this is some time ago, asked the question, who or what were the Scallywags? And it turned out to be a euphemistic term for some secret auxiliary units. They were guerrilla cells of guerrilla fighters set up in anticipation of the Nazi invasion in the English summer of 1940. And I was so intrigued by this, I started to do some research on it and found on the internet that, although this has now been put down as miss, that there was only one person who knew the identity of these guerrilla forces. Patrol groups, and that was the local senior policeman. Problem was, if and when the Germans landed, then he, that policeman, became the cells' first victim because he could identify them. Now, whether or not that was true or not, it didn't really matter because I write fiction. And so the first book is set in East Sussex, which is a county I love, and I have crisscrossed and walked the downs and seen the white cliffs and been all over.. And so I set it there. So it is a traditional murder mystery with a little bit of espionage thrown in and a super— I really enjoyed writing this book. By the end of it, the main character, Clement Wisdom, who is a minister, is a vicar of a local church, sort of had grown legs. And so I decided to send him to Caithness. So the second book, If Necessary Alone, is set in Caithness. And I've just found this book fascinating. I've been to Caithness now 3 times. It's a wonderful place. In the Second World War, it was a restricted area. And because of the Royal Navy was at Scapa Flow. And anyway, at the end of Book 2, there's a couple of unresolved issues that carry into Book 3, Where Death and Danger Go, which is set for the most part in Cambridge. And so Book 1 is a murder mystery with some espionage. But Book 2 is more espionage and a thriller. There's a few macabre murders in book 2. Oh, good. And book 3 is definitely intrigue and fifth column. And at the end of it, I take Clement to Australia. Now, I won't tell your listeners why, because that will upset something in the books. But suffice to say, he goes to Australia to inform someone about something. And so I pick up West Wind Clear just as he's about to leave Australia and go back to Britain, and that is in December of 1941. So even the title West Wind Clear is actually a coded message. So West Wind Clear is very much about the intelligence war, about codes and ciphers, and West Wind Clear is in fact a code. It was, uh, broadcast by the Japanese disguised as a weather report for the Japanese embassies in the Pacific. So if the Japanese intended to attack, say, American territory, the message would read, "East wind, rain." If they intended to attack the Soviet Union, because they were fighting with the Allies at that time, it would be, "North wind, cloudy." and if they intended to attack British-held territories, the code would read West Wind Clear. And that message was deciphered by an excellent Australian cryptographer, Commander Eric Nave, who is a real person. Sorry, I'm talking too much. No, you are not. I'm loving it. This is great because also, although you said yes, it's fiction and, you know, never let the truth get in the way of a good story, but it seems like you've managed to incorporate quite a bit of reality and information, bits that people sometimes don't actually know about. And it's also the kind of personable element as well of the war, rather than just historical facts and figures. It's a way of really getting involved with what happened. Yes, yes. I love it that you've done the research for some actual relevant and true information in there as well. I really do a lot of research, and I don't leave it to anyone else. I, I actually enjoy it, and in In the research, I find little details. For example, in the second book, If Necessary Alone, the historical facts that underpin that story was a completely useless raid on the lighthouse on Stroma Island. For your listeners who may not know where Stroma is, it's a small island off the north coast of Caithness. It's not one of the Orkney Islands. It is just a stone's throw off Cape Ness, the, you know, the north coast of mainland Great Britain. And there's a lighthouse there and a German fighter pilot strafed it on the 22nd of February 1941. And for no reason. It caused no damage and it injured nobody. So why did he do it? So I decided I'd give him a reason. And so the story, that underpins the whole story in a way, as does, although it's an off-page event, on the 4th of March '41, there was a raid on the Lofoten Islands, a very successful raid. The Lofoten Islands are high up in the Arctic Circle, a part of Norway, and the Brits sent in some people to blow up some fish oil factories up there. And you might say, well, why on earth would you blow up fish oil factories? Well, one of the byproducts is glycerin, and we all know what nitroglycerin is all about. So that was some fun information for the second book. The third book deals with two interesting historical events. One was a fellow called Joseph Jacobs, who was a German spy and landed in a field in Cambridgeshire at the end of January 1941. And he was caught. He hurt his foot. But I I found in tiny detail in research that he had jumped out of a Heinkel 111, which apparently has a small opening, and he caught his foot on the door as he jumped out. So when he landed, he actually broke his leg, and he was caught immediately. And the other interesting thing about him, he was the very last person to be executed at the Tower of London in August of '41. That's not in my book, that's just an extra little piece of information. But the other thing is, of course, the flight of Rudolf Hess, who landed in Scotland on the 10th of May, 1941, and that forms part of the story too. So I do mix a lot of fact and fiction. There is probably more fact in West Wind Clear. There's a lot of real people and some people who I think have slipped from the general public consciousness who were real heroes. One was a Lieutenant Colonel Ivan Lyon. He was a British guy, not an Australian. He lived in the Far East. He was born into a military family and his wife, who was French, and his little son unfortunately were taken prisoner by the Japanese and didn't survive. And Ivan Lyon turned into the most courageous, brave, extraordinary human being. He led a very successful operation in October of 1943 against the Japanese called Operation Jaywick. And so I use a little bit of that and bring it forward to 1941. So there's a bit of fiction that's fiddling around with the facts. I like that. Because so many people, a lot of people that we hear about in the history books, are because somebody has deemed it necessary and run with it for many, many years. And yet the people that don't completely wax lyrical about themselves and have less of an ego are the ones that aren't remembered or mentioned. And so I think it's nice to focus on unsung heroes and possibly the real heroes. Well, West Winclear is dedicated to the unsung heroes of the Intelligence Corps because a lot of those people— look, we know a lot a lot about Alan Turing, for example, now, and Bletchley Park. But I don't know whether it is known that Bletchley Park had a Far East division called the Far East Combined Bureau, originally in Hong Kong. Then it had to move because the Japanese were getting so close to Singapore. And from Singapore, it then went to Colombo. But that was a Far East branch of Bletchley Park. And the interesting thing, and I read a lot, I read many, many books cover to cover for West Wind Clear. The Japanese codes were quite dissimilar to the German Enigma codes because German is a Romanized alphabet. So machines like the Bombs and, and the machinery that Alan Turing devised to decode those messages, and towards the end of the war you would know that they were almost decoding them in real time. The Japanese codes And of course the Japanese language is character-based. It's not a Romanized alphabet. So it presented huge problems for the decoders. And it was largely a numeric code. So the one that the Japanese Imperial Navy and operational code were using, a thing the Americans eventually called JN-25, and it was used in 70% of the messaging that was going between the Japanese Navy and their ships and whatnot. The Pacific War, very, very different war because it was largely huge oceans to cross to the various islands. So yes, there was fighting, but there was also a lot of naval involvement. And then of course the Americans come into the picture too. So I do introduce an American traffic analysis person in codebreaking in the book as well. So West Wing Clear is probably more about espionage and codebreaking and the intelligence war, whereas the other books have tended to be more sort of murder mystery thrillers, intrigue and murder. And poor old Clement, of course, I do back him into a lot of corners. And but like all good fictitious heroes, he has more lives than a cat. So of course he makes it. And he will live to see another couple of books, I'm sure. Your internet search history must make for incredibly good reading. I have put at the end of West Winclear a little bit about some of the real people in them, because I think people should know about these characters. Some British, some Australian people in there who were just really extraordinary human beings, courageous, very smart and diligent and just kept going. And those names have slipped unfortunately from our public consciousness and they should be remembered. Do you know what? There's a lot of that happening at the moment which I think is incredibly important where history— well, great stories of history are being written with the lesser-known characters to give us a bit of a bit of a broader spectrum and knowledge and kind of, you know, different perspectives I think are so incredibly important, especially in this day because we all seem to focus on one particular avenue and not think about the bigger picture, and I think it's really important. I'm quite keen to know, what is your connection to Britain then? Are you just a fan of exploring or, you know? I'm an Anglophile through and through. Mind you, my ancestry and my sister Chris has done a lot on the family tree, but we are mostly from Lincolnshire, uh, Leicestershire, London, um, with a little bit of Irish, Welsh, not so much Scottish. I think one person from Scotland, but I'm British through and through. Heinz 57, I think, is a good term. And you know, when I was I came to Britain for the first time. And in those days, the aeroplanes, of course, had to— it was called the kangaroo route to London. And of course, it hopped with Sydney, Darwin, Singapore, Karachi, New Delhi, you know, it just up and down and up and down to refuel. And in those days, you used to fly in over the Channel. And I looked through my porthole and saw the White Cliffs I still get a bit misty about it. I was just, I was in love. It was the most astonishing reaction to those white cliffs. It was a beautiful day in the sea. I can still see it in my mind's eye. Those snow-white cliffs and the green of the grass on the top and the blue of the sea. It was the most extraordinary sight. I was in awe from that moment to this.. And I think that's why I probably set the first book in East Sussex because it's in that same area. Interestingly, it was kind of fortuitous that I did set it in East Sussex because Operation Sea Lion, which was the Nazis' invasion of Britain, which was due to take place in August of 1940, it would have been at Cookmere Haven. And that is where I've set Clement, uh, his home, a fictitious village called Fernley Morton in that area. Um, there has been a huge number of what you can only describe as scarily synchronistic with my research and places I've been to and things that I've, um, written about. I might have to guess something, particularly when COVID was on and I had to write the book, um, from guesswork. And then later on I've gone to sort of check it out and traveled there and found it to be absolutely exactly as I have foreseen it. It's quite scary. It's quite scary. It's almost like it was just meant to be. Just throwing it out there a little bit, do you think because you traveled from an early age that gave you that characteristic, that kind of personality that wanted such variety and a vivacious appetite for life. I think you are definitely right. I do get bored very quickly, and so that's why I'm always dreaming up new stories or new plots, or, you know, I'm currently toying with the idea of 2 or 3 other books that are not part of the Clement Wisdom series. I have a lovely band of devoted followers, and if it's at all possible to mention one lady's name, Veronica, who is the most devoted of readers. She's in South Wales somewhere. I have never met her, but she is an extraordinary human being and just follows my Twitter page and Facebook page and just loves Clement. People seem to get very caught up in the stories. I had a man today in America who sent me an email saying, "If only Clement Wisdom could meet Christopher Foyle. I think the two of them would get on really well. I thought, well, I wonder what Anthony Horowitz thinks of that. I did actually, there was a series that I used to absolutely love by Kerry Wilkinson. It's the Jessica Daniels series, and he's on his like 15th book, and I remember in one of my reviews saying, this is the longest relationship I've ever been in. I completely know Jessica's life and I'm completely involved and I need to— it's like meeting up with a friend to find out. And she's a detective and I was like, my marriage didn't last that long and at one point my kids weren't even, you know, that age and I was like, I'm so involved in this. And you know, absolutely, people get very invested in it. And you know, there are some characters that have really come alive for some people. So much so that if I do something to them that they don't like, "Oh no!" You know, they get really concerned about it. "Why are you doing this?" Yes, yes, which is lovely. But you know, I do have to remind myself and them that they're actually fictitious. Well, a lot of them are fictitious characters. And those that aren't are possibly, you know, none would be alive today. I'm sure they would have all passed on by now. But this— Get Booked is all about well-being, and a good story is either escape or it teaches us something or it keeps the brain just ticking around, you know. Yes, yes. You can learn things about other people in memoirs and autobiographies. Yes. And the thing is, With books like yours, it is about escape and involving yourself in something that, you know, has semi-happened in the past. Oh, absolutely. It is total escapism. Totally. You know, and people can sort of— it's the sort of book you'd read if you were stuck in an airport for 5 or 6 hours or something. You could be totally immersed. That's happening a lot at the moment. Yes. I will say one thing. I have another man who writes to me who says, how pleased he is to read a book where the main character, the hero, isn't superhuman, isn't one of those— he has his foibles, he has his doubts, particularly in the second book because I do something to him in the second book and I won't say what it is, but he's really doubting. He's doubting his calling, he doubts his, his faith, because he's a vicar, and I deliberately chose a vicar for two reasons. I couldn't find any recorded evidence of a vicar ever being involved in those clandestine auxiliary units. So I thought, well, no one can say that's my grandfather or father or uncle or whomever that you've written about. But it also added a dimension. So whatever was happening inside Clement, the tensions inside him resonated over what he was being asked to do because he was being asked to kill. And this was war, of course, and he is not a pathological killer, you know, he doesn't go out killing people. But he is involved in war, and in particular, in a guerrilla style of warfare. And so he is being asked to kill. So how does he justify that? And I think Clement comes across as really human because Unlike the superhuman characters, you know, the— these characters that always win and they never get hurt. And you know what, Born Identity series, where they can get shot 12 times, stabbed 8 times, get run over by a train, they get back up again and they just— yes, hey, let's— I'm now going to go and take this beautiful lady and show her. Yes, that's right. Well, Clement is really human, and I think that's one of the reasons why people relate to him. Because he is human. He does rail against things. He does question. He does a lot of soul searching. And yet he's a good leader. He's a decent man. And he's a courageous man. And I think people have asked me, is Clement me? Oh no, Clement's much braver than me. I'm sure I could never do the things that Clement does. I'd like to think I could, but I know I'm— Honestly, Vicki, I think you could probably do anything you put your mind to. Well, actually, I was going to ask you, now I gather you have numerous grandchildren. I have 4. 4? Are they huge fans? Well, my oldest grandson, there's a photograph of him with me in the local newspaper. And unfortunately, unless you can see me, I can't show it to you, but I could send it to you, I suppose. And look, look, my second book is probably too murderous for young readers. Little bit. It's probably the most graphic of the murder books, the second one. But it does introduce, and this I had to learn myself, it does introduce an overheard coded message. Going back to the Enigma thing, you might remember with Enigma it was letters. So it would be something, for example, like K-V-X-Z-A or something like that. So he overhears a message being transmitted on an illicit radio that's somewhere in Caithness and they're trying to find it. And then I thought, I wonder if someone tried to do it. And then I'll get an email saying, this doesn't work. So I thought, right, I'm going to make it work. So I stopped writing and for 6 hours I taught myself with the, with the aid of the internet how to do a columnar transposition encryption. Of course you did. And it works. The, the encryption in If Necessary Alone works. But I would say to your listeners, if they want to do it, the algorithm is mentioned in the book so they know how to do it. But remember, it's in German. Oh, listeners, seriously, you've got to get involved. I think you've got such an addictively inquisitive mind. I think it's just a bit scary, isn't it, when you put it that way? Well, scary's good, isn't it? Now, murder mysteries, yes. As suspected, I'm— we're running out of time. I've thoroughly loved chatting to you, Vicky, and I just want to point out to all of our listeners to pop on to vmknoxauthor.com to find out more about you. If you can send that picture to me as well of you and your grandson together, we'll get it on Twitter. And congratulations on the fourth in the series, and thank you so much for chatting to us here at Get Writing. Thank you, Hazel. I've so enjoyed speaking to you, and who knows, if there's another one, maybe we'll, we'll get together again. I suspect there will be. Yes, I'm hopeful of being in Britain next May for the Crime Writers Conference in Bristol, and I had tried to get there. But of course COVID stopped everything, didn't it? So we're ignoring COVID now, it's all over with. You'll be here in May. I hope so, I really hope so. And I do like to spend sort of a week in London before I go to Bristol for the conference and catch up with friends. And it's, um, and be lovely to take you to Fortnum and Mason's for tea. I think that sounds like an absolutely fantastic idea, and you've said it on the radio, so it has has to happen now, you can't back out. Believe me, I have no desire whatever to back out. Thank you so much for chatting to us and enjoy the rest of your day. Thank you so much, Hazel. Right, next on the show, as promised, we have the author Gillian Young, and we're going to be talking about her latest book that has literally filled me with joy over the last few days, Poppy Loves Devon, that was released in June of this year. Poppy wants to befriend anything that moves, but she's never successful. It seems all the other animals find her too big, loud, and boisterous. I know how she feels. Dad is convinced she needs a playmate, but Poppy's unsure. She enjoys the fuss and attention from her family so much, she is not willing to share. Poppy is my spirit animal. The, the choice is taken away from her when one day a puppy comes along. However, Poppy soon discovers the puppy is lost and alone, and her big heart and caring nature kicks in when she discovers a monster lurking in a nearby wood. Poppy must act fast to save the farm, her family, and the puppy while staying out of the sea and not getting wet. Meanwhile, a handsome border collie kicks all the boxes as the perfect dog, but is he? Are things ever as they seem, even in the dog world? Poppy loves Devon, follows her pursuit of making friends, but not realising what's under her very nose. Gillian, hi and thank you for joining us here on GetBooked. Hi Hazel, thank you for having me, it's a pleasure. Oh, you are so welcome. It's been, you've been quite the conversational topic among my friends, because, I mean, we're all dog fans, you know, we all hang out together, all our dogs hang out together, and, you know, they all have their own relationships with each other. Oh, that's lovely, and they'd love to join you. Oh, she so would, I kind of felt like she did in spirit last night when I saw Poppy's doppelgänger. It's just a lot of the books I read, especially for the show, are domestic noir or thrillers, memoirs, autobiographies, or the things where people are sharing issues they've had with their mental health and abuse. And then my friends are saying, ah, Poppy Loves Seven, 'What's that about?' It's like, it's a dog that just goes on holiday, babes. And they're like, 'Oh wow, that's different.' I went, 'Do you know what? I've just got a constant smile on my face.' It is good. Sweet. It is joyful. It is just— and the thing is, people who know me really well, especially people who have been on my shows, know that I often bring my dog with me everywhere, but she has her own voice and it's quite ridiculous. I mean, one of my station managers makes me do the voice quite often and it is ridiculous, but this is essentially what you're doing in Poppy Loves Devon as well. It's like, "Those humans are making me go in the water again." The facial expression says it all, really. It's like even when I walk out outside my front door and the dog wants to go left and I want to go right, and I'll sit there and there's people walking past. I'm going, but Charlie, I've told you we're going this way. No, we're not going. We are going. You have a conversation too. I— the neighbors must think I'm mad because I'm in the garden chatting away and they think, she can't answer you. But I don't care. They can. They do answer. It's just— I mean, they are— I think golden retrievers are quite expressive in a similar way to beagles as well, like kind of a bit stubborn and lollopy and just want to be loved. But they've just got— you can tell what your pets are thinking, in my, in my view, my opinion. Oh yes, definitely. You get to know them. I mean, I know sometimes when I lay the food down and she looks at me and I'm going, it's kibble day, you know, this is not a fresh chicken day. Give me a break. See, now Poppy's just happy to have food. She's, she's a pig. She's a pig and she grunts. She grunts more than barks. So yeah, she must have been a pig in a past life. If you show her food, it doesn't matter what it is, she will just scoff it down and then she gives a really loud belch when she's finished. She's not ladylike at all. Oh no, Charlie's exactly— so Charlie's a girl as well. Charlie girl, Charlie Princess Pants. Um, and in fact, I think she started following your dog So Crazy Cream Retrievers, I do see Charlie Princess Pants followed your dog. Ah, Charlie Princess Pants, right, I'm gonna check that out afterwards, give you a follow. A little bit of a plug there. But it is, and I just kind of, I did like it as I was reading this book, I was thinking, oh, it's not just me that has these full-blown conversations with my dog. And it kind of felt like, I mean, the story is predominantly told from the viewpoint of Poppy, the golden retriever. Yeah. And it kind of just felt like the dialogue was through knowledge of your dog. Yeah, it's just like, well, Poppy and I are so close. I mean, we have a lot, a lot, it's a long story with our relationship, but we are very close. And I just feel like I know exactly what she's thinking. I know what she's going to do before she even does it. This is the magical thing. So to write a story about her, it just, it just seems so easy. It just seemed the natural thing to do, you know what I mean? When something feels right. And I just, I just started tapping around the laptop and they're just— words just flowed. And now I'm on my second book. It's a Crazy Cream Adventure series, and I'm just going to keep on doing it because there's just no end of stories I could create with Poppy because she's such a good character to write about. Her reaction to everything is just hilarious, and I think we all need a bit of a feel-good story now and then, don't we? Oh, we do. I mean, I think Joy really does kind of epitomise what you get from your stories. And I'm just quite intrigued, when you're writing, are you sitting in a café somewhere with your dog going, So what would you do in this situation? Yeah, I thought you would. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with you, I'm with you. I mean, is it kind of that telepathy going on? Um, something, yeah, but I'm not in a café. I have what my husband calls my cave, and it's— we've converted the front bedroom to like my study, which is where I am now talking to you. And I've got my laptop here in front of the window, and I have my fan on one side and my music on the other, and loads of books. And every now and then the door just swings open and I know who it is, and I turn around and Poppy's just stood there and she's just staring at me, and I'm just like, okay Poppy, let me finish this one chapter, then we'll go to the forest, because that's her favorite place, you see. Oh wow. And she just— and then she'll just kind of grunt at me, like I say, she likes to grunt, and then she'll just flop down and stare at me until I've finished, and then it's time to go. See, I've got a similar place. I mean, I've got two boys, so sometimes it's nice to just be able to completely distance myself from either the teenage smell or the complete looks of derision. And so I've got what I call the LGS in my garden. It's the Lady Garden Shed, and it's one of these with— it's like a glass-fronted building, and I'll go down there and I'll shut the door and then all of a sudden I'll turn around and I'll look through the window and the dog is sitting there looking at me as if to go, "Idiot, you forgot to let me in." That look, that indignant look. You kind of feel the eyes burning in the back of your head, don't you? Someone's watching you. Turn around and there they are. Absolutely. I mean, it is very funny. It is. But I go everywhere with my dog. I mean, I'm quite happy to kind of go out for a nice lunch or dinner or a couple of drinks with a book and my dog at the side. And my friends would be like, "Oh, is no one available?" I was like, "There's lots of people available, I just don't want to speak to them. I just really like spending time with my dog." It's just complete peace, isn't it? You can really relax. And you've got the best company there is because they're just happy just being with you. You don't have to make conversation, they just want to be with you. And that's the beauty of it, isn't it? Oh, I mean, they get so happy, and the only reason they're so happy is because you've walked through the door. Yeah. And you think that's— that's so— they don't ask for much, just a bit of love, walk, and some food. Well, a lot of food where Poppy's concerned. But yeah, it's lovely, that, that relationship. Since I became a dog owner when I was 16, I managed to talk my mom into finally letting me have a dog. It took 6 16 years. And since then, I just haven't looked back. I mean, the memories I've had with my dogs are priceless. And even though it hurts when they go, you know, it's, it's like someone's kicked you in the chest. It's awful. But oh yeah, once you get beyond that grief, which you do eventually, you look back on those memories and they're just priceless. And you're just thankful that you had those precious moments with them. Well, it's better to have loved and lost than to not have loved at all. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And I mean, it's because of the love I had with my first dog Tammy, that was why we had Willow. And then having had those two dogs and the wonderful times in the life we had with them is why we had Poppy. And it's just, you know, it's just carried on from there. It's just like a family tree of dogs. Yeah, definitely. I mean, occasionally, um, it's quite funny because anywhere I go, it's a well-known thing that if we see a dog, Hazel gets down on the ground and I'm speaking to them. And if I'm out with like my partner or my kids and for some reason I go past a dog and I don't say hello, they're like, "Mummy, your contact's alright," because it's not okay. They don't understand if I for some reason don't spend the time chatting to somebody else's dog. I did actually go, I was walking, I was shopping with the kids the other day and I walked past this shop and I did a double take and I saw this Great Dane, a proper thoroughbred Great Dane, you know where they're the size of like a black bin? And I just kind of, it was like one of those cartoon reversals where I just went, "Hello!" Double take! No, I'm the same. When I go out with my daughter, my daughter's just like me, and wherever we go out, we're just spotting all the dogs. That's all we're looking at. Oh, look at that dog there! No, look at this one here! And when she was little, she was forever asking me to go up to the owner and ask if she could, you know, pet them and make a fuss of them. Yeah, because, oh, they're just— there's so many different breeds out there. It's like, oh, that's your dad's favorite dog, and oh, we had a dog like that. And it's just— oh, when we went to Crufts, it was Just beside ourselves. Oh, we're gonna dig it first! Took you 3 weeks to calm down and at least 12 Dyson fans. Yeah. Have you ever been to Crufts? No, I haven't. Um, I don't— yeah, I don't— I think it would annoy me that there was all these dogs I couldn't actually just sit on the floor with. No, yeah, like going to a sweetie convention and you're not allowed to touch them. Well, if you go to the Discover Dogs section, which is my favorite, you've got every single breed and they're with their owners and they're there for you to go over, chat to the breeders. You can make a fuss of the dogs and it is, it is wonderful. It is wonderful. The last time we went, my daughter was cuddling Dashund and she was beautiful, beautiful. I made a beeline for the Golden Retrievers of course. And, uh, yeah, they're just so many. Afghan Hounds, how gorgeous are they? They're fantastic. They're so regal looking, aren't they? Have you ever played dog bingo with your family? Yes, we've got doggy bingo. Yeah, we love that. There's some of those breeds, it's like, what? I've never heard of that one before. Bichon Frisé. We have a Bichon Frisé. Anybody got it? Try and pronounce that! Oh no, we absolutely love that game. Yeah, that comes out every Christmas. Ours comes out slightly more regularly because we just, we fight over who gets the boards with the beagles on. I must say though, especially to all of our listeners, that Poppy Loves Seven, it really is such a sweet story. It is entertaining, but I think it really epitomizes what we all realized in lockdown, which is such a memorable time in our history where we all just suddenly went, "Yep, what's going to save us? Our dogs." Yeah, yeah, it really does bring that home, and it's that kind of love and adoration and just understanding somebody else and and, you know, even if you don't have many humans around you, if you've got a dog, you're out and about, you're getting involved, you can chat to other people, and you've just got somebody with you, somebody who— and dogs, I mean, I used to be a cat lover back in the, back in my youth, but they just look at you with such disdain, whereas dogs love you no matter what. They're definitely the boss, aren't they? Everything's on their terms. Whereas the dog just wants to please you. That's a huge difference. Yeah. Well, they're saying that— I mean, my best friend, my friend Sharni, she's got a cat called Bluey, and cats don't normally like me for some reason. They always seem to— I think I, I'm— I think they're like dogs, and I try and like pet them like dogs, and they don't like it. But Bluey, they broke the mold with her. She's absolutely beautiful. And when I walk through the door, she's trotting over to me going meow, like this, and like rubbing her head against my hand. I'm thinking, 'Oh my God, she loves me, she's really nice, she's sweet.' Maybe she's species fluid. Sorry? Maybe she's species fluid and she's a bit more dog. Could be, could well be, because my auntie many, many moons ago always had cats, and my earliest memory is that she had a black cat with bright green eyes and it was called Sooty. And I remember I wasn't very old and I leaned over and I was going, 'Hello,' and I was trying to give her a fuss, and she went for me with her claws, and she just missed my eyes. And I think that, at such a young age as well, it kind of made me very wary of cats. So I never really got that close to them until Bluey. I thought, oh yeah, she's really sweet. Well done, Bluey, for restoring your faith in the thing. Yeah, beautiful. But as for dogs, well, I just love them since I was probably about 3, and my uncle, um, he had 2 collies, a collie ruff just like Lassie and a huge border collie called Ricky. And I absolutely loved them. I mean, they were bigger than me at that time, and I thought they were magnificent. And I just really wanted a dog, but my mom was, was definitely no. She didn't grow— she hadn't grown up with them, she wasn't used to them, so she didn't really want one. Um, but But from that moment, seeing my uncle's dogs, that began my love affair, if you like, with, with canines. Yeah, I completely get it. Yeah. Um, I'm quite keen to find out what's in store for Poppy next, now that, you know, she loves Devon. Well, uh, you say that, I'm actually 4 chapters into my next book. Yay! And you start another one because it's called— because her Instagram account is Crazy Cream Treavers. Um, I've called it the Crazy Cream Adventures. So you've got Poppy on Safari, which is the first one, and then I followed that with Poppy Loves Devon. And the reason why I followed that on is not only because I just love writing and it's good therapy for me, it's a medicine for me, it makes me feel good, and it's a good closure from all the worries that's going on around you. You're just focusing on your story, and it's a feel-good story, so you end up up feeling much happier and more positive after having written it. I thought, well, sorry, I do this a lot. I forgot what I was talking about. Oh, do you know what? Do you do this? Do you know what? In the hot weather, you walk into a room and you suddenly go, I came here for a reason. Yes, yes, I do this. And I'm thinking, right, here we go, I really want to say this. And then as I'm talking, I'm thinking, what was I was going to say— Do you ever do that thing where you keep on talking hoping that eventually by the time you get to the end of the sentence you remember what it is you wanted to say? God, yes! Yes, I do that all the time! Oh, I'm so glad, Hazel, that you do too, because I thought it was just me being a bit crazy. All the time, all the time, it's ridiculous. Awful, isn't it? And you're just really hoping your brain picks up speed and just triggers and you can just pick up and no one notices, but No such luck. I'm not bothered about people noticing now. I'm just like, yeah, I've completely lost it. You get beyond it. Just be honest. Just say it. It's easier, isn't it? But you were talking about how the third one is about Crazy Cream Adventures and the story. I'm quite surprised that I remember because my brain is so hot as well. Isn't it? You want to get one of these Dyson fans. I know, they're good, they're good. I've tried all these other ones and they don't seem to work so well, but this one's working so far anyway. I'm all over it, I'm gonna get one. You're a winning endorsement. They should employ me in their sales team, shouldn't they? So should— but we'll do good, we'll tag them on Twitter. Yeah, why not? Let's try. Because you see, our house— I have a daughter who is petrified of every insect— spider, moth, wasp, bee, anything. So doors are not allowed to be open, windows securely shut. Oh yeah, imagine when it's like a heatwave, it's like, oh my gosh. I mean, if I open the door to let the girls out into the back garden, um, Poppy's there lolliping around, patio door's still open, Becky's there, my daughter, straight away shutting the door, wagging a finger at me as if to say, I've told you before, keep that door Do you know what though, at least, at least, right, I'm lucky because my sons don't listen to Getbooks because they're teenage boys and they're very unsupportive. But we don't like spiders in our household, so I mean, I have the windows open because I need some fresh air, but they won't have the windows open in their room, so add teenage boy to no windows, no air circulation, I mean, sometimes, I mean, I'm going to get one of the rooms redecorated and I won't need any paint stripper because literally the stench of teen boy is going to strip that straight off. I know exactly what you mean. I have a lad too. Well, he's nearly 21 now. And yeah, yeah, I know exactly what you mean by that. You walk in, it's like, oh my God. I mean, you can taste it, can't you? Yes. Yeah. Well, we seem to like really spicy food. As well which really lingers it's like no no no no socks not nice smell very attractive to the girls I'll tell you that do you know what funnily enough when my eldest has a girlfriend this smell isn't there oh really makes a little bit more of an effort now I see yeah which is probably why I keep on going hey babe she's running around doing her thing but he doesn't mind so much then 'Why does he? No! He just goes 'Oh God!' don't you take her out to Starbucks? That'd be nice, and then your room can start smelling nicer because, you know, when she comes over for dinner.' I digress, I digress. If you see the episode of Get Cooked that my eldest suddenly decides to listen to, I am in so much trouble. Oh, you are, are you? I'm hoping my tour out here is short. You've got some grovelling to do. I think I'm quite safe on that one. It's like far too embarrassing to be supportive of your mother. Now, something I'm quite keen to talk to you about. Now, I know that you are working towards finding a new normal after being quite seriously ill, so something that I often ask the guests here on Get Booked is, uh, is for tips on good mental well-being. And I suspect— I normally ask for 3, but I suspect you have a plethora of good tips if you're trying to find a new normal. And can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do to keep your mindset positive and your well-being as, as good as it can be? Well, um, a few years ago I hit rock bottom. Basically couldn't get much lower. Uh, within 12 months, somebody very close to me died, um, I was diagnosed with cancer, and I lost my job. And my job was one— a job that I absolutely loved. I was there for nearly 10 years, and we were such a good working community. It's one of those rare places where everybody just got along. We were a team, and it didn't feel like going into work. It was lovely. And, and I knew everything comes to an end, so every day I went into work I made the most of it. I thought, I'm really fortunate, you know. So when I lost that job, it hurt. It was a real tough blow. But the thing was, this was during when I had my cancer. So when I had to leave my job, I couldn't look for another job because I'd only just come out of hospital. So I was far from well enough to look for anything else. And it was a case of the future was really, really scary. Um, you know, I've always been a person who likes to plan things, likes to have, um, like some kind of plan, some process. Yeah, but that— those 12 months, I couldn't plan a thing because as soon as one thing happened— it was my auntie who died, and she was like a second mother to me, and she didn't have any children. I was the closest she had to a daughter. So When she died, I had to sort out her whole estate, which was very difficult. We just moved house. We got all that to sort out. I just started full-time work after working part-time for a long time, and it was a real struggle. But I was kept thinking, I'm going to get there, I'm going to get there. And then I was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. And this was like, they've got the wrong person, you know, because there was no lumps, there was no bleeding. I felt fit, I felt healthy. They've got the wrong Gillian. This is what I thought. Never going to happen to us though, right? No, because then when I have my MRI and my CT scans and all that confirmed it, and then they told me I had to have a radical hysterectomy, which meant everything had to be taken away. Then it was spread and I had to have chemotherapy, radiotherapy, then back again for brachytherapy, and it was very hard. And then when I was told that I had to take voluntary redundancy because company was relocating, it was a case of, you know, what am I going to do? What can I do? And it was scary. But what we had, what we decided to do while I was having my treatment was we had a puppy. And that's the key thing, you see. You have to have something to focus on. Think of positives. You know, whatever black period you're going through, it is just a period and you will get to the end of it. And when I had Poppy, that helped me. And I remember taking photographs of her into the hospital and showing the nurses and the consultants, and then they were then taking their phones out and showing me pictures of their dogs, and it brought a smile to my face, which at the time I thought was impossible. It's great to bond over— oh God, yeah, yeah. And then as I got a bit stronger through my recuperation and Poppy got a little bit older so we could take her out, I had to go out. I had to take take her for walks. And then I got to see people regularly in the neighborhood, and got to— and that in itself, getting out of the house, getting in that fresh air, seeing people, that helps as well. And I find now, um, I go for daily walks in the forest with Poppy, and that helps my mental well-being. Because I think if you're stuck in the house, all four walls, it can feel a prison. So being out in the fresh air— and also another thing I found, because when I was at— because I was at a very, very low place, um, I had— I saw two counselors, not one but two. That's how bad it was. And just to make sure— that's right, yeah. I had one with Macmillan and another one who was, uh, turned out— it's quite funny actually, when I met her, turned out to be one of my old friends who I grew up with. I did, and it was her married name. It's like, oh my God, it's you! I'm sitting here, so are you? And, um, she gave me some very good advice because at the time I was too afraid to even leave the house. It was a case of what next, what awful thing is going to happen next. I was afraid to go in the car in case I was in a car crash. I was afraid to go out with Poppy in case a dog attacked her. This was the mindset I had because of so many things that have gone wrong. Yeah. And she said to me, what you need to do is keep saying to yourself, you've got to, got to gee yourself up and say, I'm gonna really, I'm gonna really enjoy this, I'm really looking forward to this, even if it's just going to a shop. Because I used to be afraid to go to a shop in case I got mugged, you know. This was just everything, everything was a black thought. And I thought, okay, so I'm gonna go out. And I thought, yeah, I'm really looking forward to going to Sainsbury's, I am really looking forward to getting I'm looking forward to walking around that shop and seeing some nice things. And it worked. It did work. And every time I'm faced with something I'm a bit, mm, about, I think to myself, I'm going to really enjoy this. This is really good. I'm going to really enjoy it. I'm looking forward to it. And that mindset, it worked for me. It definitely worked for me. It sounds really simplistic, doesn't it? But it's the power of how you think. We speak to ourselves and the tone we use. If we say, "Oh, I'm gonna hate this thing," you're already telling yourself how you're gonna feel. But even if you don't necessarily believe it, just speaking to yourself with positive connotations, it is really important. I mean, the power of just altering your narrative even slightly, even if you just kind of, you really don't feel like doing something, to say instead of saying, "I hate doing that," "I don't like the thought of doing this today," because there's no finality in that. And we need to be so careful of the words we use to ourselves. Oh yes, it's like that retraining your brain and the mindset. It's very, very important. And concentrating on positives, even if it's something silly like, "I'm, I'm gonna make a cup of tea and I'm gonna finish it. I'm not gonna sip it and then leave it. I'm gonna sit here I am going to finish it. I'm going to take in everything around me and I'm going to really enjoy it. Something— it doesn't have to be something like, oh, I'm going away for the weekend. It could be something like, oh, the sun's shining. That's a positive. That's really nice. Yeah. And thankful for things like, I'm thankful that I've got my friends around me. I'm thankful that I can, you know, I can read, I can read a book, my eyesight's good, you know. I'm thankful that I can walk, I can get out and enjoy the sunshine. Fine. Things like that that I'm grateful for, you know. It doesn't have to be like a massive bank account, which, hell yeah, I'd be grateful for that. But you know, it can be a lot easier to start. What's that great saying? It's a lot easier— it's a lot more pleasant to cry in a Bentley than on the bus. I've never heard that before. I should remember that. That's good. But it so is true. Just kind of focusing. And it does take practice. It's not like you can just suddenly go, do you know what, today I'm going to be positive and I'm only going to see positive things in my life. No, it takes a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not going to happen unless you try. And just, you know, every now and again you might forget and you might fall off the wagon, but then you can just go, oh well, you know, I'll have a cup of tea, refresh, bing bang bosh. And you try again and try and look for look for the positives. And you know, and sometimes if you're in a bit of, you know, you can bring this round to reading and writing, which is so incredibly cathartic. But if you know that a comedy is gonna switch your mood up a little bit, do it. Make sure that you're aware that that is what's going to bring you round. I mean, books like yours, you know, Poppy Loves Kevin, just books that you know are going to make you feel great. This is why This is why I alter the genres of what I read quite often. They're very cyclical, just to make sure that I'm kind of absorbing so many different things but not too much of one, just to kind of give me a bit of an even keel. Need a variety, yeah. Yeah. Now, as suspected, we have run out of time because, you know, I guess that's it. I've got so much more I wanted to say to you. I know, can you hold up the book? Like my favourite authors and— Yeah, I know. Can you hurry up, write the next book and come back on the show? Because— Oh, definitely. Well, I'm 4 chapters in, so I've got a way to go yet, but bear with me. You'll smash it out the park. I have complete faith in you. Yeah, I was going to ask you so many more questions, but we just went off on a tangent and had a good old chinwag, which is exactly what I wanted anyway. Feels like I've known you for years, Hazel. It really does. Well, give us a shout next time you and the dog are up and Yeah, definitely. I'm sure the girls and Charlie, they'll all get on really well. Oh, so well. We'll take him for a pint down by the river and the canal. Oh God, yeah, yeah. Nothing, that would get Charlie into the next book. Yes, she would love that. Her ego would just go through the charts. Just quickly shout out to all of our listeners to pop on to gillianyoungauthor.com and go and check out the Poppy series Thank you so much, Gillian, for chatting to us here on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station. Thank you so much for inviting me, it's been a pleasure. I can't wait to have you back on the show, and we might have to extend it to 2 hours just to get, you know, enough questions in. I think we might squeeze it all in, maybe a bit longer. Maybe a bit longer, yeah, maybe 3 hours. You like doing 3 hours.