Three Books – Jane Wenham – Jones

Hello and welcome to Three Books with me, Angela Clarke on women's radio station the programme where we discover the three books that have shaped and influenced today's female writers. On today's show we welcome Jane Wenham Jones, journalist, presenter and author. Jane's latest novel, Mum in the Middle is a fresh, funny and wise story about 40 something divorced Tess who downsizes, ships out to the countryside and is looking forward to finally getting some time to herself when her mum becomes ill and her adult children and her ex husband end up moving back in. Jane, Tess, is a perfect example of a woman whose adult children haven't flown the nest and whose parents are ailing. Do you think this is an increasingly common scenario? It seems to be. I mean since I've written that book and I've started doing the publicity for it, so many people have said, oh God, that's my life. And in fact it's a very strange thing that every novel I've ever written, it's sort of come to pass. You know, what started off as fiction has come to pass in real life. Are you a Cassandra? Can you see the future and nobody's listening to you? Better write a book about the lottery, hadn't I? So you know, when I started writing that book, at the time I was going to focus on the whole empty nest thing because my son had just left for university. I felt all bereft, you know, my parents were both perfectly happy skipping around, you know, looking after themselves. But actually since, cause the book has been a long time in the making just because of things that were going on in my life, there were interruptions and I've spent longer than I normally would writing a book. In the interim my son has come back, you know, several times trailing the dirty washing and he's actually living at home at the moment as we speak. And then my aunt got some, a really severe sort of dementia which she went down with really, really quickly and she hasn't got children, so I'm her lasting power of attorney, which has been a huge learning curve. So actually I have had an insight since in what it feels like to be like looking after, you know, elderly people one end and your kids come back because they can't afford to buy anywhere of their own, they can't rent, you know, it is very different today from how it was for me. It's not what the term is for, but it always makes me think of the squeezed middle. That's always, you know, that's not what it means, but that's what it makes me feel, feel like, you've got two sides and the pressure coming into it. I think we're called the stretched generation. Okay. I knew there'd be a term, but. Yes, but there is, I think, also squeezed gets used. But we think of Theresa May, don't we, in the squeezed middle. But of course, there's a bit of that as well, actually, if you're having to still financially support your adult kids. Well, that's the thing, isn't it? And maybe your parents need extra help with care costs. Yeah. Is that why we're seeing kind of, you know, adult children kind of coming back or not being able to kind of, like, take flight, as it were? Is it because of kind of. Is it economic? Is it just. Oh, I think absolutely it's economic. I mean, I bought my first house when I was 21 years old. Good grief. You know. But at the time, I earned between five and six thousand pounds a year, and my first house cost sixteen and a half thousand pounds. It was a little falling down, two up, two down in Ramsgate in Kent, that needed a lot doing to it. Now I was able to borrow three times my income. Yeah. So that house today is worth 180, 200,000 pounds. So if my son wanted to buy that, he would have to earn 60 grand a year. Yeah. It's absolutely impossible. Absolutely. I think it's so hard for the younger generation coming out. I mean, there aren't the jobs there, you know, there aren't the money there. And they've all got incredible, increasing amounts of debt. Do you feel sorry for them or do you want them just to move out? No, I do feel a bit sorry. I mean, I wrote a Woman's Weekly feature about adult kids not leaving the nest, you know, and interviewed all these women and going, oh, yes, you know, good heavens. All these pairs of shoes in the hall and they empty your fridge at one sitting. But I've only got one and I actually don't mind him being at home. You're happy for him to come back? Yeah. Do you think he read the book? Do you think that's why he's showing up more? No, he wouldn't dream of reading anything I'd written. So, Jane, what's the book that you wish that you'd written? Do you know, I think it's Bridget Jones Diary, Just because I think I interviewed Helen Fielding last year and I do think that it was a piece of comic genius. And, you know, so many of us have written chick lit since, there's been so many of those books, but she was the first one, she was the sort of definitive one. And I just think it's. It's a very, very clever book. Much deeper, actually, than you might think. And of course, she's made a fortune on the films and stuff, so that's always good, isn't it? Which all ends an impoverished ride. Nice to have some royalties. Yes, absolutely. And to get to potentially look at Colin Firth in the flesh, which I'm assuming she must have milked at some point. Yes, absolutely. I think. I think Bridget Jones, I think it's. I think it's a contemporary classic. Right, yeah, No, I do. I mean, it's going to be. In 100 years time. I think it's going to be Austin. Right. We're going to teach it possibly forward thinking, whatever we're doing. Not GCSEs, whatever they're doing now in schools, forward thinking teachers will be teaching that. You know, they'll be saying, you know, this is a classic. Yeah, no, I think, I think so. Epoch defining, you know, change. But it was. Right. Yeah. And you're right, it's a lot. I think it's a lot smarter than people might think it is before they read it. It is, actually. I mean, it really did. She tapped into women's. The whole anxiety thing, you know, the whole counting calories, you know, the whole running total in your head about whether you're getting it right. And, you know, the bit about, you know, the biological clock ticking and the pressure from everybody else, you know, need a nice young man. I think she really tapped into women's. I think it was quite satirical. Yeah, I think it was very, very, very satirical. So in Mum in the Middle, female friendship is at the centre of the story. So with the baton of kind of support being passed between those who are overwhelmed by young children, those who have unwell parents, those who are balancing love lives and those who are kind of living alone and dealing with unusually garden intruders. In the case in the book. Are women the superheroes in each other's lives? Oh, I think so, yes, I do. I mean, I think friends are so important. And over the last few years, you know, I've had some ups and downs, some health problems, some bits and pieces, and, you know, my female friends just always come through. And I think women are extraordinary, the way that they support each other and they get each other. And friends, female friends are also sort of horses for courses a little bit, because the female friend that you go and drink a bottle of Pinot Grigio with isn't necessarily the same one. That you go to when you've got marital problems or that you're feeling lonely or whatever. But I think, yeah, female friendship special in kind of women's commercial fiction ticklet, we've moved away from kind of the men saving the girls, you know, kind of thing, the men saving the heroine or whatever, and really it's the women who are the knights in shining arm. So there's still obviously romantic leads and that aspect, but there's so much of it seems to be. It's about. It reflects reality, I think, in that way, doesn't it, like you say. Yes, yes. And I think it's quite good for younger women, especially to get that sort of role model, that it's not always about being rescued by a man. It's great if they do rescue you. I am very happy for anybody, you know, a man to free a stuck window, carry a heavy case, you know, sort out something particularly nasty that's happened on the kitchen floor. That's fine. But I think it's a good lesson that actually women are very good at saving each other as well. Absolutely, absolutely. So Tess does an awful lot of cooking in this book. She does. And a lot of mothering, not just of our own children. Do you think that actually women too readily give too much of themselves? Yes, I think they probably do, but I wouldn't necessarily say that's bad thing. You know, I was quite a strident sort of feminist when I was young, whereas I think now I'm a more pragmatic one. And actually, you know, you do love your kids to bits and actually it's all right to cook for them and it's all right to nurture them a bit. I could have done with a bit of more nurturing when I was 18, and so I don't feel apologetic. It's a sign of love, isn't it? Yes. And I don't think nowadays it's also assigned to gender. I mean, it might be the father in the family that's the cook that does the, you know, that. That side of things, or the nurturing in that sense. Yeah, I think it's definitely stuff we bring to it. Well, thank you, Jane. We'll be right back after these adverts. Welcome to women's radio station, the voice of women worldwide. 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Welcome back to three Books on Women's Radio Station, the program where we discover the three books that have shaped and influenced today's female writers. Today in the studio we are talking to journalist and presenter Jane Wenham Jones, author of the Fresh and Funny Mum in the Middle. Jane, thanks for being here. So the book is populated by a lot of hot ladies in their 40s and 50s, some of whom don't realise that they are attractive and also Tess's mum who is 70 and also enjoys a healthy relationship with her partner. So you've got a lot of hot ladies being chased by men. How important is it to show that sex isn't just something women in their 20s get up to. I think it's very important actually, because I think when you're young, and I was certainly guilty of this, you look at, if you're 20, you look at somebody of 40 and you think, oh my God, you know, they're old. I can remember having a teacher at school who I now realize was about 30 and we all used to look at her sort of 15 year old girls and go, oh, gosh, I hope I look like that when I'm that old. Because she was so gorgeous. And you now realize that 30 is absolutely nothing. And of course she should have been gorgeous. And of course you should be gorgeous at 50 and women are so. Yeah, right on. So, Jane, what was the book that made you think differently about women? Well, actually it was cliche as it might be Marilyn French's the Women's Room, because I read that when I was 17 and it was the first time I had really thought about women in that sort of trap of children and sort of being on the treadmill and having their own hopes and dreams just squashed because they were just being a housewife and being a mother. And at the time my mother had left my father and she was sort of going on this resurgence, this sort of feminist journey where was going to be her time. And so she was very encouraging about that sort of literature. And I read it and I just thought, oh, gosh, you know, I hadn't really sort of thought through all those issues, although I had seen my own mother be a very traditional housewife and mother. And I remember sitting, reading it in what was supposed to be study period at school, and our headmistress hoved into view, you know, and she had a very sort of high quavery voice. She descended on me as I was reading this book and I thought she was going to say, you should be writing an essay or whatever. And she actually stopped and went, oh, the women's room. All men are rapists, you see, which is caused the famous line, I don't believe that all men are rapists. And I have very much moderated a lot of the views that I held when I was 17 or 18, as I have grown up and grown older and become a mother myself, particularly to a son. But it was a very seminal piece of reading for me that it did make me realise what a lot of women, older women of my mother's generation had lived through and were still living through. Did you. Were you thinking of that book at all when you wrote Mum in the Middle? Because there are kind of echoes to elements of it not the men being rapists element. But, you know, that element of them, not drudgery, because Tess is not. But that kind of being controlled by that element. There are things I think come out of that I was unconsciously. But I mean, it's quite possible that that was lurking somewhere. And your own mother, you know, spitting up from your father and going off and finding her own, you know, looking for that sense of self and that kind of time to herself, you know, in that sense. Because that is all in the book. Yes. No, that hadn't struck me before. But, I mean, you know, we. We dredge, don't we, a lot from our subconscious. So. Yes, you may well be right about that. Interesting. Very interesting. So what's the book that you always return to? Well, do you know, I rarely read a book twice, just because I think there are so many books out there that I still want to read. You know, you worry about running out of time. But the two books that I have read again and again, I suppose the sense that I have read them more than once is one is Woman on the Edge Of Time by Marge Pearcey, which I think is a quite extraordinary book on all sorts of levels. And the other one, controversial is the Secret island by Enid Blyton. Oh. Because I have got a big collection of Enid Blyton books. I rebuilt my childhood collection and I've bought a lot more since. And I do, you know, for all the criticisms of her, she got a whole generation of children, several generation of children reading avidly, including me. I used to be glued to books all the time when I was small, and that was my favourite. And occasionally I get it out of my collection and I just read it again. Oh, that's wonderful. I mean, we haven't. I don't think we've had Blyton come up before, and I'm quite surprised because I know that she actually shaped a lot of writers, I think, because she gave them that love of reading at a young age. And as a crime writer, we always try to claim her as one of ours because a lot of it is mysteries, you know, the Famous Five and all that stuff. So we were always trying to, like, claim her as. Actually. She's a crime writer. Yeah. Well, have you read the Six Bad Boys? No, I haven't. Seek it out and read it. It's a bit of a departure from her other stuff, and that had a big effect on me when I was young. I read that when I was very small, and it's about, yes, boys that go slightly off the Rails in fact, if you think what they do is the crime compared to today, it's ever so mild. But they still go to court. Yes. It gets tense. Gets tense Now I liked the way that there was actually an element of danger within mom in the middle within your chick lip book because there is some nasty stuff that goes on. There's some vandalism that goes on against two characters in particular who are women living on their own and that's quite frightening to have your house vandalized and things like that's quite disturbing and things like that in. It's rooted in what's kind of a great storyline about kind of the rural hostility to the DFLs which is down from London who have moved out to this place where Tess has moved out to and kind of upped the house prices and things like that. You live in Broadstairs yourself? I do. That's right, isn't it? Yes. Is there a sense of us and them in Broadstairs? In Thanet generally there have been tensions about DFL because in actual fact I feel that the DFLs have done a huge amount for the area. I mean they're the ones who open the coochie shops and the little wine bars and entrepreneurial endeavors and done the local magazine etc etc. But of course, you know, when you get the beautiful people flocking down to an area the house prices do go up. I mean they've gone up for other reasons as well because we now have a high speed rail link, Tess in the book. So that makes people move down. But there can be a little bit of resentment about people coming in and being very passionate about the area and doing all sorts of things. So I did draw on that that there can be a little bit of, you know. And was it kind of therefore important for you to show that you can make it work or we can make it work? Yes, yes, yes. Because I think, you know, it's all about being multicultural again, isn't it? And it's all about. I think it's good when you get a new mix of people into an area, you know, and when people say oh well you know, there's all these foreign shops down north down road now you say well good because that actually makes the whole area more interesting and richer and great. Actually brings life back into places, doesn't it often? Yeah, I think it's something that we're going to see more of as kind of house prices continue to. To grow and people are pushed out of kind of city centres. I think we're going to see it more, that people are going to go outwards and things like that. So you're for it? Yes, I am. I mean, on the other hand, I do feel sorry that there are young people that perhaps want to stay in the area that they grew up in and they can't afford housing. I do feel sorry about that. But I think that's a general universal problem, that the young cannot afford housing and we need to do something else. We need to get more social housing, proper, affordable rented accommodation. You know, I mean, that is something that needs to be tackled as a society wide problem that the government need to look at. Absolutely. And on that political note, thank you for joining us, Jane. Mum in the Middle is published by Harper Impulse and is out now in ebook and out in paperback in September. And where can listeners find you, Jane? More info on janewen jones.com, facebook, Twitter. Wonderful. Thank you very much. If you have any questions for three books, email us on presentersomensradiostation.com or tweet us. Womensradiostn, that's Women's Radio STN. You've been listening to three books on women's radio Station with me, Angela Clarke. If you'd like to listen again or catch up on our previous programs, you can head to the presenters page on womensradiostation.com and thank you very much for listening. Welcome to Women's Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. Hungry an average woman eats about 2 to 3 kilos of lipstick in her lifetime. 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