Interviews
Like a lot of people my Mum wrote diaries. After she died we found 30 years worth! I thought they might have the answers to life’s big questions - they didn’t! She wrote simple, mundane, often funny, one liners about her everyday life: January 17th 1998, “The dog crapped all over the carpet!”. Her diaries made me think about other women and how they mange their everyday lives too. This hatched an idea: to interview 100 women and see what would happen. There were many reasons for this; a) I’m very curious, b) am I getting the best out of my life? and c) now Mum was gone, where was I going to get my life wisdom from? I came up with a list of questions loosely based on an ordinary, everyday conversation; How are you? How’s the kids, What’s the weather like today? I began collecting conversations. My discovery; a treasure chest of insight, humour and wise words. It seemed selfish to keep it all to myself so I started to blog and eventually wrote my first book. Collecting Conversations.
I never intended only talking to women so once I’d got my menopause out of the way I turned my focus to men. Lockdown honed me in. 100 men interviewed, three milliion words transcribed and my next book crystallised. ‘Men Talk’ is out now! Below are extracts from 200 interviews with both men and women…
