Good morning everyone,
How are you all? All’s well with the H’s, busy as per, but sure we all are aren’t we?! I’m still giggling over something that happened this morning! Rog was pulling out of our driveway with the children, on the playschool run, when I realised he’d forgotten a lunchbox. So cue me, running madly across our lawn, in my PJ’s, waving aforementioned lunchbox in my hand. Rog, sees me (I’m 5’10, hard to miss haha), slows down, opens his window and shouts, ‘Throw it in!’
In a scene worthy of a hollywood blockbuster, I throw the lunchbox at the open window of the cruising car. Amelia and Nate are cheering with delight at the unexpected drama unfolding at 8.15am. Then the lunchbox, the fecking stupid lunchbox, hits the roof, of course it hits the roof, missing the open window and lands with a gleeful thud to the ground….. Oh the shame!
Well, I can’t be good at everything, can I?!!! 🙂
Right, now you all know that if I ever end up on your baseball/basketball/darts team, you’re doomed, its time to get back to today’s order of business. The glamorous, fascinating and very talented author Dinah Jefferies joins me on the couch. Kettle is boiled, buns are made, bought, time for a cuppa!
Dinah, welcome, can you tell us about yourself?
OK. Here goes. I am married, second time around, and luckily for me, Richard is a brilliant cook and a great Mr Fixit. I don’t know how I’d have coped with all this publishing malarkey if I hadn’t been able to yell for help every time the computer malfunctioned! I had two children, but terribly sadly lost my son when he was fourteen. My lovely and truly exceptional daughter (don’t all mums say that!) has two equally wonderful children, so I’m now a granny twice over, and it’s the absolute best. I live in Gloucestershire with my husband and very naughty Norfolk Terrier, Teddy, and I am a full time writer.
Dinah, Teddy is adorable and what a beautiful key ring, I’m sure that it makes you smile every time you look at it. I knew of course about your darling son, but just seeing it written down there again, well, it made my heart stop for a moment, in recognition – mother to mother – of what it must be like to lose a child. Saying I’m sorry sounds ridiculously trite, but I am heartsorry.
And btw, I agree totally with you. All daughters are exceptional, I know Amelia is too!
If your life was to be made into a movie, what genre movie would it be and who would play in the starring roles?
Well my life has involved some tragedy, but has also been something of a comedy with many twists and turns. So a tragi-comedy with Sandra Bullock or Sheridan Smith, who I think is terrific. And maybe Mathew Macfadyen too, because why wouldn’t you?! Is that how you spell his name?
Close enough 😉 I love that description tragi-comedy! I might rob that one day 🙂 Scariest thing that has ever happened to you?
Being dropped all alone at the isolated, creepy fortress at the top of San Gimignano in Tuscany at the age of 19, to take up a job as an au pair for an Italian countess. It was midnight, pitch black, and nobody was home. Luckily it was a sultry summer night, so I listened to the cicadas and sang to myself as I waited to keep my spirits up, and the family turned up an hour later.
Ok, that reads like the blurb of a book! I want to hear more about that! What an experience Dinah. Funniest thing that has ever happened to you?
Umm? Well… umm? Not sure. But I did live in a commune with a rock band for five years. We were ‘hippies’ & had some very wild times, mostly unmentionable, but including giving birth with the whole ‘family’ there & on purple sheets much to the horror of the midwife.
Picture of me with some of the kids in Southwold about 38 years ago!
Ok, stop right there for a minute! You lived in a commune, with a rock band? You must be the coolest ‘granny’ on the planet ever! Have you ever thought about writing your autobiography? Because in just a few questions, I am hooked and need to hear more!!
So apart from the rock band (please say its the Rolling Stones! haha) who is the most famous person you have ever met?
I met the model Jean Shrimpton when she was filming Privilege with Paul Jones (from the band Manfred Mann). I was an extra but I sat at the same table as her. It was a long time ago. No pictures sadly but Jean Shrimpton was so beautiful she didn’t seem real. I have met other people too but my mind’s gone blank.
Now I want to know about your work as an extra lol…. See? Time to get writing those memoirs! Best advice ever given to you?
DO NOT OVER-WRITE. DO NOT OVER-WRITE. And don’t give up. Learn and keep going. My agent gave me all that advice before she took me on. I listened and learnt and then she took me on. Best agent ever!
Excellent advice. Every day I learn something new. Who inspires you?
Julia Gregson, Victoria Hislop and my grandchildren.
Photo of Dinah’s grandkids
Celebrity crush?
Don’t be daft. I’m far too old for crushes. But if you pressed me I’d have to say Mathew Macfadyen.
Never too old my friend. And just for you, (and me and every other gal out there and I daresay a few guys too!) heres the lovely Matthew.
If you could go back in time, what time would you choose and why?
Oh crikey. Now you’re asking. If I could go back I would have started writing much much earlier. My mum used to say I should write, because I was always telling stories, but it never occurred to me that I could actually do it.
You see, you should always listen to your mother! Tell me about your blog and what we can expect if we pop by.
My blog is in its infancy, as I’m in the middle of having my website re-designed, so that I can post videos and Penguin podcasts. My blog will then be a WordPress blog in my website and I’ll be posting up a vlog now and then, plus keeping up with events, competitions and such like.
I like vlogs I must admit. Give me 3 words to describe your best self and 3 words to describe your worst self.
Best: Courageous, resilient, committed.
Worst: Bad tempered, anxious, over committed.
Girls or boys night out, room for 10 in the limo, who are you bringing with you?
I would choose all the wonderful friends in my life, from all over the world, who I’ve now lost touch with. I’d do that so I could say how much I regret not keeping in touch. And I’d take them back to the lovely home I used to have in Spain, where we’d sit on the patio, drinking wine, gossiping and eating tapas. Or we’d go to a special spot in Seville that I love.
Photo of Spanish patio & photo of spot in Seville
I love that answer. I think we all have friends that we’ve lost touch with and would love to reconnect with again. Describe a perfect day and night for me, where are you and who are you with?
Greek island about 40 years ago. Unspoilt – both myself and the island that is. Swimming in the sea, an afternoon in bed, and then a lovely meal at a harbour side restaurant, looking at the stars and smelling the ouzo. With a lovely male companion who could look a bit like Mathew Macfadyen.
I’m sensing a theme here….. Dinah and Matthew ….. What are you reading right now?
Masses and masses of books about Vietnam where my third book is set. I went there this year and it was AMAZING. Last year I went to Sri Lanka to research book two The Tea Planter’s Wife which will be coming out in a year’s time.
Hanoi
What was the first book you ever read?
It really is too long ago.
Laughing again here. If you could pick any career in the world other than what you do now, what would it be?
I wish I could have been a singer. I’ve worked in education and television, and I’ve been an artist too but I cannot sing to save my life!
I wonder if all writers are closet XFactor wannabes? I’d love to sing too.
What genre do you write and when did you start?
It’s historical fiction but only the Twentieth Century. Usually exotic locations – like Malaya for The Separation & Ceylon for The Tea Planter’s Wife. I tend to create heartbreaking challenges for the main character, but with themes that are equally relevant today. Loss, love, courage and hope are my themes. I started about five years ago aged 60 and now Penguin are publishing the first two books as well as several international publishers. So very happy about that.
Of the characters you’ve created through writing, which one is your favourite and why so?
Emma in The Separation might be a favourite. She’s feisty and independent and gets into trouble. She wants to be writer or a spy when she grows up, plus she has wild curly hair just like me. The book is dual narrative and the chapters alternate between Emma and her mum, Lydia. Lydia is searching for her missing children in civil war-torn 1950s Malaya, while all the time they’ve been snatched by their father who has taken them to England.
Isn’t that a beautiful cover? What are you working on right now?
I’ve just finished my edits for book two and, as I mentioned, I’m researching book three. Mainly I’m doing lots of events for The Separation, and looking forward to meeting and chatting with readers. I recently came back from a book tour in Norway which was so much fun. I hadn’t expected to fall in love with Norway’s snow capped mountains, but I did. It has the freshest air on the planet and Oslo is such a cool city.
Dinah on her recent book tour in Norway
Dinah has kindly shared with us an excerpt ………
While Lydia is searching for her own children, she stays at a rubber plantation with her ex, Jack, who was the love of her life. A little boy called Maz, who she is looking after, has gone walkabout. In this excerpt Jack has gone to look for the child.
The afternoon passed. Dusk. Wind snatched at leaves, and dirt spiralled in gusts. Lydia paced the veranda, the spaces between the trees already darkening. She rubbed her temple and thought of the swamps and the vicious biting insects there. What if the rebels really did have Maz? What if they forced him to wade, chest high, in water and mud? She thought of stark camps hidden away, and the bandits who used birdcalls to signal each other – and wire to choke a person to death.
A crash startled her. She imagined their thin dark faces, with nothing to eat but bowls of cold rice. How would Maz survive?
She shifted tense muscles and told herself she was letting her imagination run away with her. Maybe he was with his mother. She peered deeper into the trees, but it had grown too black to see. Nothing looked familiar once darkness fell. The jungle waited, huge and black, crawling with hostile life. And Lydia knew, unless a full moon lit the tunnels of trees, or until the stars came out, the blackness was a time for throats to be slit soundlessly, and children to be stolen.
Just beautiful.
This has been one of my favourite interviews yet Dinah, thank you for being so much fun and fantastically honest. Seriously, go write that memoir, get Sandra Bullock on board to make the move and don’t forget to ask me along to premiere, cos’ I do love a red carpet!! When you come to Dublin for a book tour, pencil in an evening with me, I have lots more questions to ask you about that rock band 😉
Links to both Dinah and her beautiful book……
The Separation: Amazon Book Version http://amzn.to/1el7JAt
Amazon Kindle Version http://amzn.to/MmA3ru
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dinah-Jefferies-Author-Penguin-UK/374341759315627?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/DinahJefferies
Thanks for stopping by everyone,
Chat soon,
Carmel x