S18, Ep5 Geri Halliwell-Horner on writing, grief - and what the Spice Girls taught her

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0:41Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. The protagonist of the new young adult novel, Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen, is a girl with red hair who gets sent to a fantastical boarding school after her mother dies.

1:22One of the school's rules is to have courage to make the choice you fear the most. The author of the book just so happens to be a woman who is also famed for her red hair and who also lost a parent at a formative age. She is, too, someone who has made many courageous choices through an extraordinary career. Born in Watford to a mum who cleaned and a car dealer dad, Geri Halliwell Horner shot to global fame as Ginger Spice, one-fifth of the Spice Girls and the best-selling female pop group of all time. She is known for girl power, for her Union Jack dress, for meeting Nelson Mandela, and for once patting King Charles, then Prince of Wales, playfully on the bottom at the height of her fame in 1997.

2:08The Spice Girls sold over 100 million records worldwide and had seven number ones. Halliwell Horner's subsequent solo career netted her four more. After the birth of her first child, Bluebell, in 2006, she started writing while a single mother and released a series of best-selling children's books, the Eugenia Lavender novels. In the years that followed, her life changed dramatically. She met and married the Formula One Red Bull boss, Christian Horner, became a stepmother and had a baby boy at 44. And now she returns to books with the publication of Rosie Frost and the Falcon Queen, a mixture of fantasy and history with a message that we can all be our own heroes.

2:54Ginger Spice, I'm sure, would approve. I try to have courage and work through it, she has said. I'd rather try even if I fail. Geri Halliwell Horner, welcome to How to Fail. Wow, what an intro. It's all you. I can't quite believe that you're sitting opposite me and yet here you are. And we have just been chatting away before we started recording. And I feel like I already know you so deeply. And you strike me as someone who is really a woman's woman and who is interested in others. And you can't always say that about people who became famous in their 20s. But is that something, have you always had curiosity about other people?

3:36I like people. I think we need each other. I don't know, maybe it's because from where I'm from, but I think it doesn't matter who you are, whether you're the dustman or the duchess. Everybody's interesting and everybody cries, everyone loves. We're more alike than different. Yeah. And that idea of courage, which runs through this book and in many ways through your life, is that something you've learned, do you think? Or were you born with it? That's a really interesting question, what makes us who we are. What I will say, you know, for me, courage doesn't mean that you don't feel that you're not scared.

4:16I think it's actually having courage is when you're scared I'm scared a lot of time you know or I have those doubts like everybody am I doing the right thing here and sometimes I get it wrong sometimes I make mistakes but there's something inside of me that is always when I really listen to that inner voice that sort of pushes on past the fear that's when I get it right but it does take courage sometimes to listen to yourself. Did it take courage to start writing the first time when you wrote Eugenia Lavender? I tell you what, it was interesting because before I was in the Spice Girls, I studied theatre, Stanislavski, and I studied English literature.

4:58I was doing really well. I was getting A's for A-level for my essays. I was doing Sons and Lovers and I was really like excelling. Suddenly I was really finding my place. And so I've always loved the power of word, storytelling. And, you know, throughout my career, I use that. I love writing the lyrics in songs, in videos. I always love the story you were telling in the movie. I love that part of it always. And it never left me. You know, for me, a song lyrics is like a poem, you know, and also having the power to move someone, to touch someone, connect. When I was in Los Angeles, these, I read this book called The Artist's Way.

5:37Because I was sort of in between, I'd released my third album, I think I was the solo album, I felt a bit, what am I doing? And I always love, I think creating, I feel happy creating things. And this book, The Artist's Way, it makes you do a series of challenges, so to speak, you know, whether it's take yourself on a date by yourself, write about the story that you fantasize to have in your own life, just simple things like that. And it sort of fun locks you know rooms in your house that you didn't know were there and then so I started playing again you know sort of being imaginative I like creating things like voice for the voiceless and so I always start with a little bit of trepidation but it's a mixture of I feel like the world needs this the world needs this make your creative your art speak to people connect and so that was the first set of stories that I wrote.

6:31I felt like this is going to really connect to that really younger audience, girls and boys, so they can see something that it might relate to. That's always been in me. What do you think is the most powerful lyric you've ever written or the one that you're proudest of? I mean, there are some lyrics that in the Spice Girls I wrote in my bed and then contributed because it's collaborative. There's lots of people and you have to work together. But I've collaborated and given, you know, themes and lines that, you know, have been used for a top line melody and then it's been built on. And then as you grow in confidence with that writing and I feel confident I can do that.

7:11But I've never stopped writing music. And I thought I'm going to save it even when I'd stop writing, you know, as a solo artist as well. And I kept it. And there is a song that you can get in Rosie Frost. You can just scan it and it's called It's a Beautiful Life. and that song you know I wrote that it's just me very reflective and after you've been through such you know hard stuff real stuff and sometimes you metamorphosize like a butterfly and the lyrics in that I'm really proud of I'm totally a lyric girl yeah well I want to say thank you because because we're similar ages and I feel so lucky that I grew up with your lyrics and with the Spice Girls because you represented something so important that had real integrity and it was formative for me and as you know a whole generation of women and I look at teenagers today she said sounding like a grandma but I sort of feel for them because they don't have the same clarity that I feel that you gave us.

8:21And I just want to thank you. There's no question. I just want to thank you for that. Thank you. You know, I was talking to my daughter. She's 17. She said to me, she feels a little bit sad for the younger generation that they don't have that sort of, like the pop stars that you sort of really, I don't know if it's healthy or not to sort of really connect with because there's such choice now. But for her, she had Katy Perry, Taylor Swift there was a few out there that you could like okay I'm backing her I'm connecting with that doesn't seem as that's what she said to me yeah I don't know if that's true or not having role models or just songs that we can all connect to or books you know for me and I've said this my mother was out at work okay and so I was at home watching tv and I watched American television, Charlie's Angels, The A Team, and Rocky.

9:19Those themes are like, you can do anything. They were infusing me with power. And the same with books at the time, the narrative, if I couldn't afford to go on holiday, I was reading a great book. That's infused me with power. And so I think there's different ways to find it and connect it. Yeah. You start the book with a letter in which you write, even though you may recognize my name, I've never felt that special. In fact, I've often felt like an outsider. My dad died when I was young. I felt lost. And at times I was bullied. I didn't know who I could trust. So what do you do when you don't know who to trust?

9:55Well, I turned to books. Can you take us back to that child who didn't feel that special? It's funny. I think no matter who we are, we want to feel included and we want to connect you know I come from a working class background so at my junior school it was everything you know it is what it is you know we didn't have a lot of money and we can compare and despair so there was that already going on my father was quite old so you know everyone thought he was my granddad coming to school we didn't have a lot of money so you sort of feel and I felt conscious of that and I got really lucky that I got picked out of this school to go to a grammar school and it was an amazing school girls grammar but all those girls they would come from quite they've very good families and and so I definitely felt the difference there you know that you know that they had more money and come from a different background so I always found comfort in movies and books and music I had something not the same but similar where I grew up in the north of Ireland never had the accent felt like an outsider my dad was a doctor but it was assumed that he was military but he wasn't and it was just like a difficult time yeah and I think I came out of that feeling insecure and wanting validation this does have a point in the story I wanted validation from as many people as I could get validation from now I don't know if that was your mindset but I can imagine if I then became globally famous in search for this validation that could be quite a sort of difficult place to be do you relate to any of that yeah I do I think and I'd like to say to all my younger peers my sisters and brothers and whoever you are I mean this is a hard lesson learned that actually if I'm looking for outside validation ask ourselves are we making ourselves more vulnerable yeah so actually that inner strength if you can have that self-confidence from a very safe place, I think that would be more useful.

12:05When I was younger, my father was a broad sheet reader. He was really clever. He was the one that had a stack of books like this, you know, behind an avid reader and interest in politics. And the way I would get his attention was if I suddenly was his Shelley Temple, right? And so by singing and dancing, I suddenly got his attention, validation. if you wanted to unpack it and rewind it say oh is that what that was all about so is it bad is it good I don't know but what I have learned and I'm you know not perfectly is that if I can have that inner confidence in myself then I'm not a paper bag blowing in the wind yes does that make sense according to what that person thinks of me yes it's like the weather is going to change yeah Hard lessons learned.

12:54Definitely. So to speak. Does it feel weird talking about the Spice Girls? You strike me as someone who doesn't like to complain about, which is an admirable quality. So British, isn't it? It's very generational. I think it's generational, isn't it? But it's also part of that about looking back and not... Yeah, do you mind my asking about... No, I don't. No, not at all. I'm so mindful that it depends how you want to look at any situation, isn't it? Yeah. You know, we can always find flaws in anything, but we can also find beauty and gratitude in anything. It depends what day of the week or that time we want to ask ourselves about it, what our headspace.

13:34But, you know, I'd like to think the Spice Girls belongs to everyone. It's not just five members. It's a generation. So for me, I respectfully am so grateful to, you know, that whole tribe of people that connected, you know, in that moment of time. and beyond and only good things came from it well I know because we were again chatting before we started recording about our mutual friend Dolly Alderton who we love and adore who interviewed you recently for the Sunday Times Star magazine and she asked you about 90s media pressure and you said listen Anne Boleyn had it worse and I thought that was such an amazing reply it's so true yeah but every generation has their challenges you know I want to say about Dolly okay so I knew she was going to interview me.

14:22And I thought, okay, I really hope she reads my book. And that's, you know, a demand of her time. Can I do the same for her? So I read her book, right? And it was her first book about love and what I know about love, everything I know about love. And what struck me, for me, I felt it was like the generational challenge of being 30 on steroids. Yeah, right. And my heart broke a little bit for her because it was exactly the pressure of being 30. You know, all those tick boxes of job, weight, relationships, all of those things. Everybody's toothache is everybody's toothache. Do you know what I mean?

15:04It's just a different one, so to speak. And I think it also is easier to be protective about other people. Yes. Does that make sense? Well, I find it easier to defend someone else than myself, maybe. so do you have more of an issue say the 90s media pressure on body image you have more of an issue for your bandmates than you would for yourself uh yeah i mean you just feel protective of you you know of family and friends and people you know just in general i think today everybody has pressures you know you can look at social media but then social media is also a brilliant thing

15:48Rosie Frost is also a kind of love letter to friendship. And you quote, I'd never come across this quote, and I have literally written a book about friendship, and I hadn't come across this quote from Oscar Wilde, that friendship is far more tragic than love. It lasts longer. How beautiful. What do you think you have learnt about friendship in your life? I'll tell you why I've really valued friendship is because I didn't have relationships in my 20s or 30s. I didn't find that sort of committed, long-lasting relationship. So I actually invested in my friendships very, very much. I always have. I valued them and put that time into it.

16:31And I'm really thankful for those friendships. And you can make friends at any time. We can make friends to them. I think, why not? I'm really grateful for friendships. Have you ever ended a friendship? I'm not ended, but I think someone said to me, friendships can be seasonal, they can be decade, you know, for that decade, they can be, you know, they all have their time, it doesn't give any less or more value to that friendship. But it's, you know, sometimes I love it when you can not see a friend for long times, and you can just connect straight away. Yes. So before we get on to your failures, I just want to talk about your husband.

17:06Because as someone, me, who was never into Formula One, couldn't understand it, never watched it. But it's the one program that my husband and I agree on, the Netflix documentary drama. And now I become obsessed with F1. So your husband is Christian Horner. You met and you got married and you had your baby. And he is on the record as saying that you're very different characters, but you complement each other well. Do you agree with that? Very much so. And it was actually Dolly who said to me, she sort of flagged it up. Did you know that you could have a best friend who is your partner? And I didn't know that until I met Christian.

17:46He's definitely my best friend. That's so lovely. Yeah. And it sort of really took me time to really know and trust that. From the off, you know, I think being your worst self, then you deserve the best of each other as well. You know, all of it. you can be your silliest self so I'm very grateful for that I think it's because I didn't have that relationship with anyone for a long time so finding someone that you can be yourself with whatever that is I know exactly what you mean yeah and I live for your cameos in F1 Drive to Survive they're always my favorite bits really yes okay let's get on to your failures your first failure is the journey of writing so this was about when you first wrote the book and your initial draft read very differently didn't it so tell us about that god i went through so many drafts actually is the truth it took you nine years didn't it yeah i mean it took me seven years and here's the truth is that i've never written a long novel before and it's i found it quite tricky and and there's no right or wrong way to do it it's just my experience and I always love character because I think if you don't care about the character who cares if you climb Mount Everest do you know I mean who cares so I wrote the first draft the first draft I showed it's Jacqueline Wilson I mean yeah she was so an amazing quote by the way yeah she's seen the first draft and she's seen the last you know so she's amazing and she was giving these talks on Jane Eyre and she said come to that she was really encouraging really encouraging that's the first how did you meet her something to do with Battersea Dogs Home potentially so we both love animals I love animals I met her there she's so nice just really generous and encouraging just as you hope and then I just kept on going and I just fell down so many times and then it got rejected and I thought oh yeah I've got it's getting better sometimes I get the visual in my mind before it's on the page I can see what it's meant to be and I thought yeah maybe the publishers will help me clean it up to a better standard so I showed it to some publishers and it got rejected this was about how many years ago hang on so it was before lockdowns about 2019 something like that and I was gutted it was only a few I only sent it a couple of publishers right to be fair and I'm then this sounds name droppy because I work for the Royal Commonwealth okay and one of the things they do is the literacy campaign and it's encouraging kids all around the world to submit their stories it's brilliant always in autumn they have this essay competition the finalists and they invite everyone to come and so I was at Buckingham Palace I was standing there and I was feeling a bit like you know i mean i don't know it was like being at a party and you just think oh i feel a bit shy right or something a little bit and there was a man standing there you know it was an older fella and i said oh what's your name i'll speak to anyone and his name is william and i said oh you're right and he said oh yeah and i said oh what publishing he said penguin i was like oh penguin right i was really like hot and then i started telling him oh i said oh i've just been you know struggling is there any chance you could read my my first this draft I've got and he went yeah no problem but what I didn't realize I am giving Humpty Dumpty to Mozart this is William Boyd who'd written Any Human Heart I'd read Any Human Heart it's amazing and he read it and then he gave me notes and he said to me okay the first thing you've got to do is you've got to rewrite the whole thing but not in the first person but in the third person and also in the past tense not the present tense you've backed yourself in a corner so I did it wrote the whole brief thing again and that was the best advice I got they really helped it really really helped so two questions I suppose I also write books my first novel got rejected by the first five publishers that we sent it to it's so gutting and my agent at the time just forwarded me the entire rejection email so I could see what they were saying yeah and I've never forgotten who did it either I can still remember their names but it requires a level of resilience to come back from that particularly with something that you care so much about yeah how did you it's funny okay here's the truth right so when I wrote Eugenia Lavender and that was for like for seven year olds okay I asked myself oh I want to continue writing again should I just age her up right that was my first thought and Christopher Little who discovered JK Rowling right he became my agent I said to him oh shall I just age you out and he went no start again right I was like okay it's quite you know encouraging but and I thought why am I doing this why am I writing and I learned to first of all write about what you know okay and who are you writing for there's two things one is that I wanted to write for any person whatever age that if anyone felt bullied in their life right bullied and we can find that power through stories through adventure and it can be and you can hide that vegetables and chocolate I was saying it doesn't have to be heavy it can be light and so that was the first thing and I thought about that I think it was yesterday because I was thinking you know why am I out here you know in the public because if anyone feels bullied I want them to or just want to find their power in their life read rosy frost right that was for that kid or for that older person it doesn't matter for that reason and then the other thing is i start to fall in love with the characters i start to care about the characters like there's a kid in the story called charlie and christopher little said to me oh i think you should get rid of him and i was like no no way i love charlie and you start to get attached to them like they're real people it's really odd yeah and so I just felt compelled not to give up and someone said to me you know I think I just learned right from long back it's about stickability never give up you've had Bear Grylls on yeah he always says never give up yes and you strike me as someone with a very strong work ethic have you always worked very hard I think I got that from my mum yeah you know she was always working.

24:11Sometimes it's wavered. It hasn't been perfect. But I think if you believe in caring about something, then you'll go for it. So what are we here for as well? You know, someone asked me this the other day and I thought, what am I going to do? Rest on my laurels and just get my nails done. I think be of service to the world. You know, I've been lucky enough to be given opportunity. I'm not going to squander that. You know, I just think I want to empower and uplift everybody, whether it's through music or now it's through books, you will find it if you want it through what I've done. You spoke there about the advice to write what you know.

24:53Yeah. And there are many things that you know about in Rosie Frost. And one of them, you write very movingly about her mum dying yeah and for you it was your dad yeah at a formative age do you mind my asking how much of that you brought into the text and did you find it cathartic it's funny because I mean grief is a strange thing and death it's going to happen to all of us at some point in our life we just don't know when and what occurred to me when I was younger that I didn't have the tools to talk about it. And I was just sort of left with this stone cold feeling of, I didn't want to make anyone feel awkward.

25:35So I didn't have the right tools to express how I was feeling. And also, you know, that British stiff upper lip. And, you know, whereas in the East, they used to talk about it. They're much more, but it also gave me a sense of my own mortality. I wanted to put that in the narrative very subtly. So if you don't care about looking at that, you won't, but it's there if you want it so if anybody's you know having grief let's look what it looks like you know examine it and Rosie is going through that not perfectly she's quite angry if it can make you angry or cold detached so I wanted to put that in there and the other thing it was really interesting I didn't know I did it until I finished it right so I wrote the prologue and the first chapter last the publisher Penguin the American because I had two publishers American and British and they're both amazing but she said to me can you just give a bit more backstory of Rosie before she gets there you know before she gets to Bloodstone Island and where she came from and that's where the school is yeah Bloodstone Island is this school and we can talk about it in a minute but before she gets there she's at a different school just an ordinary school and you see what happens to her how she gets pulled out of school in the middle of a class and told that her mother is dead that's what happened to me but it was my father that was dead and I was studying hamlet at the time and after I finished it and it wasn't until I looked back I realized I've written about what I know my own experience I thought oh my god so it's really interesting that was naturally I think we turn our poop to fertilizers but so to speak yes I think you're gonna say pain into art but I much prefer poop into fertilizer yeah then it's useful yes everything is copy it's everything is coffee everything is coffee and everything I believe can have meaning like you can be in control of the meaning that you attach to something yeah in the fullness of time I'm so sorry first of all that you went through that experience if you weren't talking about it how did you get through the grief and what advice would you give now to anyone who might be listening who is in the depths of that kind of grief just grief is a very strange thing and everyone I don't have the perfect answer that's for sure what i my experience is time and it sounds like a cliche but it's true it doesn't make it better but it makes it easier and just sharing i think with people that might know what you're going through i think that's helpful that's what i would say is you're not alone did your dad die before you were yes and i feel and this is the other thing there's one upside of losing a parent when you're young and I call it death energy I don't think I would be as driven as I was if I didn't understand the value of life and I think we're losing a parent not only are you losing someone but you suddenly become aware of your own mortality because before then you think oh I've got my parents between me and my own death do you mean or even if I'm you know whatever I do I know my parents there and so when that is removed you're suddenly staring in the face of your own whatever's in front of you and the unknown yeah I call it death energy it's like a gas in my tank like I've got to get on with life what do you think he would have made of it or it's interesting because I think you know my father was he was into like old Hollywood he introduced to me so much music and literature and you know he tried to make me like into Shirley Temple when I was a little girl so you know I'm sure he'd be very like pleased.

29:14I used to you think you know think about him doing it for him but actually as I grew older just time you say okay why am I doing it and who am I doing this for it's like any job that anybody's doing what are you doing it for and for whom and why? This is quite an odd question but bear with me and you don't have concept but I know that you are someone with faith and I wonder if you feel that you will meet him again that's so interesting I've never thought about it like that I don't know I'll think about it yeah have you ever dreamt about him not really no I haven't no think about it and come back come back when the second in the Rosie Frost installment is out I wanted to ask you about writing so we had this chat with William Boyd he was really helpful presumably you've stayed in touch yeah he's a lovely man isn't he he's amazing yeah he's so amazing like can you imagine he's got awards for his books and his you know all the things that he's done he's amazing he's incredible and he started teaching me about structure and you know how he does it like my first book it was hard it took me long it was almost like I had to dissect it and break it apart and put it back together yeah so he told me about you can either just write which is amazing you just go off you go you know which is lovely in itself because you don't know what's going to happen but then the other way is to do a structure which I've done for I've just finished my first draft of the Rosie 2 excellent and I did it the way he said structure it first and it is much much easier it took longer to start yes but then it was quicker much much quicker yeah how did you find it writing alongside your everyday life it's really hard yes because you've got two children they're very different ages and a stepdaughter so how does that there's that famous quote about the pram in the hallway and whether that affects art and i wonder how is the quote it's a cyril connolly quote and it's something about the pram in the hall is the enemy of art interesting who is so i don't know who that is he was a literary editor i mean classic man who said that quote yeah hang on there is we can all sort of procrastinate or get distracted so easily and it was dawn french who also writes books she's always been a very long standing friend of mine and she said to me leave your phone outside the room leave it it's a creative killer and so it's the discipline of leaving out and making the appointment for a few hours you know for me it was like from nine o 'clock my mind is fresher between nine and twelve I would say no matter what that you're going to the desk you're going to do it so that's what first things versus that nothing else not do not be disturbed you know go down you know for a cup of tea or something like that but you can't do anything else okay and no internet so do you write on a laptop yes but here's the thing yeah i write on a laptop but here's you've got to be careful there's two things i learned one is switch off because otherwise you can get you know like notifications notifications and that interrupt your train and suddenly you but the only other thing is sometimes I'd turn on the wi-fi because I'm doing a bit of research and suddenly you go down rabbit holes or you know what I mean wormholes of like research yeah and you're like what the and you can suddenly go down I did that more on Rosie too actually okay but yeah your second failure is not applying yourself enough at school yeah tell us why you chose this as a failure do you know what we can all have regrets in life so I went to a really good school a grammar school I got picked two kids out of you know from this junior school from a very different background I was very distracted I don't think I had the mental discipline and support to really anchor myself in learning I'm really curious when I loved the teacher like I loved my German teacher I love German I did well in German because she got my attention but part of me thinks oh did you squander that opportunity and then I went back to education when did you go back I went back so I left school kind of went and studied at college for a little bit left that then went back again I went okay now I'm going to study theater and English literature I'm going to go for A levels that's a really brave decision to go back yeah I went back I was yes I was like I think I was 19 18 19 I went back so I took a year out I tried one course and it wasn't for me I was sort of lost I said you know I think that the late teenage years are probably so important to be actually having that support from adults because it's like I think they're toddlers we're toddler adults we're like bikes that still need stabilizers we're finding new things that we've got to deal with but we still need a little bit of support you know I look back at that and think I wish my attention was better I did okay my exams you know I did okay respectable but yeah I could have done so much better if I was focused you know I didn't revise hardly but I just didn't have that sort of discipline and anchoring did you not have the structure at home to help no do you feel because you're clearly so highly intelligent and very into history and you've written books and lyrics and everything.

34:55But I wonder if you felt for a period of your life like an imposter, because sometimes when you don't get the academic qualifications that are worthy of you, you feel like you don't deserve the space that you're claiming. So interesting, because there can be, I think in any walk of life, we can get marginalised, you know, that you're not this, or you're not that. It's life, isn't it? You know, you can feel like alone because you're the only one that loves reading that much you can suddenly not feel cool yeah I was thinking to myself the other day I was thinking maybe I can really acknowledge that it's you know being I don't even know what the term is whether you're sort of nerdish or you know make that cool can we rebrand it you know that so you know that it's in its own it doesn't matter which side of the fence you are we can all feel alone did you feel when you were ginger spice that your nerdy side got sidelined because you were the epitome of cool and sexy for so many of us but I wonder if you felt like that inside I think we put all our battle shields on our Batman suits it doesn't mean it's not true it's just putting on a different armor so to speak at that what's needed at that time that's that's what's going to serve me being a student didn't mean I stopped reading yeah do you know what I mean I just thought well I you might think one thing about me that's okay you know and to anybody out there I'm we've all had assumptions made about ourselves if someone's judging a book by their cover sometimes we're fluffy bunny with a book in our back pocket do you know I mean who cares tell me more about that because I think that one of my flaws still to this day is I care too much what other people think of me are you liberated of that not completely but not as much okay there you go I think there's progress but not perfection of course you know we're human I think it's natural you want to be liked and you know so when you said to me I you really enjoyed my book I'm like oh that's so fantastic I'm thrilled you know I'm not a robot I'm not immune to your love and you know affection and but equally I suppose maybe I'm a bit more discerning about whether I care about that particular person's opinion if it's someone that I care about or you think oh okay and maybe there's something to look at in myself why you know it's finding that balance you know I don't want to be like arrogant to think oh it's not going to sink my boat but equally you just think oh okay it would have been nice if I connected to you we all want to I think it's human you take it as more constructive feedback and if it's not constructive then you can eliminate it and also having the humility not everyone's gonna like me do you know i mean i think i'm all right i think you're very likable oh thank you i really do you're so lovely thank you very much i like most people yeah but who've you met who really hated i'm kidding well you know not everybody i'm not going to be everybody's cup of tea and that's okay i suppose if i am your cup of tea that's very nice too your daughter bluebell recently got nine a stars at gcse how did that feel for you given what you've spoken about in terms of your own school experience i think it's so easily having to put our own badge of honors onto our children and you know or helicopter mom or those things i am no way perfect in this i'm learning every day how to you know to parent what i hope is to be you know a really good support to her you know she can make her own choices but just reflect back and anyone with a 17 year old you know they want to make their own decisions but you can give them like honest feedback whether they take it or not but I will say this I've been very blessed and lucky to have achieved some things that I'm proud of in my life but when I watched my own daughter open her her own GCSE results and her face, I've never felt so proud.

39:03You know, it was incredible feeling. But equally, my husband, when I watched him win championships, and I know he has worked so hard, this has not been an easy ride. I felt more proud of their achievements because just watching it, I feel happy for them. I felt happier for them. And trust me, I still want to achieve and I still want to win in my own field but it's a lovely feeling yeah well especially everything you went through and having raised her on your own I mean I know you had good friends who helped you but that is a wonderful thing you know she's on her own path and chapeau to anybody that's you know they bring up children there is no right or wrong way to do it but I do feel very proud of her you should your final failure is lessons on backstory you've touched on it yeah do you get lost in the backstory jerry no actually i think sometimes this is what i learned that if i bring a new character in and i don't i haven't really flushed it out what they want who they are put it this way it's much better if i know exactly who they are then it's so easy to answer the question to know what they do.

40:19When you write, you get to play God, right? And so you've got this series of characters. And so I know exactly who Charlie is, and I know exactly what he would do and how he would say and how he would respond. And I can say, oh, Bina, she would never do that. Or she would definitely do that. And Rosie wouldn't do that. If I do that sort of due diligence, that preparation first, it makes life easier when you're in the thick of it. Yes. It sort of exposed it when suddenly actually giving it an editor she said oh I need to know more about this person and they feel a bit thin in their narration of her and I was like oh yeah I can see that I've sort of budged it a bit do you find that in real life as well like off the page because one of the things that immediately struck me about you was that you were interested you asked me lots of questions which is a really again a lovely quality do you want to find out the backstories of people you meet I think my mother's like that as well yeah you know she's very chatty and she likes to know people and so I've had that example I'm definitely like that by the way I'm super nosy some people might say yeah I mean but I think it doesn't matter you know whether you're the postman or the president everyone's interesting and it and everybody matters it depends what day you get me on you know if I was tired and grumpy hangry so to speak then I might not be as interested and we can all get into like through the bondage of self but isn't it quite nice when you hear something about someone and and sometimes you have to sort of unpick someone a little bit and then that feels a privilege if they share something that yes you wouldn't know who's the most interesting person you've ever met do you think okay the most like I can do this is really I'm wowed okay so I'm I have spent the company of Judi Dench oh yeah that's a good one isn't it I started studying acting again I was looking at Shakespeare right so I was with this acting teacher and she gave me the Merchant of Venice to look at one of the famous speeches and so when I was with Judi we started talking and I was telling her and then she started quoting it and so then I started doing it with her and I was like oh my god I love you but she's got such a beautiful energy she's just amazing lady and inspiring and you think you know when I grow up I want to be like you you know you're gorgeous and she's one and another one is Dame Shirley Bassey so they're both dames yes yeah she's amazing too she's amazing she sung happy birthday to me and I was like oh my god because when i was a little girl my mother used to say when i used to sing afternoon my mother used to say shirley bussy arm shirley bussy arm so i used to sort of sing and do lift my arms up like shirley bussy and then shirley bussy is turned out just to be incredible what life yeah that's not what an extraordinary turn your life takes that you have ended up yeah with shirley bussy dame shirley bussy singing happy birthday yeah she's lovely i want you to become a dame then just like you three dames could hang out together all the time I feel like it's in your future I also wanted to ask you about backstory in terms of how you apply it to yourself because I'm interested in how you perceive each decade of womanhood because I think that as women we have been historically sold a lie which is that our age diminishes us and actually my experience and I don't know if it's yours as well is that I feel I know myself much better every single decade that passes and that actually is the source of power and so I really wanted to ask you what your take was on aging it's so interesting obviously I've connected with girls you know across the world girls and boys and everyone anyone and to find their power of who they are I actually felt I I don't know, maybe a moral obligation to look at how I move forward as a good example.

44:34And it's not, I'm not perfect. I'm not doing this perfectly. But actually, I asked myself the question, can I age with grace and power, find a different kind of power? Because otherwise, it's another way of marginalization, prejudice. It's another way to box you in. But equally, every age is a different age is a different chapter you know not to try and hold on to that age and not to hide one's age I felt if I hide my age that's a betrayal to everyone you know to all my peers my brothers and sisters to everyone so you know for me I'm trying not perfectly to say look I'm learning how to age with grace and what I've experienced so far okay so in my you know teenage 20s I had useful bravado the 30s you know no longer the ingenue it was really difficult or the peer pressure to tick the boxes it was really difficult I couldn't quite work it out I felt lost then 40s it started to turning point and I naturally I started to find that sort of ownership of identification that wasn't built on a bravado you know I'd fallen down so many times you know I know what it feels like to fail so the bravado is gone but in the 40s start building up experience and learning that that is something beautiful in itself and then actually finding power within boundaries that actually I can be attraction rather than promotion you know there is quality in less is more I can say no all those things that actually I don't need to people please and that comes with a huge amount of confidence and experience that comes in your 50s I think so yes but tell me more about attraction rather than promotion it's not over promoting like okay I can use any example I could say to you oh please please like my book and actually or please like me please and actually is that how attractive is that but if I say do you know what I'd really like you to read my book I think you know I felt something when I did it and you might too or at being an example of like an example of power rather than telling anyone to be powerful does that make sense yes I love that it's such a good way of putting it yeah I think that's isn't that more attractive actually I'm suddenly attracted to someone because the way they are rather than telling me how I should be yes I'm striving for that I'm still not perfect that's the gift of age you're like well this is me what for girls wear pearls okay that's it is what it is yeah if you could give a piece of advice to yourself in your 30s when you were feeling lost and under pressure what advice would you give or what would you say you know i'd say it to anyone now is that tranquilo like calm you've got time you've got so much time you know you've got more time than you realize it's your path not anybody else's yeah because otherwise if we compare to they're doing that and they're doing that at this age I think it's it's quite a lot of pressure final question yeah Sherry what is it about Anne Boleyn that you love so much well it's interesting right because if we've really broke it down first of all I was just intrigued because of you know I love the Tudors.

47:57And it looked glamorous and it looked dramatic. And when I first started looking at giving Heaverbridge, it's the name of the school in the book, a history, I thought about Queen Elizabeth I. And then I looked at her mother and somebody said to me, no, no, no, don't pick Anne Boleyn. It was a bloke. He said, don't pick her. She's not liked. And I thought, oh. And then I I looked at her narrative and I thought, well, who wrote this narrative? And then I said, she seems quite smart. And then I started unpacking her history. She believes in reform, the NHS. Okay. And the more I got to understand her story, I thought, actually, maybe this woman was shamed for being smart and clever.

48:44And she was just murdered by a misogynistic pig. You know, she had a three-year-old daughter. Yeah, Henry VIII. she had a daughter that she had to leave behind that was you know that was not even three did she deserve to be murdered for that you know for what the people said about her we don't even know it was true and so I thought actually if we just fast forward the tape to now you know that women can be put into boxes and so I felt like this is interesting can we look at this maybe she deserves a rebrand yes maybe she deserves a rebrand because who told us that about her. Maybe she was just smart and caught up in somebody else's narrative.

49:25And obviously, her daughter was the greatest monarch ever. So that was kind of some of it. I love it. I love it. It's all about her redemption. It's the redemption. It's the power of unboxing someone from those boxes they've been restricted to. Make her human and make her her own hero, which is the story of Rosie Frost. And it's the story in so many ways of your life thus far. I can't wait to see what you do next. And I just can't tell you what an honour it's been to chat to you today. Thank you so, so much, Geri Halliwell-Horner, for coming on How to Fail. Oh, thank you so much.

50:08If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.