337: Rachel Bright on writing, air hostessing, verrucas and hats

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1:42Hello, scumbags. This is the Scummy Mommies podcast. with your hosts, Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorne.

1:56Hello and welcome to the Scummy Mummies podcast. It's me, Helen Thorne. It's me, Ellie Gibson. Ellie Gibson. I'm sorry. I couldn't even pronounce it. Fucking hell. 13 years. 334 episodes. All Ellie Gibson. I've had a couple of L's. Are you being powered by AI today? Is that what's happening? Oh, I've gone a bit over the top with the Nescafe. I'm on one. Anyway, Ellie Gibson, we have a guest. It is a really good guest. As opposed to our usual guests. What the fuck is that? Come on. She's excellent. She's multi-million selling book author. She's multi-million selling book author. Yeah, that was nearly English.

2:41That's good. Carry on. She's an author of many, many, many books that have sold a lot of copies. Yes, that's what multi-million means. In many countries. She's won awards. She's brilliant. And her name is Rachel Bright. Oh, you can say her name. You can say her name. It's got less L's in it. It has. Rachel's a very good name. Well, congratulations, Rachel, on your new best friend, Helen Thorne. I'm winning. I'm winning. You are winning. Rachel, it's so lovely to have you with us. First of all, we're very grateful that you've driven three hours to be here today. Did I mention that? Yes. Oh, my God, I asked you.

3:19From France? You probably could drive here from France. I don't know, Dorset. Listen. Dorset. Well, thank you for coming. Sometimes we get people going, can I come to your podcast? And we go, yes, come to my house. And they go, oh, I live like in Chiswick. Can we do it on Zoom? And we go, no. So we're very grateful that you've driven all this way. And like when I came in the front room to plump the cushions for you and just saw you out the front of my house lifting up my wheelie bin. And initially I thought someone was stealing my wheelie bin. I was thinking about it. It's South East London. It does happen.

3:51They'll take anything if it's not bolted down. Yes. But you were sorting my bins out for me, Rachel. I'm very grateful. Well, you like to get off on a good foot. You know, I was just rearranging your wheelie bins. Well, thank you so much. Pleasure. Yes. So we are here to talk about, as Helen said, your multi-million selling, globally popular children's books. Extraordinarily successful you are. Thank you. Thank you very much. Can I move in? I feel I need hype team. Books for children you write.

4:30I'm so excited I don't even know my own English anymore. But anyway, good thing you're here because you write words for a living. And do it very successfully. And let's just get into you. Can I derail us as is tradition? Yes, yes, let's go off somewhere else. We will talk about your children's books, Rachel, honestly. But I wanted to talk about one of your jobs before you were a children's book author, if that's allowed. I actually love doing that. Brilliant. Good. Depends how probing the questions are, but go for it. Well, adult films? No.

5:07is that still on the bio I updated your wikipedia today you know on my website someone pointed out there's a spelling mistake that says I do pubic speaking rather than public speaking I just thought that was the name of one of your films yeah hairway to Stephen no not that one so when let's make it about me when I was a little girl Rachel people used to say what do you want to be when you grow up and I used to say either a video games journalist so that's not all it cracked up to be uh or an astronaut or an air hostess wow i love that three selections though yes yes um and i've only managed one of them but there's still time but you you were an actual air hostess for burgic atlantic which we atlantic which let us agree has the best uniform obviously yes it did have a very good uniform and you go straight into the good stuff new york all the long haul yes none of this kind of backwards and forwards to you know liverpool love liverpool but yeah yeah for six years before you graduated it was like straight in so it was pretty yeah that is was it was it as fun and sort of sexy as it looks to me i mean more like that's the crazy thing it's like obviously the actual job you know you're sort of tea coffee chicken right but even that is kind of fun because you're with 16 new people it's 16 new people every time which got me out my comfort zone I was quite introvert introverted naturally and then doing that job you're just thrust into like all these new people all the time 400 new people on the plane you know 60 new people you're working with and then you're in a new place so everything's like no no no no no you know and I literally I was doing a I had a job as a junior designer straight out of uni and it was like I had this little existential moment six months in where I zoomed out from myself and saw me looking at this box of pixels.

7:01I thought, oh, I could still be there in like 20 years. And I had never taken a gap year. I'd never done, I'd travelled a bit, but I knew I wanted to see the world. I had like, you know, 20p in the bank. So I thought, on the way home, I saw an ad for it and thought, oh, I'll apply for that. You know, that's kind of my modus operandi. I'll apply for that. And yeah, literally six weeks later, I was in New York on Fifth Avenue, like having a two-night layover. oh my god i've made the wrong life choices i should have gone down that fucking road it's not too late illy it's not too late it's pretty amazing we used to get sent a rotor once a month and there was always somewhere i'd never been on that greater um a lot of orlando's we went to orlando a lot but then there's a lot of other places so there was always somewhere new and my goal was to go to every single place they flew before i before i went on to the next chapter basically so yeah yeah was there any saucy business in the air i'm not allowed to talk about that i'd send that no do you know what i i you know i'd heard heard all kinds of there's lots of myth and legend in the lists of air assessing and you don't know how much of it to believe and how much not but the it's very unsaucy the story i have actually but there was a the toilet at the back of the aircraft was locked for some substantial amount of time and we were starting to get some complaints from other passengers.

8:22So it fell to me as the most junior cabin crew to go down there and sort of knock on the door. And I heard some grunting and very odd. And you can open those doors from the outside and you'll give lots of warning, you know, if you haven't come out yet, I'm going to have to check. You're okay. And open the door from there. And yeah, there was someone in there who basically had no clothes on. Yeah. And so I then went and got some backup and they, yeah, he just made a really sort of odd decision to get totally undressed in the airmine toilet. But there was nobody else in there with him. So that's...

8:55Oh, was he grunting? I don't know. He was very unwell. Yeah, I mean, there's some funny stories like from not just my time, but other people sharing it. So yeah, weird and wonderful stuff. Someone bought a fish, somehow managed to get a fish through. This was quite a while ago when I was doing it. And, you know, again, there was a whole raw fish from inside the lockers. Like a dead fish. I was thinking a fish called Wanda maybe a live fish would have been more interesting but just a fish in a confined space it's never a good idea there's snakes on a plane but fish on a plane no thank you I can't really think of a country where fish are not available like where are you I thought someone had caught it and decided it was a big fish they wanted to prove that they'd caught a big fish wow we had an emergency once i was actually a passenger on that on that um plane so i had to be a passengering crew so basically we got on you get seven free tickets a year as part of your you know life as cabin crew which is amazing because you can take your you know boyfriend girlfriend you can take your family and uh we did some crazy things that three weeks in i took my then boyfriend to barbados in the three-day window i had between flights and that's an absolutely if you don't make it back you're you're like that's it yeah i look back and think oh what was i thinking you know choice yes but um yeah and we were on a flight out to cape town to do i think it might have been the race the the run that i was going to do out there and i was passengering on one of those free tickets with my then boyfriend and they made an announcement which is kind of code for we need to get all of the crew together now and it obviously it was all fine because i'm sitting here talking about it but um my my my boyfriend at the time was like don't put your hand up don't be and it was you have to volunteer and sell your crew you know and i just all did and um he said all i could hear was you yabbering on to the to the cat because the lady sitting next to me had kind of gone into a bit of like rabbit and headlights she said all i could hear was you chatting to her like all the way through this like emergency banding with the back of heat and i was like well i wanted to calm her down yeah i'm not sure it did i'm a nice person you wanker i'm glad you're not with him anymore.

11:05Yeah. Tosser. All I could hear was you being a, you know, having compassion and empathy. How fucking tedious. He woke off. He wanted me to stay next to him and give him compassion. I bet. Me, me, me, me, me. Goodbye forever. I love our two different things. Goodbye, so. Fuck you! That's right. Welcome to Scummy Divorce Court. One of the best experiences I ever had was the third flight that I ever did. I wasn't trained on the flight back, so as junior crew, we worked on the way out, but then we got to be passengers on the way back and just kind of chill. And the airplane was so full, there was no seats in the economy, no seats in business, so we were right up in front.

11:53And they said to us, you mustn't tell anyone that you're a crew and all the rest of it. And the guy sat down next to me, he goes, oh, so I start the conversation, and he's like, I'm not supposed to tell you. he probably thought you were in mi5 not not quite mi5 but he uh but it was really funny because the the senior crew weren't too impressed that the junior crew were all up in first pass and they were having to serve them you know and uh yeah she they told us you won't get you know you won't get the pajamas you won't get the food you won't get any of that you just sit there be quiet watch a movie and get home you know and uh because i'd let the cat out of the bag you know every time she came over he'd be like i don't think you gave the lady any pajamas and i'd be like i don't think you gave the lady any champagne and i'll be like oh no and caviar for my friend so that was a pretty experience so why did it end did it just get a bit samey well interestingly enough like about nine months in was actually the 9-11 thing happened and um i was i was on the tarmac in heathrow waiting to off to New York and we it was very weird because we we didn't know why nobody was showing up for the flight because everything's airside you're not allowed playing you know any comms or anything and because it was so chaotic like no nobody was telling anyone so we just again we were sat watching a movie waiting for the passengers to turn on it sounds like it was all watching movies but there was a bit of other stuff as well and um and then that all transpired and then we were grounded for about a month or two and then when we went back it was like super weird like all the planes were empty and um and just kind of I don't know like I'd already thought in my mind because I'm a bit of an idealist you know I knew I was doing it for a season and that wasn't forever because I I knew I wanted to write and yeah so I was using that time that I had in hotel rooms and because you have a lot of time you know you do four flights a month and the rest of the time if you've been in Barbados for a week you've technically been at work so you have a week off when you get home and I would spend that time writing and I thought you know what this has sort changed i've been everywhere they've flown so far they've added loads of other cool places now but it's time i'm gonna i'm gonna leave and become an author and that was my sort of i didn't really think very logically i just thought oh and i didn't have several other jobs on the way to that but uh but yeah in my idyllic you know thinking i thought it's time i'm gonna leave on high i'd had such cool experiences you know i even got to go out to necker and that we sometimes they take you out there if you happen to be on the right plane rotation.

14:19You went to Necker Island. Did indeed. Richard Branson's price. What's it like? It's like paradise, but with all the... But with Richard Branson.

14:32A lot of CDs. Lots of CDs. Lots of CDs. There was an inflatable... I actually did my backing, which was a bit of a shame because I was an inflatable trampoline in the sea which was quite you know just did a lot of that and then hurt myself so it was a bit but yeah it was it was you know surreal like for to be in your early 20s and then you're like oh i remember we had like we all did a five minute phone call home to let everybody know why we weren't in the hotel and that we were it's only like two nights and uh my my then boyfriend who's the same mom was like i just oh by the way i'm not in barbada so i'm in neca don't worry i'll be home at around the same time he's like i've got to go and he said after he was like i was like what the hell's going on here you know um but yeah it was it was pretty amazing i mean i just luckily i got on really well with the girl i was sharing a room with and we just you know hung out and did fun stuff and oh yeah not awful i was oh i once thought maybe i was going to necker island did you well not really dream let me well many many years ago before i had kids before i was married um i was i used to be a games journalist and i was at a party for the launch of some fucking Xbox game or something.

15:41It all blurs into one. And it was one of these, in those days, they used to like hire celebrities and invite famous people. And then you'd go to the party, then they'd be like behind a velvet rope so you couldn't touch them. It was all like that. So I was at this party. Like you're in a zoo. Yeah. There they are. Wave at the celebrities. Yeah. And I apologize if I have told this story before on the podcast, but I think it was years ago. So anyway, so I'm at this party and it's like Pharrell and like Sarah from Girls Aloud are like behind this velvet rope. It was that era. it was like early 2000s and actually we got talking to a homeless person outside who was having a fag and we ended up letting him into the party for the free champagne so that was nice anyway but anyway like a modern day robin hood exactly that's i'm a very good person and then so and someone pointed out this bloke this sort of blonde lansett oh that's richard branson's son and i went oh that's cool um whatever anyway so i'm at the bar waiting to get a drink and then i look across the room and Richard Branson's son is walking towards me and he's like making eye contact with me and he walks straight up to me and this is the moment where I thought this is it I am going to get married on Neckeride I love how you join those dots yes yeah the female brain is amazing really is and now we're married yeah you just skipped a decade yeah yeah he's coming here to chat me up.

16:59Awesome. I'm obviously going to chat him. Yes. This is in. All the holes. Anything you like. Yeah. Richard Branson's going to be there like in a white suit. I could imagine. Yeah. Yes. The whole thing. The whole fucking thing. And he comes straight up to me and he goes, excuse me. And I was like, this is it. This is it. And there's a wind machine. Yeah. There's a soft light. And I was like, hello. and he looks me up and down he goes i'm sorry to tell you you've got toilet paper stuck to your shoe there and i'd just been to the loo and i'd walked to the whip of the club with in front of pharrell and all these people yes yes queen yeah that's pretty close your your fantasy was pretty close pretty close and i went oh thank you thank you and i bent down and obviously i pulled the toilet paper off my shoe and by the time i stood up he'd gone just gone bye bye nicker island bye bye future husband i don't know if that was a missed opportunity or not i i'm or i get or it's just yeah that's worth it well i could have been on that inflatable trampoline for you rachel doing your back in with a bit of totally rastatic yeah still there still there oh but anyway yet again i've managed to make it about me let's go back to so you say you you were like right i want to be a writer yeah and was it always children's books that you wanted to write well funnily enough just before i went for that job i had a very long and very kind of armpit-y commute from kingston into bond street where i had this first job and to escape that i went inside my head and i had no book and i'd be like you know squeeze up like writing and what what was coming out was children's stories so before before that i just wrote i wrote poetry it fell out of me you know and i would just write things when they randomly occurred to me I didn't really have like a plan it was just I loved to like play with words and write stuff and yeah and I wrote several sort of children's stories um on those journeys and I thought oh this is this is what I'm supposed to do you know there was like a little light bulb because I just loved all making and art and writing but I didn't really have a I did graphic design from my undergrad you know and I'd gone into that world of designing things packaging and but I just didn't care enough about it you know it was like I loved the process but I didn't particularly mind about the outcome so whereas when I was writing I was like just writing you know there was no kind of oh I'm doing this because this product needs a thing it so yeah and then I thought I thought I found my thing I just had a little you know thing and um ever since then that's kind of what comes I do write other things I still write poetry and I've created like I make poems into art and I used words in lots of different ways.

19:44I had like a card and gift thing where I got to make words into art. And in your bias, did you like collecting alphabets? I do. I've got like a, so I did a master's in printmaking and I, I've got these boxes and boxes of old wooden letterpress and lead. Delicious. Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was before, like now you can buy one on eBay for like 10 quid for like one that you display on your, you know, sideboard. but back then it was like they were skipping them you know it was when I was doing my masters and so yeah I've got I've got all sorts in that and I've actually built a printmaking studio now which so hopefully other people will be able to enjoy the um alphabets as well um but yeah I I like to have the raw bones of what I'm working with you know so yeah it turns out if you get too much of that though it turns into piles of stuff but you know I'm a bit of a keep everything girl which you know over over several decades adds up it really does what you're looking for it's hoarder yeah i was avoiding i i'm in your camp i'm in your camp no i know i know it's hard it's hard but they all have memories and that mean something i know they do uh but then i read that mario condo but you know the kind of magic of tidying up thing she's read it three times oh you've read it three times did it not work for you it kind of you know like all these things it worked for about a week after I've read the book and then I like the concept of it like but what I did do was like if there was something that I felt I knew needed to go I took a picture of it and that was one thing I think I got from there and I kind of got the concept of it but I think it's not just joy like sometimes something's sparked melancholy or they spark you know a memory or whatever but attaching a memory to a thing is when you start to gather you know and I do I quite like my eldest daughter's quite a minimalist actually she'll clear everything out and i'll go in her and i'm like oh it's so nice it's just like this enough you know yes yeah um but i think if you're a bit of a if you're creative like the tendency to be a magpie and just you know little inspiring things or a face so yeah i've tried to calm my collecting down because i was collecting hats i was collecting alphabets i was just collecting what's your favorite hat i love i love i know it's not written down but that's it it's a genuine question one of helen's favorite tinder date questions what's your favorite hat yeah so you can tell a lot about a person yes and you have to make sure you wear the hat don't let the hat wear you and i that took me a long time to realize because like for a bit when i started wearing hats because i'm quite sort of you know crushingly british and self-conscious i'd be like i'm wearing a hat i'm wearing a hat i'm wearing a hat you know it's kind of like that narrative yes yes and then i had to be like no i'm i'm the hat is for me you know i'm like i'm embodying the hat and when i did that one time i was wearing a bowler hat to an evening do and I was kind of still a bit self-conscious I was standing at the other side of Paddington station and this guy made a beeline all the way across it was it was yes yes and I had some toilet rub no no um yeah and he made it wasn't Richard Branson just makes his way across rooms imagine that no um yeah and he came and he said I've only come all the way over here to tell you you look great in that hat and I was like oh because I've learned to not let the hat wear me but yeah bowler hats top hats those are my favorite i love a top hat unbelievably excellent yeah we used to do a greatest showman bit in our show and i used to wear a top hat and get to take it off and it was my face you walked a little taller than that like there was something if it does it does give you something doesn't it's a magic it's a magic thing yeah still got it in the shed it's probably moldy anyway so do go give it to rachel she likes collecting things oh no no don't i'll get in trouble no more hats um but it's back to your book sorry which it was that it's supposed to be the whole point um your books why is she here we'll get done air hostessing richard buns with some hats it's all happening this is my favorite kind of podcast that we do um uh books yeah so then did you like how did it go did you get discovered did you was it like kate moss in croydon just walking down the street did you send it off to everyone how's it work Kate Mossy.

23:43Okay. Not quite as glamorous maybe, but I did, I sent off my work once. I'm such a, like, you know, dreamer and optimist that I'd walked past this window in London several times on my way to work. And it was, and I was with a friend and she said that's, she knew my dream of children's publishing. And she said that, that's, look at that's Orchard Books. And, you know, I'd sort of press my head up against the window and look at all the books in the, in the windows and think, oh, you know, that's, that's the right place for me. and I did send my work off once um not to not to that particular publishing house but I got a sort of you know usual rejection and a and a an agent rejected me and then that was enough for me I couldn't like I sort of retreated back into my shell and thought right I'm not sure if I can handle just people telling me that it's not good enough which is stupid because most good writers can wallpaper their house in rejection letters like it's part of the journey and I know that now but it's kind of like too young and wet behind the ears to realize that and so I just kind of potted away in my own world you know I moved to Worthing for a bit in early retirement and I was with my boyfriend and I was making books and after I left assessing and realizing it wasn't just going to you know happen like that and uh and then I did several other things and I was just always creating in the background and then when I did my master's in printmaking in Bristol I decided to have an exhibition of some of my work with a friend of mine who's a great artist he does huge screen prints and that took a lot of courage because like just even exhibiting my work was a big thing but in bristol there's a great culture of like open houses and like whatever you're doing with your art it's like like there was this one woman on our street who didn't open house she just built a paper mache penguin all up upstairs and like everyone could go in and look at it it was like a you know there was no other point other than it was just creation you know and i love that kind of sense it was more like that than i'd experienced in london in bristol so i felt a bit more confident about showing my work and i had this exhibition with him it was a tiny little stand it was bristol Eastside Traders amazing amazing and they gave an opportunity for new up-and-coming artists to do stuff and then I went off to buy a second-hand micro as you do and uh and I left yes it was all right I had three Nissan Micras through my years but they're a solid car they are a solid car roomier than you think and then comfy that one I went to pick up was entirely made of brown corduroy on the inside it was a rich cafe pleasure side to side that's lovely yeah carpet but because i had gone i wasn't there and my friend who was manning the stall looked after me and when i came back he went what i've got for you and he was holding this business card and it was the head of acquisitions of puffin happened to live around the corner in breast and had popped in to see, you know, and I bought a piece of my work, which was the first ever etching I did.

26:29I did copper plate etchings. I'm actually one of the few people who can invite people back to see my etchings in a legitimate way. I fucking love an etching. And she had bought that piece of work and left her card and said, give me a call. And I was like, you know, it's like the stuff of dreams. So the bit of a, you know, Kate Mossy at the moment. And yeah, I called her. It took me like three attempts. and then we met up in Primrose Hill, which was kind of bougie, but a breast store and a cafe. And I bought like 10 years worth of my pottering. And like, I don't think she knew what was, she was letting herself in for it.

27:00And I went through it, you know, and then she said, have you got anything else? You know, and I was like, oh, and it was a little bit crestfallen, you know, you got it 10 years. But now I know there's a little bit of a test because she said, I do leave cards about when I see potential, but like out of the 10 cards, maybe two will get in touch. One will kind of actually meet me. And then out of those ones, probably out of five of those one will stay the course and like be willing to you know sort of work on their craft yeah isn't that interesting i never thought of it in terms of no like a scout yeah because i think our nature one of the reasons we're friends and we have done what we've done is because we are people who follow the follow the thread right we had to follow the thread and try and take the opportunity and like if it doesn't work out doesn't work out but i know it would never occurred to me if I got a business card not not to no exactly you think it would be everybody would be like hot on that I mean maybe it's that some aren't so invested in that particular thing or maybe there's life circumstances whatever but I'm like when when you know opportunity comes comes a knocking you gotta open the door but also it was a it was a lesson in like being able to persevere as well so it wasn't just like it landed in my lap and then that happened I actually met up with her over the course of another eight months and um and i worked on it and and it was that little girl that she'd bought the etching of that i'd drawn and the story that i came up with and i she said put those two together and then work on it and come back and after eight months she said right i think you're ready to pitch and i was like oh i had been doing that first she was like no we're gonna go up to the strand and you're gonna and i'm gonna introduce you to the director who makes all the decisions and you can pitch what we've been working on and i had a portfolio made and it was just like dream and i'll never forget it and then i went out and showed all my work and there was about six people in the room and i was like you know you're just like what's going on you know this is just the the thing that you think that would be your dream you know like the i'm gonna get married on necker island like that it was actually happening for me and uh they said oh well i think it should be a three book deal not a one book deal we've got loads of material here and um i was just like cloud nine i remember the black cab back to the station to go back to wrestle and I was just having to finish myself, you know.

29:13And that's where it all started. It's such an incredible feeling, isn't it? It is. It's getting what you want. Well, it's things lining up. But, you know, looking back, there was a lot of run-up, you know. Yeah, and self-belief. I think that, you know, so many people would drop off at any stage. Yeah. And that voice in your head that's going, no, I'm not going to wake up. No, I'm going to abort before someone else rejects me. Yeah, exactly. Because I had done that you know i'd had that experience of like oh that was a bit uncomfortable maybe i'll just go back into my little room and create um because i was doing it for the joy of it you know i'd still be doing it now even if nobody was reading it because i just really love writing stories and drawing pictures and that's my happy place yeah oh we'd still do the show in our own house wouldn't we no we wouldn't no no no we've got we've got like a minimum fee yeah uh yeah no but i find that i find that strangely comforting because as i've been saying for what feels like the last 400 years i'm trying to write a novel and you know as i'm sure you know there's good days and bad days and there's days where you think oh i'm i'm just terrible at this and there's so many people out there who are so much more talented than me and costa syndrome they're gonna yeah they're gonna i'm never gonna get a book because why would i look at all these other looking fucking wh smiths or whatever the fuck it's called now tj hookers i don't know and look at all these people i'm not as good as them but in fact but i think that's quite common And I'm having a good day today, so I recognise that for what it is.

30:41But also I think it's quite comforting. And I'm going to take that away from you. Is that not take away from you, but take that with me, that thing of, yeah. And there are going to be people more talented than you. And a lot of it, of course, it's about talent. You wouldn't have got in that door if you hadn't got talent. But also maybe you can sort of cut off a lot of people who are talented, but actually won't do the work or won't tolerate the rejection or just keep fucking hammering. They just don't maybe want it as much, maybe. And I think that's okay. Maybe those people end up wanting something else as much.

31:15But it does, it treads the path of like, you've got to be sort of mildly obsessed with the thing that you want to do. And then, like I always say, when you step towards Providence, it steps towards you. When you sit down at the desk to write a chapter, it's like everything in the universe shifts a bit and comes a little bit, it gets a little bit closer each time you you know you fight that urge to not do it because you could have a bath or watch i don't know love actually or something i don't know why secret lives of all my wives yeah exactly yeah and it's okay to do those things too but it's like when you actually you know you can't not do it and that was what it was like for me i couldn't not do it i was like you know this is going to happen whether whether it actually happens or not i'm going to be doing this thing and i can't i don't want to look back and think well what if i just tried a bit harder you know um and you know who knows i could still without that moment in time i could still be just writing in my shed but i do think that like if that circumstance hadn't presented itself another one would have kind of transpired in a different way because if you keep knocking on the door it will you know it will open great saying is success is 80 turning up yeah right and i've always that's sort of been my mantra and and you know the noise the negative voices are often the loudest.

32:31And that's really hard. And more so now. Yeah. Where you see little snippets of people's lives on shiny social. Yeah. And it's like, wow, they're like living, you know, living the dream. But you don't see them rearranging their wheelie bins or doing whatever they've got to do. Well, some of us have children's book orders. That's on the rider. That's it. Yeah. I actually went out there and it was a test. I went out and got a thing to me. I put myself in these situations where I'm tested. I hope I passed the test. It fell over again after, so I think I failed it. But anyway, just to finish that story off, that amazing lady was my editor for three years on those books and then subsequently became an agent and I was her first ever client.

33:15And now we've been creating together for 17, 18 years and she actually ended up moving down to Dorset with 10 minutes down the road from each other. She's like, guide mum to my kids. It was like that whole thing that started with one moment in an exhibition where she just thought, oh, I really like that. I'll buy it. Here's a card. And I literally could not have foreseen how it all unfolded. Because you went on to be a huge success. Come on. What's the most popular? This is the big one. Well, that's the one that opened a lot. I've had lots of different doors open. So The Lion Inside has been such an amazing.

33:55this was the first book I'd ever so I illustrated and wrote my first 14 15 books and then when I became a mom um that lady I'm talking about Mandy she said to me would you consider collaborating you've got so many stories in you and you know you're going to be pretty busy over the next few years what do you think and I was a bit nervous I thought oh because I was so used to having control over everything I'm a bit of a control freak and um but I let go enough and then I'd written this story when i was pregnant with my first actually so i say she kind of wrote it too um and they suggested jim field as the illustrator and that had a lovely story attached to it as well because i'd seen his work in an exhibition in stratford where they have that lovely children's left center we've been there many times so many times it's great i used to i used to go there with our roadie miserable steve um because he's got a son officially called miserable the same age and if you haven't been there it's this lovely sort of there's a playing bit outside and there's things to do and there's like a big like teepee that you can get inside and one time I was there with Steve and the two boys and I was sort of watching him run around there suddenly I was like where's Steve where is Steve um and eventually I found him in the teepee he had crawled in the teepee and he had his headphones in and he was watching the football on his house he should be remaking genius Steve yeah so yes anyway it's a very cool place and downstairs they often have like an installation or like an exhibition and I was upstairs doing a a love monster event actually because I that's another book series that was went bonkers it turned into a TV show on CBeebies and everything but I was up there doing some it was amazing but I'm trying to stay on on topic I mean, you've been on this podcast for half an hour.

35:45You know that I'm sorry. Staying on topic is not one of our brand pillars. That's a topic. Are you supposed to stay on it? I know. I'm trying. I'm just talking. I keep falling off. Yeah. Sorry. The silent side. Speak your truth. So Jim had done an installation below there. That was two years previous. And I'd gone around it thinking, well, this guy's like on fire. Like he's on the planet doing what he's supposed to do. And I really didn't think anything more of it. I just enjoyed that. experience so when they said oh we've got this guy Jim Field he loves the text he'd love to illustrate it I was just like instant yes and that was 11 years ago and we've since done uh well about uh the 11th one 10th one coming out in uh October and then the next one next year that I've just finished writing so we've done one a year pretty much um since then but The Lion Insight just again neither of us really had a perception of anything other than we wanted to make that book like as good as it could be and uh it was one of the few stories that kind of that flowed out in one way you know one hit and that doesn't happen that often as you know from writing things you can you know you have to keep chipping away at the play and um this one was definitely there was something a bit magic going on and he said he felt it when he illustrated it and then i was ready with my red pen because i never had that experience of having illustrations come in thinking i'm gonna to be you know giving my feedback and not done very well with the hands on this page yeah exactly the line is too big yes all of these thoughts were classic and then they landed and i was like whoa and i just put my pen down because it was just so you know you've done such an amazing job and yeah and then really you were just like bang that's it yeah yeah pretty much i mean no amends yeah no amends hardly none and uh yeah so it basically kind of you know when things just flow like the whole thing just flowed um i wouldn't say effortless but it was like effortless in the sense that there was no oh we don't like this you know everyone just made decisions oh yeah it's gonna be okay it's gonna be this and it's like ding ding ding ding and then it came out in the world and and yeah since then it's been like it's trampled into like 15 languages and it's traveled all over the world and it's been made into a stage play we just touch wood signed the film rights um so and then subsequently that then gave us this ability to write more create more stories together and we genuinely get on so well like as it's a surprise to a lot of people that often writers and illustrators of picture books if you collaborate never meet never speak never have any kind of direct contact it's all happens through the medium of the publishing house and And that is quite common, you know.

38:21And I understand why, because, you know, otherwise there'd be like, you know, scraps and, you know. Coming around your house, you're drawing shit and you can't fucking spell. How can I work with this? It's nonsense. It doesn't rhyme. Exactly. Ruffalo, fuck off. But, yeah, so basically over the years, we've become closer and closer and kind of worked on things a bit more collaboratively. we didn't really talk a lot during Lion Inside that was quite traditional in its process but we've now gone on tour together with the books in wild and wonderful places we were on Good Morning Croatia not so long ago the best of all the good mornings thank you I bet you guys have been on a few good mornings we've been on Good Night Croatia yes good day yeah

39:15but yeah just kind of wild and wonderful things have unfolded from that one story and um yeah and we're just still we're still very much enjoying it so we're still creating a book a year together a book and a book is a lot i mean yeah i mean i do four books a year that i write and then i um i collaborate if i was illustrating them as well there's more like one and a bit books a year when i was illustrating them all especially as i did them in etchings which is the slowest way you can illustrate everything in the whole world ever um i'll never forget once for my second book i did a i did a an etching plate full size and you have to you get this piece of copper you put wax on it you smoke the wax to make it black you scratch into the wax i'm exhausted i know you put it in ferric chloride and then it eats away at the lines and then you clean it make it is a process you know and it took me seven days to make this one spread of the book and i hand painted them and everything and um i forgot to check because i was of shared studio space at a time if the technician had changed the acid and uh i just popped in went off on my bike to do something else because i do love a side quest probably picking up another second hand something and uh i came back and it was gone completely what do you mean so that yeah the acid had it was just been renewed and so it shouldn't have been in there yet i had to adjust my timings learned that the hard way fresh acid yes so more powerful yes so it just it just ate your drawing just ate my drawing and i stood there thinking at it going find a happy place i just have to start again you were back on necker island i thought mate it's back in that bar yeah oh think about the inflatable trampoline oh my god it's taught me how how to i you know i i thought to myself i mean i could say i have a natural you know get a fucking computer yeah email it to yourself email it to yourself what's wrong with a pencil get down tj hookers get some felt tips i also do have felt tips and i computed but that day i just did myself no maybe it will be better the second time around who knows if it was i never got to see it the first time around but i like to think that that spread is the ps de la resistance because i had to do it twice they're the learning days they're the learning You know, when you, I once wrote 500 words and then fell asleep.

41:36And then obviously I fell asleep on the delete key. You didn't. I woke up and I'm gone. Like I woke up and I went, ah! Yeah, awful, awful, awful, awful. I cried a lot. I cried a lot. I mean, it's not the same. It's not the same. Could you not control Zedit? Oh, you say that now. I don't know. You should have rung me. I know, I just panicked and cried. But I probably pressed too many things. Because, yeah. Keyboard commands are the most things that you always discover too late. You spent seven years doing something the long way around. Someone goes, there's a keyboard command for that. And you're like, eh.

42:12Oh, I know. Once Ellie told me double space equals a full stop, and it changed my fucking life. I changed it honestly. Exactly. You think about the time it saves, you know. I think, you know, all these sort of learning things, you know, like in terms of rejection and stuff like that, often when I've had a rejection or something bad has happened, that has resulted in something even better because I'm like, this is not going to crush me. This is not going to. And then I aim a little higher. And so it's sort of, it's a muscle. Yeah, I really believe that. And like, it gives you a bit of fortitude because you're like, yeah, I'm back up and I'm getting on with it.

42:47And I actually think you never go backwards because you kind of, you've just gone like that a little bit. And even though it went wrong, you can't, you know, you can't go backwards. You have to go forwards. It's a bit like when you're house hunting or something, you know, and you think, oh, I lost that house. And then there's always a better one. so yeah I think like husbands

43:08you just keep upgrading you just keep going back for more like no better yeah absolutely that's it or Veruca's one of them goes away but you get another one within a few years yes yes yes it's true is it better way how do you judge a better Veruca just trying to join in you usually get two straight to Veruca's I like it I like where your brain's God, with that money, we're... Yeah, it is, it is. We've really been kicked through. I've got Veruca Hacks, by the way. Veruca Hacks? Come on, come on, that's what Veruca Hacks. This podcast, heaven let it be said, this podcast is not diverse. In your face.

43:43Children's literature, Richard Branson's son, and now Veruca Hacks with best-selling children's author, Rachel Bright. Go, hit us. So, I heard my eldest daughter got a Veruca, quite a bad one, went to the doctor's, nothing you can do, you've just got to wait for them to pass. Nothing you can do? What are you talking about? What stuff did you go to? Well, there are... Do you have cancer? There are... No, nothing. Get your fucking... Where are your knives? We've got fucking, like, anaesthetic and, like, we've got keyhole surgery. The things of the moon. But verricas are one of those things. And you know, like, they sell the...

44:20Bazooka. Yeah, and it's, like, really chemically and horrible. And it's kind of made it bigger and made it worse. And anyway, I just sort of thought, I'm going to Google this. And then I Googled it. I found apple cider vinegar, right? Oh, it's a panacea of all things. Put that, popped that on, on a bit of cotton wool every night, too much of a protest. A little sock on there. Two weeks later, gone. I felt that marching back into the GP surgery. Excuse me, you can do something about... Yes. It's apple cider vinegar. It's the mother with the mother. The mother kills. Always the mother finds the solution, right?

44:52Yes, there you go. Well, there you are, listener. I mean, on that bombshell. Unbelievably excellent. We should probably talk about books. Yes, yes. Tell us about your new book, Rachel. Yeah, the new one, which is in the world of Jim Field and Rachel Bright Collection, is The Turtle We Turned Tide, which is a bit of a special one for me because in my late 20s, I went and did a turtle conservation project out in Costa Rica. And I lived for six weeks in the jungle, much to the horror of my mum, who was convinced I was never coming back. And we just patrolled the beach at night. it was like absolutely insanely beautiful you know starry nights and black sand beach and we would just walk up and down and our job was to wait for the mum turtles to come and lay their nests dig a hole hundred eggs and then they would go back in the sea and we had to take the eggs to a hatchery because they would get poached and taken and i didn't know at the time that maybe only one of those will make it to adulthood those baby turtles and that's why they're so protected so a lot of people just take them for food because they didn't know and so you'd talk to locals and explain and then they'd go in this little hatchery and you'd wait for them to hatch out and then the best part of the job was that when all these little baby turtles hatch out you pop them in a bucket take them back to where the nest was laid and then you put them exactly where they were and they make they make their little way into the oh i mean they fit on the palm of your hand they're just tiny and you're like wow you're on your own in in the big wide world in the ocean and there's sometimes they go the wrong way because there's lights in the village and and you know you have to kind of you know and that like that's just the cutest thing and off they go and that kind of obviously that was a long time ago but like I when I was coming to write the new book and and I'm always asking myself I always start with the idea like what is it I want to write about so there's always a big idea and you were talking about um you know imposter syndrome and that that's actually comparison being the thief of joy is the theme of the next one that's coming but for this one I wanted to write about how even when you're small metaphorically so feeling small or you are actually small like when you're a kid and you feel pretty powerless and everybody else is telling you what to do and you might not feel like you can affect much change in your world actually you know you can't and it's it takes quite a small thing sometimes to um you know change things for a lot of people around you so that's what the story is about is you know you You know, no matter how small we each have the path to change things for all.

47:13And I centered it in this place. And, you know, I told Jim the actual place so he could look at he goes right into it. He'll go to the place in his in his mind. He said he'd rather go there and in his body. But we're still waiting for that that that press trip. But, yeah, he's he goes and researches all the animals and, you know, lives on that place in his mind. And so this came from a real like story behind the story. and yeah it's um I'm absolutely just so pleased with how it came out children's books are the best memories of your life in the lead up to this podcast I was thinking what are some of the best memories I have with my children yeah is sitting down and reading their favorite book and the wonder and even reading the same book again and again yeah going I love that book and then having it on the shelf like we recently did a bit of a cull of children's books and then so we've just got all our favorite ones and oh my god there's just something and then I think about my own like I've got the copy of Dogger that I read with my mum and now that's on the shelf next to it.

48:11I'm like, oh, that's... Yeah, that is something tangible. It won't replace anything else. Exactly, because it represents the time spent together and the moments that, you know, we want to be most present and it's hard to be present in modern life, especially when you're parenting. And I think when you're reading a picture of it with any level one in your life, it forces you to be totally present with them in the moment in the story and you're you kind of the grown-up world and the kid world come together in a way that doesn't happen necessarily in other ways and I think that's why it's so and it's safe you can go anywhere in a book but be safe cozied up on the safe or in bed or whatever and I think that's why picture books are so special because and I try and write with that in mind like I try and write that Morris Sendak had a great quote that said I write stories and then somebody tells me they're children and I think that's so great because picture books aren't just for children they're for the other person reading them they're the only book you read out loud they're the only book you read multiple times well of course you can read other books multiple times but I mean multiple times yes over and over especially favorite ones and you know it's that shared moment but they have to have something in them for the for the kid and the adult otherwise that becomes a chore not a joy and so I that's why I think like that's the stories that endure I think are the ones that that there's a kernel of universal truth in there and they make you feel something, whether you're two or 102, you know, and that is a big challenge.

49:40Like, a lot of people say to me, will you write the proper book one day? You know, a lot of people say that to me. Wow. Wow. Wow. And I always think, you know, I understand why that book, because it's short and they're like, oh, you're just a dash out of it. It's a big cuntie. Has anyone looked at the top, if you look in the top Amazon charts, which, you know, obviously I've been obsessed with recently, it's mainly children's books it's mainly picture books you know regardless all right commercially successful but yeah it's a marker of yeah it's a marker of what i think it's the perception of how hard it is to do something so like you know if you're writing a you know a multi you know tens of thousands of words novel then obviously there's that's a totally different journey to writing a picture i wouldn't say it's harder it's made it's more time it's just different and that's what i always say i'm like it's actually really hard to encapsulate an exciting narrative that has something funny that has characters you engage with in in the luxury 32 pages so i find it a really good challenge like i find it quite hard yeah hard yeah good hard and so yeah that's usually my answer if i get that question right and and also yeah i might write a proper book people are amazed it takes a year to to to make a picture of it from start to finish that's because every single word has to earn its place you know you can't get away with a bit of fluff and filler like you have to make sure and often i have to do that thing of killing your darlings they call it don't they you know it's like yeah and i work quite closely with the editors and they'll say oh that you gotta cut that bit it's not moving the story forward and i go like it sounds so good did you notice how i rhymed yeah divorce and borscht yes yes that's one of our favourites.

51:23I love that. My friend called me up and he said, I think rhyming Leopardy and Jeopardy might be your Sistine Chapel. And I was like, I hope I still know more Sistine Chapel's in me, but Leopardy and Jeopardy is very, very good. I love that. Top hats off to you, Rachel. Top hats off. Well, well, fuck those people who said, when are you going to write a proper book? Fuck your ex-boyfriend. He was actually a very nice, I feel I have to say, it was a very nice oh okay scummy mommy confession sign hooray hooray um who wants to go first you've got a good one so the other day i was at the kitchen table just working or something and um my boys were in the garden and then the big one came in with it holding a basketball and he took it over to the sink and then i just carried it and then i looked up and he was drying the basketball with a tea towel and then was taking it back outside.

52:20And I was like, what are you doing? And he went, oh. So what happened was I pissed in a bush and then I threw the basketball in the bush so it's covered in piss. So I've just brought it in to wash it in the kitchen sink. Yum, yum, yum. And now I'm drying it with a kitchen tea towel. I'm quite glad you asked because if you hadn't have asked, that tea towel would have stayed and there it was. and I was like right this is my life is it and he was like yep yep that's what's happening yep see you later bye so that was lovely who wants to go next I'm a hoarder of all things as we've established and that also includes many embarrassing stories that have happened with the kids over the years and so I thought I would give you four titles because I couldn't choose which oh this is excellent and you have to just choose which one okay yeah yeah yeah so the first title is Cheeseman.

53:16Cheeseman, okay. The second title is Explaining the Birds and the Bees Through Horse Anatomy. And the next one is Exposure Unit. And the last one is John's Poo. Oh, what a choice. I mean, I'm drawn to the horse. I am drawn to the horse. Yes, yes, yes. I knew it. How did I know that one? How did she know? Yes. Obviously, it sounds dirty. And also, horses are funny. Yes, yes, yes. They are inherently funny. yeah well okay i hope the story lives up to it but let's see if you've chosen right but yeah when so anyone that's maybe had more than one uh child there might come up a conversation on how that thing happened and so my my eldest is very very smart and she was about four when i was pregnant with my second daughter and we were just driving along i was in the front she was in the back and and we'd done that thing of like you know like in the library they have a few books that explain the bears and the bees quite well, why mummy's got a baby in her tummy, but they always miss out the sort of bit in the middle.

54:19They talk about the sperm and the egg, never really talk about anything like how that... The thing going in and out. Coitus. Coitus. Nothing rhymes with coitus. No. It's probably half of the problem. Rumpy, pumpy. That sounds like a journalist book. Rumpy, pumpy. In and out. And the magic cockerel. Yeah. And, you know, I think maybe there's a theme to parenting where you get questions and things like the basketball thing that happen that you're not expecting to happen when they happen and i'm driving along and i just hear this mommy i've been thinking and i was like okay and she said i've been thinking about how the baby got in your tummy and she said i i've been thinking about the books you showed me and she said i understand about the sperm and the egg and i understand about the you know and and topical bits but how does it get how does the sperm get to the egg and i was like okay now i'm gonna have to you know how you don't know no, do I go totally factual?

55:10Do I sidestep and go, when you're old enough, you'll, you know, understand all that. That wouldn't really wash with her because she wanted factual explanations. So I explained that, you know, and then, you know, in quite a brief manner. And then we carried on driving. I was sort of silent again. And then she said, but there's another thing that I don't understand, mummy. She said, you know, the man's one is all dangly. So how does the dangle, how does it? Because the dangle wouldn't, you know, I was like, oh my God. Oh my, my, my. Explain. And I'm not even going to say the word because I'm a children's book author, but the thing that happens before you can make a baby.

55:43And I, for some reason, the first thing that I could think of was that they were having horse riding lessons at the time. And I said, well, you know, Sheldon, the horse that, and sometimes because she had asked what the giant thing was on Sheldon. Right. Sheldon had his horses. He was obviously a male horse. Yes, yes, yes. And so I was like, well, you know, Sheldon, and you know how he has his penis in them? And basically I went off on one about penises and horses and the giant penis of Sheldon's. And then at some point she just went, you can stop now. And I'm in.

56:23And the car just fell back into silence. Wow. And I thought, wow. I never explained it. And then I was there second guessing how I'd gone about it. You panicked, you panicked. Yeah, she is remarkably unscarred by the experience. I'm just worried that she's going to be disappointed when she learns that everyone is hung like a horse. No. Oh, with a Sheldon. Yeah. I love that. And I sort of want to hear the other three, but we have run out of time. Yes. But I would genuinely, I would love you to come back on the podcast another time. Perhaps you've got another book to sell. Because we haven't talked about your ultra marathon running.

57:02We haven't talked about the fact you're in Doctor Who. and now I need a wee so we can't. Yes. And also, do you want to do a quick plug for your lovely retreat? Oh, yes. So, on my other hat, one of my other hats is that we have set up a lovely empowerment, health and wellbeing retreat down in Dorset called Happy River. And we also have a sauna there called the Forest Sauna, which has a cold plunge. You always have to have a cold plunge. Yes, yes, yes. And, yeah, it's very exciting. And we're about to open an art studio called Maker's Barn, which is a full printmaking studio back to my roots. so yeah there's there's uh we've got a lovely space there though you can come and rent a log cabin you can get back to nature you can sit by the fire you can have yoga and meditation let's go there for a writer's retreat tilly right happy river don't go to the one next door miserable stream no no nobody wants that it's easily confused yes exactly oh and of course your your books yes they're out so the turtle he turned the tide is coming out in paperbacks already out in hardback then there's the messysaurus that i did with chris chatterton and there's another book called Sometimes It Rains, which is coming out later, which is a brand new pairing of Richard Jones.

58:07So hopefully you'll enjoy all of those new stories and I'm busy writing the next ones too. Unbelievably excellent. Well, you've been a delight. Thank you, Rachel Bright. Yes. Thank you. And thank you, Helen Thorne, for continuing to do a comedy tour with me around the UK. Where should we go next? I cannot wait, Ellie. Do you know where I'm really excited about going to? Hartlepool. Oh, Hartlepool and Alderston, because we've never been there before. But we are also returning to Norwich. We're going up to Chester to the Story House, which is marvellous. And would you believe we're going to Divisers?

58:42We are. Going to Divisers and Manchester. I would really like to recommend people in Manchester come to that gig. Please? Please! Oh, Wells is a delight. Do you know about Wells? It's a cathedral city. Been there. It's lovely. Great place to go for comedy. Thank you so much, Rachel, for coming on the podcast and driving all this way and sorting out my bins. It's been like nothing else I've ever experienced. I've really enjoyed it. I've heard that before from people, usually men. But anyway, thank you for listening, listener. Until next time. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

59:22Our friends started listening to our podcast. That's how you go. That's just how that goes. Exactly. They don't listen anymore. It's fine. my Australian friends listen to me because I'm not there so that's probably nice it's like having you in the room when you can't physically be in the room love that yeah it's nice God forbid they could ring you up or anything oh no we don't talk anymore you don't ever test them it's a one way did you listen did you hear that thing we should start saying things for your friends to test them yes yes yes like call one of them a bitch that's one way of doing it I think Taryn is a man I think Taryn's a bitch she's not she's lovely We've been on holiday with us.

59:59It's really nice, actually. Anyway, but if you're listening, Taryn, well, let's find out.

1:00:11ACAST powers the world's best podcasts. Here's a show that we recommend. I'm Lara Marie Shanehals. And I'm Terry O'Donnell. And together, we are the hosts of Sexy Unique Podcast, a podcast for geniuses about reality TV, pop culture, and every once in a while, a tangent about 9-11. I mean, it really affected all of us. On Sexy Unique Podcast, we insist on discussing the creme de la creme of reality television. From the current season of Vanderpump Rules to tried and true classics like early seasons of Real Housewives of New Jersey to underrated gems like VH1's Rock of Love and even Gallery Girls, we're talking about all of it.

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