Harper Clarke is a woman starting to question her many life choices. Did she marry the right man? Has she chosen the right path to go down? Has she done a good job of being both a parent and wife? Those and many more are exactly what she's hoping to find answers for and readers are now being invited to join her on that journey, in Denise Welch's debut novel If They Could See Me Now.
Denise Welch / Credit: Tony Ward/ScopeFeatures.com
We got the opportunity to chat to Denise about her work, what it's been like stepping into the world of published fiction for the first time and much more. Read on to find out what she had to say...
For those who are thinking about reading your debut novel, what should readers expect?
Do you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to make a book that was easy to read. I myself, love reading, but I don't want to struggle with a book. So if someone said to me, 'You've got to get past the first 100 pages', thank you, bye! Not interested! Don't have the time, don't have the inclination. I want to be drawn in by the title, I want it on the front to say this is what it says on the tin - mine is 'What are you prepared to sacrifice for the perfect life?' - that draws me in, and I wanted it to be, after the first page you don't want to put it down. That's what I wanted.
In regards to the story, it's not autobiographical, but as it is my first novel and this is a completely new world to me, I could only write about what I know, about a world I know. That's why Harper's (the novel's leading lady) from the North East where I'm from, she lives in Cheshire where I live, I write about the Cheshire set that she's thrust into... I know some great people in the Cheshire set but there's some horrors.
So, any of the characters in the book aren't based on one particular person. Harper is an amalgam of several people that I know or know of, or have read about. I'm at an age where I have a 14-year-old son, but most people of my age don't. I had Louis when I was 97 or whatever I was, but most people don't, so I became aware over the last few years of becoming quite interested in the dynamics in people's marriages when their kids leave home.
For example I know one couple who have celebrated and embraced it and absolutely love it. They love their children and those children are welcome to pop in anytime, but they are quite glad they've gone. They don't have the stresses of it, they don't have the dirty laundry on the floor, they don't have the girlfriend troubles, they don't have any of it anymore. 'Bye! We're off on our holiday skiing, spending the kid's inheritance, off we go!' So off they are, that's one end of the extreme.
The other end of the extreme is people trapped because they've still got that generational thing of a generation ago of people going, 'You've made your bed, you lie in it', and nowadays we don't have to lie in that bed anymore. Usually, with women there is an element of financial independence, not always, but often, so that isn't the reason you're having to stay like it was a generation ago, that you're relying on your husband's pay packet and you couldn't go. And so, it's basically about - are you prepared to stay?
I've turned my life around in the last four years, but it doesn't bear any resemblance to my marriage to Tim [Healy], which I would consider a successful marriage. It's ended but it was successful. We had many happy years and we have two children, but I also did experience a relationship where there was control - not as controlling as Aaron (Harper's husband in the novel) - but I have experienced it.
The character of Georgie who is the 14-year-old daughter, I wanted her to be my vehicle for my hatred of bullying and fat-shaming, and where that can lead, because I do whatever I can to help in that situation. With my experience with Lighter Life and cognitive behavioural therapy, I've learnt how to control my own potential eating addictions, which is what I thought was on the road to taking the place of my alcohol addiction, until I had CBT. But also as a result of being an ambassador for three years, I've spent a lot of time with obese women, my alcohol is their food, it's their emotional crutch and it's not just about shutting away the biscuit tin, it's not about doctors giving people a diet sheet and saying 'go away and do it'. We have to start investing time and money in looking into why these people are so emotionally upset or damaged that they're eating like this, particularly children.
When the Katie Hopkins of the world and others like her say, 'Eat less move more, I don't talk to fat children', you're metaphorically kicking the fat ginger kid in the school yard in my opinion. There is a reason why fat children are eating like that and it is because there is some kind of emotional problem, we've got to look into why this happens, otherwise we're setting these kids onto a lifetime of eating disorders. I feel quite passionate about it so I wanted Georgie to be my vehicle to talk about that without it being the whole story, it's a part of the story, and how bullying can begin in the home, because she's bullied by her dad about it.
It's not a massive issue-led book, but I wanted to put my passions about things I'm really against in there as well.
When did you first start thinking about the concept of the novel?
It was never a really conscious thing. Years ago when I had a best-selling autobiography which was my first one - my second one was called Starting Over and I want to readdress that because I hadn't really started over. I was going through a very bad time in my life, I came out of that vile Big Brother house and, it was sort of like, 'you've got to write, you've got to do this book', and it was like 'I haven't really started over!'.
But the first book was me taking control back from the press and saying, 'OK, I've got no real desire of writing an autobiography, I don't even know if I'm capable of doing it with my memory being so awful, but I'm not having you write the narrative of my life in exactly the way you wanna write it, you can all f**k off, and yes there was sex and drugs and rock and roll, but I'll tell you about it in my words', that's why that was. Because it was brutally honest and had those factors it was a best-seller. I then arrogantly thought 'I'm the darling of the publishing world, so I'm going to say I'll write a novel or two for you and they'll snatch my hand off!' No they didn't, they went 'f**k off, not remotely interested, we're only interested in your real life stories, we don't care about your stories!'
I then had a couple of lesser-known publishing houses come to me and say, 'look we've got this guy who'll write a Katie Price type book about four women who are in a chat show and they're really bitchy backstage', but no that's not for me.
I can't even say I put it on the back burner Daniel, I didn't even think about it, but now in this stage of my life, sobriety and everything that goes with it, I just live a completely different, cleaner, more alert, capable life, and I also want to make choices.
As an actress I'm a people observer, observation is key to being a good actress, so I'm constantly observing people and this scene kept coming to the fore. I found my friends all talking amongst each other about 'should I stay or should I go?', all weighing up the pros and cons. I thought 'there's something here', so I pitched it to a few publishers and with a few tweaks and changes, Little Brown came back and said 'let's see what you've got', the three chapters go in and they come back and go 'OK we're on', then they give you the deadline and you s**t yourself!
I've had a fantastic editor. I write, she checks it out, she comes back, she changes bits, I write more - she's with me, right by my side all the time and that's how I want it. I'm just thrilled, there it is in my hands, this book with my name on the front! I couldn't be more proud and I've already started writing the second one!
The pressures on women from society is a big talking point in the book, how do you think these pressures have changed in the modern day when compared to what they once were?
I mean, I certainly have got stronger as I've got older. I'm embracing my age as something positive, especially looking around and seeing the amount of people who are poorly and the people we're losing at a relatively young age. With sobriety and stuff my mind is clearer to be quite glad about who I am.
There was always a pressure on women - I did know someone married to a doctor, therefore her mother didn't think she could get any higher than that. So, she looked through the fact that her daughter was so desperately happy and actually said, 'just try smiling more and cooking nicer food'. So this person stayed in that unhappy marriage because society deemed or so she thought, that that's where she had to be. You don't have to anymore. Women have financial independence - not all the time - but you don't have to live this life. Even people of my grandmother's age sort of expected that that's what you did, you married for life and put up with it. It didn't matter you got a whack on a Saturday night, you stayed because that's what you did. You know where your bread's buttered, now everything has changed.
But there are other pressures on women and I think that's why women are drinking more. I didn't want Harper to be an alcoholic just because I am, what I wanted to subtly put in there is that she like many women I know is drinking too much. She always has a little bit, she always feels a little s**t in the morning which, by 11'o'clock she's fine. But she'll say to her friends, 'I don't know why I feel so rubbish I only had a couple last night', but she didn't, she had a bottle. I see that with people I know, they'll go 'I only had two', and I think, 'I was with you, you had five which is over a bottle'. I used to do that, you know? Except mine was much worse. It's not that these people are so far down the line that they can't get out. I didn't want Harper to have a problem that she'd have to go into therapy and recovery, I just wanted her to have a problem she'd have to address. It's Mother's little helper. It used to be the valiums, now it's the bottle of wine. Sometimes, going into the second bottle of wine on a school night. There are different kinds of pressures - we're all working too hard.
I do think social media and amounts of time on phones - I'm guilty of it myself - you can't get away from anything. We're all living these perceived lives through social media as well. Everybody's life's got to be fabulous and there is this perceived notion that everybody is having a better time of you and that fear of missing out, which is in the book. For me now it's JOMO - the joy of missing out - I f**king love missing out, leave me out of everything, please!
So there are different pressures, they're not better they're not worse, they're just different and it's how we look at them and how we adapt to them.
What sort of person should give this novel a try?
I want it to be for everybody. I had to fight for her to be in her 50s [with a different publishing house], and it's like 'well if you don't want her to be in her 50s, HELLO? You're not getting it! If she's not in her 50s, there is no story. It's because she's in her 50s that she's got the grown up child, that she's looking fabulous for 50'. But I want it to be enjoyed by people who are younger, and I hope because I have a huge age range in my fanbase, I hope Betty from Bolton reads it and the kids in Denise Welch Fan Club who are in their 20s read it.
I've had a couple of my guy friends read it - straight guys, obviously my gay friends like it! - but actually, they've had to admit to me that they were up at 2'o'clock in the morning reading to to see what happens!
I'm not gonna lie, it's obviously gonna go in the women's fiction, but I'm so thrilled that people like Martina Cole and Susan Lewis, two of my heroines in chick-lit, have said that they love it and have allowed me to use their quotes. I feel such a sense of sisterhood with other novelists who could think, 'oh f**king hell, who's the latest celebrity novelist? Oh it's her!', but they've read my book and given me great feedback. I feel very honoured to be on the same bookshelves as them.
Congratulations on your first novel Denise and congratulations on getting a second series commissioned for Boy Meets Girl!
I know, I'm so excited, we had a read through and the scripts are fabulous. It's all coincided with the launch of the book so everyone's having to jiggle schedules but, it's exciting.
How did you find the response to the first series of the show?
It's a BBC Two show, I've done shows which have had trillions more viewers because they've been on bigger channels and stuff, but I have never almost ever had a fan response on say, Twitter for example, which was unanimously positive. I thought that Twitter being the home of the trolls, there might be a few tweets about the content. You're always gonna get people who go, 'f**king s**t show', but it was the outpouring of people - obviously from the Trans community which was brilliant, we had a part in celebrating what became the year of the transgender - an outpouring of support for that group, but people who would never have tuned into something that they thought was about that subject matter, who after the first episode thought it just became a part of the story. Basically it was a heartwarming comedy about two families coming together and the laughs and the perils that went with it. So it continues with great scripts, so it's very exciting.
If They Could See Me Now by Denise Welch is published by Sphere, price £12.99 hardback.
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