Tina Baker
Former TV soap expert Tina Baker, now 62, talks about going ‘feral’ in lockdown, her debut novel and the heartache of wanting a baby…
Tina Baker is chatting ten to the dozen, as full of sharp observations as she is jokes and anecdotes. Formerly a TV critic on TV:AM, then soap expert on GMTV, she is a fitness instructor these days, but has recently added another feather to her bow – published author. CallMeMummy is a twisty, heartbreaking thriller about a demonised council estate mum, Kim, whose stroppy five-yearold child, Tonya, goes missing, and the damaged ‘Mummy’, who snatches her and tries to mould her into the perfect child. Tina, who is originally from Coalville in Leicestershire, lives in North London with her husband, Geoff, and their four rescue cats. She discusses married life, the pain of never having kids and, discovering with her searing debut, that despite loving to find the humour in things, she’s also ‘attracted to the dark’…
Tina, firstly how are you coping in general?
I’ve got severe asthma, so till I received the vaccine, I’d been shielding. I’m quite anxious, so going for a walk and bumping into the usual ‘colourful’ London characters blocking my path, I couldn’t have coped. I’m in that feral stage – I’ve got the lockdown hair. But exercise has saved me.
Congrats on the book! Was becoming an author always the dream?
It doesn’t feel real! I remember having ‘journalist’ on my passport for years – but secretly, always wanting to write a book. My dad, Pete, was a window-cleaner, my mum, Jean, was a cleaner and for a long time, I felt ‘authors’ were a different species. Yes, I used to interview reality stars on telly – but this was a different world.
Where did your love of words begin?
When I was little. At school it wasn’t cool to love lessons, which I always did. My mum who died quite a few years ago, never read or wrote well. At school, Welsh nuns tied her hand behind her back because she was left-handed. Her dad didn’t read or write – they were fairground people. So, Mum had a real respect for learning. I was the first to go to university. I did an MA in Creative Writing – and my first book baby was born as a result!
Call Me Mummy is so gutsy and raw – it’s gripping…
Thank you! When I was doing my MA, they asked us to go somewhere we’d never been. So, I went to Mothercare, which is what the opening scene of the book is based on. Having gone through failed IVF, desperately wanting to be a
mum myself, I got this idea of a woman having this meltdown in Mothercare. Obviously, I didn’t steal a child– though my desperation was extreme! But the seed for the book was that heartbreak. So many years of wanting a baby and, sadly, it never happened.
That’s a big burden to carry through life…
Yes. There was one phase when I just worked constantly. I was doing GMTV early, then my last radio gig would be midnight. I was brought up on bread and cheese in a caravan. When I became a journalist and could joke, ‘I’m friends with Lorraine Kelly!’, I probably overworked. It’s like that line in Sex and the City: ‘I was too busy to have a kid.’ When Geoff and I started trying, a part of me knew I was too old.
So this book is based, in part, on that pain?
It is. And I wanted to write about the working-classes, because there’s a bit of the ‘Cor blimey, Mary Poppins!’ when you read about characters that aren’t like you. I know the protagonist Kim isn’t very likeable, but she’s real and raw. I have empathy for her. I thought I‘d maybe write like Marian Keyes, with humour – as a journalist, my pieces were peppered with funny anecdotes. But I’m closer to Irvine Welsh! Writing it, I was often at my computer sobbing aerobically.
Has that feeling lessened with time?
It’s still there, it can rise to the surface… I’m that woman on the bus, grinning at a cute kid. It’s so lovely when they’re really wee, so unguarded and smiling away at you. It could be something I see on telly that sets me off. Spirited, feisty Tonya, the little girl who gets snatched, is basically the little girl I never had.
Her mum, Kim, is constantly being judged. Have you ever felt that?
Yes, living in a caravan, you got called ‘dirty gyppo’. But it went both ways. The Travelling community judged Mum, because she married a ‘flattie’ (a non-Traveller), and they also judged my dad for being a window cleaner. I was in the middle.
I get that feeling of not being good enough – I have imposter syndrome with knobs on.
What’s lockdown been like with husband Geoff?
Geoff’s on furlough, he’s a barman. I like having him around – he was my first reader! I was glad when he was sent home. One night at his pub, a drunk football supporter ripped his mask off and licked his face. If he’d been working in the NHS risking his life, I’d be able to get my head around it – but not to serve someone beer! We’ve only had one bad row since this all started. The pandemic’s brought us closer.
l Call Me Mummy (Viper Books, £12.99, hardback and e-book), by Tina Baker is out now.