My journey into a child’s mind
Author Jacqueline Wilson tells Louise Flind about her parents’ rows, her kidney transplant and the heroines in her children’s books
Is there something you really miss? If I travel for work, I miss my lovely partner, Trish, and my pets.
Do you travel light? Very light. Once I did a tour of Australia, New Zealand, then America, for three weeks – but I managed with carry-on.
What’s your favourite destination? It used to be Boston in America. Now we go on holiday to north Norfolk.
What are your earliest childhood holiday memories? My parents didn’t get on, but we still went on holiday and they had enormous rows – whispering in case anybody noticed. It was generally a week in Clacton. The sea was freezing cold – so I came out absolutely navy blue.
How do you get into a child’s mind? I find it quite easy. When I was a child, I had to be a bit wary and work out the kind of mood my parents were in. I can remember vividly what it felt like to be six or eight or ten.
What were your favourite children’s books when you were a child? Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree books, Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, Little Women, What Katy Did and A Little Princess.
What was it like working on the magazine Jackie? Was it really called after you? Was it good for story-writing? It was great fun. The two men in charge, Mr Cuthbert and Mr Tate, told me their new magazine was called Jackie and said, ‘After you.’ It helped me to be versatile and to write quite quickly.
Did you enjoy writing crime fiction? Not really.
Was it helpful being a late success? I think so because I was very naive.
Do children like reading about scary subjects and broken families? I think even the happiest-seeming child has fears and anxieties and it comforts them to know that other kids feel the same way.
Where do your ideas come from? I might read a little paragraph in the newspapers about some child going off with his dad, and his mum doesn’t know where they are.
Where do Tracy Beaker and Hetty Feather come from? With Tracy Beaker, it was seeing photographs of children in care. Hetty Feather was from when Rhian Harris, the head of the Foundling Museum (which I became involved with), suggested I write a book about a foundling.
Which book are you most proud of? Hetty Feather, because it was such a different book for me to write.
Did you always know you were a lesbian? No, and I don’t think I was particularly repressed. I think I’m just somebody who falls for a personality. I was married for 30 years and before that I had boyfriends. Then I met Trish and just fell for her.
How does it feel having someone else’s kidneys? Trish donated a kidney, but we’re not compatible in our blood and tissue type. So we entered into one of those schemes where you and your donor go into a sort of tombola to see if you can get matched up with another couple – and it worked.
Where did you go on your honeymoons? After my first marriage, we didn’t have a honeymoon. For my civil partnership, we had a wonderful week in Boston.
Do you lie on the beach? I tend to think I’ll like lying on a beach, but then I get there and the sun’s in my eyes – and if it’s sandy, it gets gritty, my back hurts and I get fidgety.
What’s the strangest thing you’ve ever eaten? Crocodile in Australia.
What’s your favourite food? I like nursery food: baked potatoes with cheese, anything with loads of fresh vegetables. I try to be vegetarian but have a weakness for birds.
What’s your biggest headache? Modern technology. In New Zealand in a hotel, there was an ipad to lock and unlock your door and of course I managed to lock myself in my room.
What is the strangest place you’ve ever slept in – while being away? When people used to put travelling authors up in their own houses, a lovely lady showed me into this room, and there was no bed. There was a shelf about a foot from the ceiling and a rope ladder up to it.
Do you like coming home? I love coming home to a family. In the six years when I was single, I could be up onstage having hordes of children desperate to have photos with me – and yet come home to a silent house. Now there’s generally a meal, and an enthusiastic welcome from the dogs.
What are your top travelling tips? Always travel very light. And although people always say you should wear your comfiest clothes on a plane, I find I’m stupid enough to prefer to dress in my usual slightly odd way and feel myself.