Star Struck
Page 32
It’s so hard to say because different generations have different writers that are important for that time. I also think that writers in all their forms should be recognized for their power with words and that there is sometimes a worthiness unjustly attached to novel writing. Political speech writers, film writers, journalists as well as novelists – anyone who can move people and make a positive difference to someone’s life is a great writer – I suppose that’s a long winded way of saying I don’t think there is one ‘greatest writer’.
Other than writing, what other jobs have you undertaken or considered?
I’ve had every job going. I’ve going to sound like a Victorian orphan but I had my first job aged twelve – a paper round. I enlisted the help of my brother who was seven at the time. As I only paid him 50p a week for his services he rightly mutinied one evening and left me to it in the pouring rain.
My first Saturday job was in Bradford meat market aged fourteen surrounded by men who had worked too closely with raw meat for too long. Everything was an innuendo. I hated that job. I got £1.50 an hour, had bits of meat stuck under my finger nails by the end of the day and had to wear a tabard like a dinner lady. After a year of this I managed to wangle a job at a shop called Guy Watson’s (anyone of a certain age from Bradford will remember this institution). It was a gift shop/joke shop/borderline soft porn shop. I worked there for four years and loved it. I used to volunteer to stock-take and see how many chocolate willies I could eat before I was told to go on my break. I then worked in numerous factories around Bradford during the summer holidays from university. The shampoo factory where you weren’t allowed to pack medicated shampoo for more than half an hour because it made your nose bleed. The card factory where one of the women had ‘bitter’ and ‘lager’ tattooed above her nipples. When I enquired why she simply said, ‘For my husband.’ The catalogue factory where two lads were sacked for trying to sneak out with fifteen football tops on each.
After all this, when I graduated I was dying to work in an office and have a ‘normal’ job but I soon realized that all jobs have their quirks. I worked as a secretary in a school in Moss Side which was a brilliant job and a great place to work but then I worked out I could earn at least six grand more by calling myself a PA so that’s what I did until I started writing about seven years ago. I worked in Manchester and then in Dublin as a PA. When I returned to Manchester to try my hand at writing I supported myself by being a waitress -this was my favorite job of all. Everything happened in that restaurant and it was brilliant for pinching characters. From the sleazy businessman I overheard saying to his secretary while evidently trying to get into her pants, ‘I’m a human being first and a businessman second’ (GAG!), to the old lady who lived in a home down the road but used to pretend she’d just jetted in from Monaco whenever she came in. This was one job which might not have paid much but stood me in good stead for becoming a writer.
Which book has made you laugh? Which book has made you cry?
Marian Keyes always makes me laugh. She is hilarious. There was something she wrote about the Irish compulsion to sing at the drop of a hat that made me sick laughing. The last book that made me cry was Sophie’s Choice.
Which book would you never have on your bookshelf?
I’d happily take some of my husband’s books to the tip. There are a lot of drug lords and psychopathic nut jobs that write books and they make their way into our house. Anything that starts ‘From the mean streets of Liverpool to the crack dens of Calcutta to the showers of St Quentin, this is the story of one man’s journey from poverty to international crack baron …’ for me can go and live in the bin. I think that men like these books for the same reason they like Police, Camera, Action. Whatever that reason may be …
Is there a particular book or author that inspired you to be a writer?
Not really a book or author. My friend Danny Brocklehurst is a TV/film writer and we used to share a house years ago. He used to get up and eat his cornflakes in front of Trisha and start work at ten while I would leave the house at eight and cycle into the city centre and get rained on nearly every day. I quickly began to think, maybe there’s something in this writing lark …
What is your favourite word?
Div. I’m not even sure it’s a real word but it covers a multitude of sins.
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Published in 2009 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing
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Copyright © 2009 by Anne-Marie O’Connor
Anne-Marie O’Connor has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Star Struck is a work of fiction. In some cases true life figures appear but their actions and conversations are entirely fictitious. All other characters, and all names of places and descriptions of events, are the products of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons or places is entirely coincidental.
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