by Fiona Gibson
Fiona: How did you get started in modelling?
Kelly: I was scouted in Covent Garden by an agent. I was on Easter break from college where I was doing my A-levels. I didn't think I was model material. I thought you had to be tall and pretty, and I was just tall!
Adele: My boyfriend was a photography student and had pictures of me in his portfolio. He went to see Vogue to show them his work, and they asked who his model was. When he ‘my girlfriend’, they said I should call one of the top London agencies. I was 21 when I started, but told everyone I was 19!
Who was your first shoot for?
Kelly: Draper's Record [a fashion trade magazine]. I was scared and overwhelmed. I thought I might be sexually attacked by a sleazy photographer, but it was a lady photographer and I ended up really enjoying it. I even got to keep the coloured tights from the shoot afterwards! My second shot was for Just Seventeen.
Did you enjoy working for the teen mags?
Adele: Yes. The whole team – models, stylist, photographer – tended to be young and ambitious so it was always creative and fun.
Kelly: I loved it. My friends and I all read Just Seventeen and that's the only magazine I wanted to work for. I wasn't interested in doing Vogue or any of the sophisticated stuff as I couldn't relate to it.
How did modelling change your life?
Kelly: It made me grow up very quickly. I went from being a student and living in a council house with my mum and dad in Essex to flying to Japan on my own. I'd only ever been to Spain and Great Yarmouth. I was unsophisticated, not very well educated and pretty green as to the ways of the world. I was very homesick when I first went to Japan. It was such an alien culture to a hick like me. All I ate was McDonald's as it was the only food I recognised! But I quickly made friends and started going out clubbing every night. By the end of my two-month stint, I didn't want to come home.
How would you feel about your own daughters modelling?
Adele: I’m not sure as I think the industry has changed. Or maybe that’s just me, being an overprotective mum. However, if you asked any of them if they’d like to be a Victoria’s Secret Angel they’d be there like a shot! After doing their coursework of course …
Do you still model now?
Kelly: I haven't modelled in the photographic sense for years, but I still do TV commercials. I'm currently in the Tena Lights commercial. I've gone from snogging pop stars in music videos to advertising pads for ladies with bladder issues. It’s been quite a career!
Huge thanks to Kelly and Adele for the inside info on modelling, and for reminding me what an almighty hoot we used to have on those Just Seventeen shoots back in the ‘80s … x
Ask Me Anything …
Here’s what happened when my Facebook friends pinged me some questions about books, writing and other random matters …
What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever been given?
Sharon Wilden
The advice I’ve read over and over is: just get on with it. Write – every day if possible (and I think it generally is). People talk about wanting to write, and that’s fine – sometimes an idea has to simmer away in your brain until you feel ready to get started. But it’s horribly easy to let the simmering go on and on, and to put off actually starting anything. Fear often holds us back. You need to remind yourself that it’s only a rough draft, and that it doesn’t matter if it’s a load of bilge (which my first drafts often are). No one but you and the dog is going to see it.
If you weren’t an author what occupation would you like to have?
Petra Anttila
I had yearnings to be an illustrator as a teenager, and applied to art college. I didn’t get in – I just wasn't good enough. But I have always loved to draw, and recently I’ve been seized by an urge to carry a sketchbook in my bag and figure out how, and what, I want to draw. I so want to be able to draw better, and the only way that’ll happen is by doing it loads (not so different from writing, really!).
What do you do when you’re hit by writer’s block?
Teresa Maughan
I’ve never experienced this in any serious way (with three teenagers, I can’t afford to!). But yes, there are days when writing feels incredibly ploddy and difficult. It usually happens when I’ve been working very late, battling away to meet a deadline, and my ideas and inspiration have all but withered up. It’s important to get to of the house, I think – to work in cafes and on trains, and to see life going on around you. Sometimes a day off in the city is the best way to kick-start things again.
What was your favourite childhood book?
Lynn Gibbins
I devoured the entire Famous Five series, but most of all I loved a quirky adventure story called Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kastner. I had my dad’s battered old yellow paperback copy (it was first published in 1929) and read it countless times. I still have it.
Where’s that fiver I lent you in 1987?
Gavin Convery
I spent it.
Do you laugh and cry at your own funny and sad bits as you’re writing?
Cathy Bramley
I don’t laugh out loud as I’m usually concentrating too hard on trying to make a scene as funny as possible. But sometimes I like to push a scene as far as I can, even to the point of ridiculousness (I can always make it less ridiculous when I edit it later), and that’s the really fun part of writing. That’s when I can end up in a state of silent mirth. As for the sad bits, I’ve caught myself becoming all wet-eyed and heightened emotionally, which is a good thing I think – it means the characters are feeling real to me.
What gets you in a creative mood? Is it still a vicious Argentinian red?
Tony Cross
Ha – I know Tony from when we worked on the much-loved, sadly now departed more! magazine together. We used to hold raucous features meetings in a tawdry little wine bar just around the corner from our office in Orange Street, just off Leicester Square. Many a flagon of rough red was consumed there. When it came to writing fiction, I used to be of the opinion that a large glass (or two) would help to ‘loosen me up’, and make me a better, less self-conscious writer. Then I’d read over my stuff next day and it would be appalling tripe. These days, when I’m working, I’m fuelled only by enormous quantities of caffeine.
Do you wish you could write in a different genre? If so, which one?
Heather Playdon
I do enjoy a dark, creepy psychological thriller. I’d love to write a book that scared the pants off my readers. However, I’m not sure I have the right kind of brain for it. As a fairly romantic, emotional person, nothing fascinates me more than how people behave in relationships – with spouses, boyfriends, friends. I also have a fairly silly, juvenile sense of humour so romantic comedies probably suit me best at this stage in my life.
What are your favourite and least favourite aspects of life as a writer?
Rebecca Guic
There’s not much I don’t enjoy, to be honest – perhaps the isolation? Luckily, I’ve become better at recognising when I’m starting to feel stale and lonely, and then I head into Glasgow or Edinburgh for the day and work there instead. I’m not crazy about boring admin but, as I still imagine the tax man as a scary bloke in a tie who could turn up at any minute and snatch my laptop away, I just grit my teeth and get on with it. By far my favourite aspect is starting a new book. It feels fresh, new and hugely exciting. I feel very lucky to have a job I love.
A straying husband. A broken heart. And a crazy rescue dog in a town of posh pooches …
Laugh-out-loud funny, Fiona’s writing deal’s with those real-life embarrassing moments we all know so well …
Click here to buy now.
“What do you need a boyfriend for? You’re a mum.”
Sharply observed, laugh-out-loud funny and full of dating disasters, this is the perfect read for fans of Tracy Bloom and Kate Long.
Click here to buy now.
Acknowledgements
Enormous thanks t
o super-agent Caroline Sheldon, and to my fabulous new editor, Helen Huthwaite at Avon. Here’s to lots more books and carrot cake! For 15 years I’ve had the good fortune to belong to a brilliant writing group. Tania, Vicki, Amanda, Pauline, Hilary and Sam – dreaming up plotlines wouldn’t be half as much fun without you. My Facebook friends also help me enormously – I love your banter and jokes. Special thanks to Rachel Millward, who alerted me to the fact that spliff/weed (or whatever the young ’uns call it these days) is sometimes known as ‘cheese’ – it’s in the book, Rachel! And a big hello and hug to lovely Kim Lock who won a little competition I ran. See, I did remember!
I turned 50 as I finished writing this book. Thank you to my lovely friends who travelled so far (Belgium! The Netherlands! Australia!) for a week of japes and gin, and who make me feel lucky every day. Jen, Kath, Lode, Susan and her boyfriend Jack D, Wendy R, Wendy V, Marie, Ben, Iain, Chris, Elisabet, Gayle, Esther, Ellie, Lesley, Jackie, Keith, Sumishta, Seori, the inimitable Curries, Cragga C, Andy, Mickey and Jennifer – you made it the best birthday of my life. And you’re the Mary Berry of Lanarkshire, Elaine Hughes.
My mum moved into a care home this year; I don’t know what I’d have done without my dog walks and chats with Adele, Tania and Carolann. Finally, thank you to Jimmy, Sam, Dexter and Erin, for being all-round brilliant. Love you so much.
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About the Author
Fiona was born in a youth hostel in Yorkshire. She started working on teen magazine Jackie at age 17, then went on to join Just Seventeen and More! where she invented the infamous ‘Position of the Fortnight’. Fiona now lives in Scotland with her husband Jimmy, their three children and a wayward rescue collie cross called Jack.
For more info, visit www.fionagibson.com. You can follow Fiona on Twitter @FionaGibson.
By the same author:
Mum On The Run
The Great Escape
Pedigree Mum
Take Mum Out
How the In-Laws Wrecked Christmas: a short story
About the Publisher
Australia
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HarperCollins Canada
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United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
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United States
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