Interviewed on BBC Radio London!! Transforming trauma into creativity
It has been a breathless, emotional and at times almost overwhelming ten days since the launch of THE GIRL IN HIS EYES on the 18th.
Live interview
My interview on the Jo Good show on BBC Radio London finally happened this Tuesday (25 September) after two frustrating delays. It was my third radio interview in just over a week (the first with Alan Robson on Radio Metro then one with BBC Radio Tees). But this was my first live one in an actual studio not a pre-record by phone. Believe me, this is VERY different.
I sat opposite the studio door watching the clock ticking past my allocated start time (3.05pm) trying to stay calm and remember what it was I’d planned to say. Then I was ushered in to sit in front of a huge mike, knowing that thousands would be listening to me talking frankly about my past, and about one of the most sensitive of subjects. Certainly it was a face your fear and do it anyway moment!
[image error]Jo (aka ‘the BBC dog woman’ owing to her Barking Hour) was wonderful, very warm and professional, and immediately calmed my nerves. I was pleased she introduced me once again as an author (yes, these little things do matter!). In less than fifteen minutes we discussed my latest novel THE GIRL IN HIS EYES, the abuse in my childhood that inspired it, my emotional crisis after my mother died, transforming trauma into creativity – helped by a Jungian therapist who listened to my dreams – and the climate now for women and girls who speak out about sexual abuse, sexual violence and harassment given the #metoo movement, #whyididntreport, etc.
I even got the chance to read out the first poem I had published, Compost. It appeared years ago in Agenda, a UK poetry journal, and is about the transformation of suffering into creative power. I knew Jo liked poetry so I’d brought the poem along in case there’d be time to read it out. There wasn’t time to mention The Truth Project, which I’d been meaning to – and to encourage fellow child sexual abuse survivors in the UK to consider contacting them – though Jo mentioned it later. (I’m going to take part in a session soon – I am not actually part of it, as she said.) All this speaking out seems to be releasing my inner activist 
