Heidi Thomas
/In this post, there is a list of the advanced words and phrases from the BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs interview with Heidi Thomas, a screenwriter. She is the writer and producer for a well-known British TV series called ‘Call the Midwife’ Aggie and I have created a podcast about Desert Island Discs called Radio English.
You can listen to the original BBC interview here
Here is the link to my podcast on itunes or just listen to it below:
INTRO
0:48 Castaway this week is the screenwriter Heidi Thomas
Creator of Call the Midwife
0:55 The revived upstairs downstairs
Never written a turkey she certainly accompanied the digestion of more than a few
“The Queen of Christmas TV”
1:12 Call the Midwife is now a festive staple
Devotion of millions of fans with a show that seemed, on paper, to be unlikely to be loved by the whole family
Largely female cast
9 million viewers, 8 series
1:39 Doesn’t duck the realities of its subject matter
1:59 To be a successful television writer you need the sensitivity of an angel and the stamina of a mule
COMFORTING TO WATCH
2:13 People find consolation in their own tears
“Wonderful, I cried my eyes out”
Subject to intense experiences, able to cry over the loss over someone they’ve never wept for before
Seeing the programme completed his experience of fatherhood
WATCH WITH FAMILY
Had up to 16 of us piled up
3:44 It’s a side issue that I write the Christmas Special
“Heidi makes the gravy, Heidi makes the pavlova, Heidi makes the Christmas Special” !
Part of family Christmas
RESPONSIBILITY
Live in dread of disappointing people
4:20 Nursing mother through her final illness, never looked forward to Strictly so much in my life
4:27 Perhaps a little shallow, superficial
Having a TV programme to look forward to is what’s fun
Important to represent people who feel their stories aren’t told on TV
E.g. disabled characters
FIRST DISC (YOU BELONG TO ME)
5:18 There’s a double meaning behind this
Used in the first season of CTM + one of her mother’s favourites
A story of National Service
5:46 Often from very humble backgrounds
5:58 Something about the inequality of men and women’s services at this time
6:20 The women are breaking bonds, asking questions
The song where it all began
PEOPLE WANTING TO BE MIDWIVES
7:06 One of the, perhaps unanticipated, side effects of CTM is a
7:08 spike in the number of people applying for the job
7:36 It was unwitting at first
Young women at work constantly meeting professional challenges, people find it inspiring
PEOPLE WITH CONNECTIONS
Middle aged women contacted them saying that their mothers had been midwives and would love to talk to someone about their memories
8:08 That was a godsend
8:16 Her work was finite, a trilogy of memoirs
Started to interview retired midwives
MOTHERHOOD - HEROES
Stories about women at this point in history hadn’t been told
9:08 I’m from a working class background in Liverpool
Women’s lives were difficult on a practical level, hard physical work
All my grandmothers worked
Middle class preconception that all working class lives are miserable - but they weren’t!
9:46 profundity, gorgeous clothes… wanted to get those colours onto the screen
Felt those stories were important enough
PRACTICALITIES
Never work with children or animals! You’ve got live babies
10:10 dizzying array of props
10:12 including silicon umbilical cords
10:16 It was actually pig’s placenta
It does smell, not very hygienic
Babies are all different sizes so all umbilical cords are different so she looks at the baby we’ve hired for the day and then picks an umbilical cord that matches!
HUSBAND IS GP IN CTM
Met working together in 1986 in the theatre
11:06 Couple of years before we became an item
CTM was first time we’d worked together for 20 years
His role has grown over the years
SECOND DISC (PENNY LANE BEATLES)
Born in 1962 in Liverpool
Memory of picnic in back garden
12:23 Penny Lane blaring out
12:33 Line about blue suburban skies
Love the suburbs, they’ve inspired me
UPBRINGING
13:48 Described upbringing as a bit bay window
Family worked way up, had shops
Mother died in January
14:23 Strangely affirmative process to clear the house out
MOTHER
In another life, at home on stage
Offered a job doing props at the theatre
Father wouldn’t let her take the job
15:04 she was glamourous, angry, combative
So strong
15:16 Needed to live her life on a greater canvas
15:22 When she was 78 she asked for an ax for Christmas
Wanted to chop the trees down
Mowed her own lawn before her terminal diagnosis
Permanently furious
PARENTS
Would’ve liked a quieter home, parents were very sociable, always having parties
16:09 The base of the radiogram would be thumping
DAD
16:22 Dad was incredibly gregarious
Had a tangerine coloured BMW!
16:29 Had a sequence of loud terrible cars
House was painted purple
He was a free spirit
Had a mushroom farm
16:55 Had a scam involving diamonds
Contract cleaning drains, box of club biscuits, slabs of orange chocolate
LOSING FATHER
At 18, lost father
He committed suicide
17:50 Could scarcely be discussed or spoken about
Found a battered old satchel of all the letters he had written
2 batches, whilst in army every week and
18:13 spell in hospital with a slipped disc
Seem like period pieces
18:30 There was a profound anxiety in the letters
Not final piece of the jigsaw puzzle, but a piece of the puzzle. Man who felt things so deeply
Always going to suffer from a nervous breakdown at some point
Incredibly kind
THIRD DISC (GENTLE ON MY MIND)
My dad in his BMW with the window down
Lots of easy listening
19:51 On my dad’s 8 track this would always stop halfway through with a clunk
READING + STUDYING ENGLISH
20:36 You mentioned that you were a voracious reader
Studied English at Liverpool Uni
2 younger brothers who were both in the hospital at the same time
Could see desire to become a nurse
My headmistress told me I was far too clever to be a nurse, and not clever enough to be a doctor!
Medical career fell neatly between two stools
21:28 I refute that you don’t need to be clever to be a nurse
Go and do a degree in a subject that you love
Soon after English degree I started writing for the future
CLEANLINESS
Love the smell of bleach in the butcher’s shop
Clean but not tidy
First job I earned money for was washing the plastic parsley at Uncle’s butcher shop
WORKED AT UNI
Father died at the beginning of the second term
Younger brother was severely disabled
Worked in department store throughout uni
So much drama!
23:10 You’ve got intrigue, good dialogue!
Always knock before going into the stockroom!
23:26 Suddenly twigged there might be people having assignations in the stockroom
23:32 I actually loved retail
23:34 Won a prize for selling girdles. Prize was a girdle
Burned it on a barbecue with my flatmates
FOURTH DISC (WHO WILL SING ME LULLABIES)
Beautiful song
Think about my youngest brother
24:11 Who had Down’s syndrome
YOUNGEST BROTHER
Youngest brother was centre of the family
I was 7 when he was born
Can remember how family life changed
My experience as a sibling was different to my parents experience as parents
Wasn’t that he had Down’s
25:49 That in it’s way was a doddle
Had a severe heart disease
Life was permanently hanging by a thread
26:05 He was Wheelchair bound
Life had many limitations
26:28 The church was packed when he died
26:32 How can someone whose life has been so circumscribed touched every life that’s crossed his
Remember the day he died
All we could think of to say was “What are we going to do without him”
27:11 Think that is the most wonderful epitaph
Coloured my approach to everyone who I’ve ever met with a disability
More than just a sibling
Encouraged to defend him. Taught us so much - patience, kindness, life isn’t just about development, it’s about the ability to live within a moment
Being David’s sister shaped me in a way that loss cannot erase
It was not a foregone conclusion that he would’ve been raised at home
Remember the vicar saying that the other mothers at the church playgroup didn’t want him to play with them
29:31 She was like Boudica
Took extraordinary courage
29:44 She was constantly taking on medical authorities
Father grieved more quietly
FIFTH DISC (FIRST TIME EVER I SAW YOUR FACE)
For my husband. Met a year after David died
Love at first sight
Married for 29 years
30:36 We reared a child
FIRST WRITING SUCCESS
31:22 Your first writing break came about because of illness
Goes on a long time
31:42 Entered a playwriting competition, won a prize, got an agent
31:43 Which all sounds very glib, much more extended than that
Wrote another play picked up by Royal Shakespeare Company
EARNING A LIVING
Didn’t earn a full living until working in TV
32:23 Is it true you thought you were selling out?
32:29 Theatre was very much revered, TV was not
Very different now
Found it much more challenging
FIRST TV GIG
Writing a 58 minute script was a simple challenge
In theatre you could start and carry on until you’d finished
33:25 I am a perfectionist by nature
33:35 It is what it is, it’s stable
Theatre is chaos
33:50 Some people find that energy of the theatre enervating and exciting
Found it petrifying
Every TV episode, it’s complete
34:10 Your penchant for cleanliness and order is coming through!
SIXTH DISC (FINISHING THE HAT)
From a musical
34:46 Really bonded with my son over musicals
Son has a lovely voice and pursued musical theatre
Learned so much about structure
35:58 It’s about inspiration and craftsmanship and you have to meld the 2 together
ILLNESS
1996 Son born
37:06 Quite out of the blue, developed an obstructed intestine
37:13 Not knowing what the symptoms were I soldiered on
Developed gangrene
37:33 Very poorly for quite a few weeks
Brush with death that changes your perspective
Sense of how much there was to lose
38:07 That’s an egocentric thing to say
Hadn’t written my best things yet
38:17 Did an adaptation of Madame Bovary
If I had died then, what would I have left behind
So much not done!
MADAME BOVARY
First of many adaptations
Challenges and pleasures
Incredibly complex piece of work
39:13 It’s like being given free reign
… in an extraordinary garden and you end up with a flower arrangement
CRANFORD
Next one was Cranford
Serving the book in the best possible way and giving a bit of vent to my own voice
39:40 Cranford is a perennial book
Not a lot of dialogue in it
40:08 The lines of dialogue that there are, are so rich
SEVENTH DISC (AGNUS DEI)
Haven’t attended a church consistently
Faith in a greater being has helped me through darker times
I love sacred music
ROLE OF A WOMAN IN MODERN DRAMA
Don’t ask why period dramas are successful, ask why the audience wants serial killers, maiming etc
Primary role of a woman in modern drama is to be found dead
Role of children is to be missing
42:45 CTM turns that on it’s head
43:05 Humanity seems to hobble on
Wonder at the fascination with violence, why so marketable??
43:29 So often about crime, rape, the most debased instincts that humans have
I recoil from that slightly
Dramas are considered to be the more popular dramas
HANDING OVER CTM?
Popular so very busy We do have guest writers
I storyline but hand over to other writers - takes a bit of pressure away
Not ready to let it go yet
44:38 Will share the burden a little bit
Will stay with it until the end
Too important, life defining for me
CTM, filled with passion or anger
45:12 The thalidomide story arc was so important to me
It’s given me the person I am now
EIGHTH DISC (BOTH SIDES NOW)
A classic song
I scream castles in the air - such a visual image
Always hear a new line every time
Now hear maturity and regret
Speaks to me as an older woman
My regrets are like the stars - numberless
If you don’t regret things then they haven’t touched you
TO THE ISLAND
On the Isle of Harris
Somewhere Hebridean
Book: London Labour and the London Poor
Collection of interview
48:04 Much more forensic than Charles Dickens
48:19 It’s a babel of voices
Luxury: Hot water bottle
Foundation of a happy life
Filled my hot water bottle with coffee in America
Chosen track: Joni Mitchel (track 8)