Fay Weldon
by Katherine Locke

The first thing I notice as Fay Weldon opens the door to her north Dorset home, is just how pretty she is. As politically incorrect as it sounds when describing one of Britain's foremost female novelists, she is all blonde hair, small, white, even teeth and sparkling eyes.
As we walk though to the kitchen, she chats warmly (‘come on in, out of the rain’) and busily starts making coffee. The huge kitchen table, strewn with post and papers, is suggestive of a life full of activity. This kitchen is made for people. The cooking equipment is minimal, but the walls are bursting with art. It is a room for long dinner parties and the exchange of ideas.
Born in Worcester in 1931 and christened Franklin Birkinshaw, Fay lived for much of her childhood in Wellington, New Zealand. Her father, a doctor, and her mother, an author who wrote under the pen name Pearl Bellairs, divorced when she was five, so her childhood was spent travelling between New Zealand and England. Her accent is decidedly English and she was educated at the University of St Andrews, leaving with an MA in Economics and Psychology.
We start talking about her move from Hampstead to Dorset, three years ago. It is shaky ground and she obviously finds the questions a bit tedious. She doesn’t really want to wax lyrical about the countryside or her journey to it. I ask her if she misses London, "Not really’ she says ‘I have everything I need here’. Has she settled in and made friends? ‘I have written two plays for the local amateur dramatic society, so I guess they think I’m alright’, she jokes.
However, as soon as we start talking about cultural issues, the floodgates open. Fay Weldon has spent thirty years writing primarily about women’s issues, although her relationship with the Women’s Movement has, in her own words ‘been up and down’. Her heroines are often considered ‘bad’ women, those with subversive and dangerous intentions. What does she think about the laddette culture of ‘bad’ behaviour in young women today? ‘It’s an entirely different thing’ she says ‘It is a group activity and nothing to do with the individual. Drinking is simultaneously encouraged and condemned by society. On the one hand we have extended opening hours and on the other hospitals are wondering how they will cope. We have a situation where activities are culturally accepted and forbidden at the same time.’
It is a social dichotomy she finds fascinating, but potentially very dangerous, particularly for women. She talks about the rise of eating disorders and self-harming amongst young women as being graphic illustrations of pain. ‘Pain is about the abuse of natural instinct and women’s instincts are in terrible trouble.’ she says.
She bemoans the government’s ‘lack of wisdom’ and the absence of joined up thinking when it comes to social policy. ‘I go to my doctor and he gives me pills to keep me alive’ she says ‘ but nobody has paid any attention to what to do when we are all eighty nine. There are consequences and we need to think beyond just providing people with a bath rail.’
To describe Fay Weldon as a prolific writer would be an understatement. She has written for almost every medium - stage, TV, radio, papers and magazines. She has over twenty novels under her belt, as well as many television plays and adaptations. She gives us exactly what we want from a writer. She observes, comments on and distils our experiences and tells a cracking story into the bargain.
She thinks that life is hard for women today. ‘There are a lot of alpha females out there looking for alpha males and there are not enough to go around!’ she says. Juggling work and children is also an area of difficulty that more and more women face.
Her new novel She May Not Leave tackles the issue of working mothers and childcare. The au pair who comes into her heroine’s life is a paragon of domestic virtue, but does she have ulterior motives? She is a domestic goddess, but is she friend or foe? The narration, from Hattie’s great grandmother, makes the story rich with social history and is an insightful look at female relationships. Also, in true Fay Weldon style, there is an unexpected twist in the tale.
Without warning, her partner Nick Fox arrives in the kitchen in an explosion of words and activity. He contributes to our conversation, quoting Kipling, Wilde and Nietzsche, whilst simultaneously cooking himself a healthy second breakfast of eggs and beans. I’m starting to want to swap my coffee for a large glass of wine, just to give me the illusion of keeping up. Quicker than a New York minute and twice as generous, he is soon offering me a copy of the latest book and getting Fay to sign it.
In the hour we have been together we have covered a huge array of subjects - single parenting (remind me to tell you about that another time), government health care policy, religion, young women and horses (!) and the role of priests in adoption cases in the 20th century, to name but a few. Fay is refreshingly irreverent and has an appetite for life that belies her age. ‘People worry too much about keeping up appearances’ she says.
Those sparkling eyes flash when she informs me ‘I have never much cared what other people think’. You know what? I can believe her.
Fay Weldon will be in conversation with David Prysor -Jones on Thursday 24th November at Eype Church Centre for the Arts 2.30-4.30pm.
She May Not Leave - Fay Weldon’s new novel is published by Fourth Estate at £15.99.