17. Irvine Welsh

Young Again

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.6 • 651 Ratings

🗓️ 5 November 2024

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Kirsty Young asks the author Irvine Welsh what advice he would give his younger self.

Welsh became a literary sensation when his first novel, Trainspotting, was published in 1993. The film adaptation that followed made him a star. But before that he'd gone from being a punk in London to a turn into administrative work for his local council, via a brush with heroin addiction. He looks back at his childhood in Edinburgh, his parents' romance and a first arrest at just eight years old.

A BBC Studios Audio production.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Why do some big successful brands go bust?
0:05.0	Toast is back for a new series, taking a look at the decisions that often left investors burnt.
0:11.0	I'm Sean Farrington, a BBC business journalist. I'll be hearing about the hype.
0:15.0	They're going to do the deal that makes them the most money at that point of time.
0:19.0	And I'm picking what went wrong,
0:21.6	talking to owners and employees to ask,
0:24.2	what can we learn?
0:25.4	It was being undercut by similar rivals.
0:28.5	It just couldn't survive.
0:30.3	Toast. Listen first on BBC Sounds.
0:34.9	BBC Sounds, music, Radio, podcasts.
0:38.3	Hello, I'm Christy Young. Welcome to Young again, the podcast that asks fascinating people, what advice would you give your younger self?
0:50.8	My guest today is a writer who confounds convention. His youth was marked by petty crime and heroin addiction. In his own words, he was a gifted shoplifter and a general little bad bastard. In adulthood, his debut novel, Train Spotting, was a literary smash hit and the follow-up movie a box office sensation.
1:15.0	His subsequent books, plays and screenplays continue to be marked out by their unflinching subject matter and style.
1:18.0	In this edition of Young Again, I am in conversation with Irvin Welsh.
1:22.3	You were smiling there. Was the introduction fine?
1:25.0	The introduction is great.
1:26.2	Okay, good.
1:27.4	Makes me, I feel much more notorious than I actually am.
1:30.7	Okay.
1:31.4	It's great.
1:32.5	You were in your, what, your early 30s when that book was published.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.