Episode 98: Anne Fish
Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Kat Rulach
4.8 • 527 Ratings
🗓️ 12 June 2023
⏱️ 83 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Anne Fish is a mum of two sons... and a pro gamer.
When her younger son Benjy won a Fortnite tournament aged 14, he also won thousands of dollars and it became clear it was a serious sport that he wanted to pursue. Anne made the decision to homeschool him fromt he age of 15, to make room for the late-night tournaments and the long hours of practice that Benjy had to put into gaming. She also got more involved in Fortnite herself. As a self-confessed workaholic she put hours of practice in, became a pro herself in 2019, and now makes a living from it.
It's a far cry from her situation when Benjy had just been born and her older son was just 7, when her husband died, and she'd lost their business and their home. At one point she was doing car boot sales to buy food for the following week.
Anne advises getting more involved in whatever your kids are interested in - whether that's playing piano, playing a conventional sport or in this case gaming. She's the living emboiment of that - and it's brought her great and unexpected personal success. She now owns the house they'd once rented, on an island in the River Thames, where we met to chat. And if you listen out, Benjy can occasionally be heard gaming in the next room, during our conversation!
Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Sophia Lusbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to |
| 0:09.6 | to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. |
| 0:14.4 | I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, |
| 0:20.4 | so I spin a few plates myself. |
| 0:22.3 | Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, |
| 0:24.9 | but can also be hard to find time for yourself |
| 0:26.8 | and your own ambitions. |
| 0:28.3 | I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people |
| 0:30.6 | balance everything. |
| 0:32.0 | Welcome to spinning plates. |
| 0:35.9 | Yo, hello, it's me and it's you. |
| 0:39.1 | And this is spinning plates. |
| 0:41.9 | And, well, I've really been living the life today. |
| 0:46.0 | The plates have been spinning. |
| 0:48.7 | I brought an album out a week ago, Hannah, album number seven. |
| 0:58.3 | And I've been spending the time either promoting the record, which has actually been a lot of fun, or home here with the kids doing kid things |
| 1:05.1 | and organising parent-teacher meetings and doctors' appointments and all sorts of stuff like that. |
| 1:12.1 | Excuse me, sorry, I just, I've got a bit of a cough because I just, I'm trying to, sorry, this is |
| 1:17.2 | really middle-aged, I got some shoes the other day and I love them, but they're a little |
| 1:21.3 | bit tight and I try the neck size up too big. So I'm going to, I'm trying to stretch them. |
| 1:29.6 | So I bought like these sort of wooden shoe stretch of things and some spray and the spray is really caught in my throat. So it's sort of, |
| 1:36.6 | well basically it's made my throat feel smaller. So I hope it doesn't make my shoes feel smaller. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Kat Rulach, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Kat Rulach and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.