Fay Weldon

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 9 May 2010

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The writer Fay Weldon joins Kirsty Young to choose her Desert Island Discs.

The author of dozens of novels, essays and radio and TV dramas, she says she spends so much time inventing characters and storylines that the distinction between fact and fiction has become blurred.

As a child, Fay Weldon believed she had a second sight - seeing people who weren't there and hearing voices that no-one else could hear. As an adult, her perceptive nature has served her well too and she says: "I think I know what goes on in other people's heads - more than most people do."

Record: Rockin' My Life Away -Jerry Lee Lewis Book: Kennedy's Latin Primer Luxury: A shotgun.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Nicola Cochlin. Young people have been making history for years, but we don't often hear about them. My brand new series on BBC Sounds sets out to put this right. In history's youngest heroes, I'll be revealing the fascinating stories of 12 young people who've played a major role in history and who've helped shape our world. Like Audrey Hepburn, Nelson Mandela,
0:22.4	Louis Braille and Lady Jane Grey, history's youngest heroes with me, Nicola Cochlin. Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:30.4	Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4.
0:36.7	For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
0:41.2	For more information about the programme, please visit BBC.co.com.ukes slash Radio 4.
0:47.6	Music My castaway this week is Faye Weldon. She's written for radio, TV and films, and published dozens of books,
1:11.7	the life and loves of a she-devil and what makes women happy among them. Her answer to that
1:16.3	particular conundrum, incidentally, nothing, not for more than ten minutes at a time. Off the page,
1:22.3	the story of her own life seems replete with drama, passion, and varying degrees of intermittent recklessness.
1:30.1	Fiction never seems a patch on real life, she says, so far-fetched. People will complain about
1:35.7	novels, especially mine, but write the truth and no one believes you. It's too alarming. You say no one
1:42.1	believes you, Fay Weldon, and you also say that to interviewers, you tend to give about 60% true answers, 40% fake.
1:50.2	How are you going to do today? Do you promise to be honest?
1:53.1	Yes, I actually promised to be honest.
1:55.0	Actually, it's usually print media, I'm so dishonest with.
1:58.0	Radio, for some reason, does seem to bring out the truth, rather
2:03.3	more, if only in the tone of voice.
2:05.0	I'm glad to hear it.
2:05.8	You've also said that you write because you think you know something that others don't.
2:10.9	What do you think you know?
2:12.9	I think I know what goes on in other people's heads more than most people do.
2:18.6	It can be quite uncomfortable, actually, but you know what they're thinking. I think I know what goes on in other people's heads more than most people do. It can be quite uncomfortable, actually, but you know what they're thinking. I think writers actually, on the whole,
	...

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