On the road with a book: part 1 (the launch)

This year, I completed my bucket list. 

There was only one thing on it. Publish a book.

My memoir Atypical Girl came out in March, traditionally published (by Polygon) which made me feel like a Proper Author.

It’s felt like an adventure. I’ve done a lot of things I’ve never done before and that I would never have thought of doing.

One of them was interviewing another author for his own book launch. I met Tony Fletcher on Substack, and recently did the “in conversation” for the Liverpool leg of his book tour. Tony’s documented his journeys on Substack, so I thought I should do the same for mine.

Some if it’s a bit hazy now - I wish I could remember all the questions that people have asked - but I’ll try and remember what I can.

How to clear your parents’ house

I kept the hankies. They were useful.

I keep seeing things about people clearing out their parents’ houses. Well, of course I do. It’s what happens to people my age. I did it seven years ago.

Here are just three of the articles that I've noticed recently. (Yes, they’re all from the Guardian, cos that’s what turns up on my Facebook. Other newspapers are available.)

• My mum has died - and every decision I make about her belongings feels wrong 
• ‘I feel like I’m cancelling out her life’: the wrenching work of clearing out a parent’s home
• ‘Under the stuff I can’t throw out is the stuff my parents couldn’t throw out’: novelist Anne Enright on the agony of clearing her family home

I’m not going to go into that much detail, or write about the emotional aspects of it. At the time it didn't feel like an existential crisis: it felt like a practical one.

Anyway, I’ve already written a blog post, the year my Mum died, called Things I’ve inherited from my mother. 

But I lied (to myself?)  when I said I’d cleared the house. I’d only started. 

It’s a few years now since I had to do it, and I still think about it sometimes. And I wish I’d done it differently. But it’s one of those things that you only do once in your life: no second chances, no chance to learn from your mistakes. I made a lot of them, and they gave me daytime nightmares for a long time. 

I’m not going to write about the emotional stuff.  I’m going to write what I wish someone had told me.

Heatwave: remembering the summer of ’76

I was browsing the “out now” shelf in my local library and I saw a book called Heatwave. Obviously I had to get it. It was 30 degrees outside. 

Also, the book is about 1976 and everyone’s talking about 1976. Some people are talking about the 50th anniversary of punk and some are talking about climate. Whatever the reason, a lot of people are looking back.

And then, “Burnham to drag us back to the 1970s” shouts the front page of a right-wing rag at the weekend. And friends of my generation are going: bring it on.  Great music, strong trade unions, student grants, a working NHS and public services that were still in public hands. What’s not to like?

Well, actually a lot, if you look at the history. Especially if you were female. Or Black. Or Asian. Or gay.

Heatwave, the book, is by John L Williams and it’s just out now in paperback. It’s a social history of that summer, covering music and culture, sport, news (national and international) and of course the weather. It describes that period as a turning point in British history, even while there are parallels to our own time. 

I’ve written a book

I’ve written a book and it’s out on 5th March. It’s called Atypical Girl.  If you’ve enjoyed reading this blog I think you’ll like it.

Here are answers to some things people have asked me about it.

What’s your book about?

The very short answer is: ‘Punk rock, Liverpool and trying to be normal’. That’s the book’s subtitle.

The slightly longer answer is that it’s a memoir starting in 1976 and going up to the 21st century. It’s about coming of age during punk and how that influenced the rest of my life – including my career as a music journalist. A lot of it is about the Liverpool punk scene around Eric’s club and the post-punk scene that followed. There’s also a subplot about growing up with undiagnosed autism, hence the title (which is, of course, a play on Typical Girls by the Slits).

A People's History of Punk: radio review

 

It’s 2026. And apparently it’s the “50th anniversary of punk”. There’s going to be a lot of Media Stuff about it this year.

I’ve got a few problems with this.

1. The timing is London-centric. For most of us in the rest of the country, our year zero was 1977.

2. Punk wasn’t supposed to last 50 years.

I might come back to that another time. But for now, here’s the beginning of the Media Stuff: a Radio 4 series fronted by Chris Packham.