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Helen Fielding’s Yorkshire Memories
Which part of Yorkshire are you from?
I was born in Morley, near Leeds and lived there till I was eighteen. My family now live in near Holmfirth.
Did you enjoy growing up in Yorkshire?
Yes. It was really good fun. Morley was a textile town with thirty-six textile mills, which made shoddy cloth and about twelve Methodist chapels. I used to work in the mill in the school holidays. I went to school at Wakefield Girls’ High School and have very fond memories of the fun I had with my friends. I think Yorkshire people are extremely funny. We had a hoot.
What are your earliest memories?
I remember doing painting at school - for a long time I refused to consider painting anything other than vertical stripes. We used to go camping at weekends on a farm near Robin Hood's bay on the North Yorkshire coast. We used to play on the bales of rags in the mill. That was fun, as long as you didn't skewer yourself on the wooden pins, which held the bales together.
Which women were your role models when you were young?
I remember being very keen on Julie Andrews in the sound of music. I used to have a fantasy about being kidnapped by Julie Andrews and the Beatles. I also aspired to being Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. I’m still hoping.
Has coming from Yorkshire inspired you in any way?
Yes. I think the Yorkshire sense of humour and wit - the trick of debunking everything and bringing it down to earth is something that's been very inspirational for me. I always remember the story about a performance of swan lake in Leeds where a mechanical swan got stuck halfway across the stage and someone shouted out "what's up wi'it duck then?" Growing up in a mill town - the virtues of hard work and honesty and "do as you would be done by" we're constantly being drummed into you. Even though the mills are largely gone now, and the industrial north is massively changed I think the values stand you in very good stead. Sayings like "there's nowt as queer as folk," "where there's muck there's brass" "it's like the kettle calling the frying pan dirty bottom" have stayed with me.
How did you become a novelist?
I always wanted to write. I used to write poems and short stories when I was younger. The first novel I tried to write was a Mills and Boon which was rejected because "neither my characters nor my story were up to the high standard required by the Mills and Boon reader.” I started writing journalism - which is very good training as you get used to adopting different styles and having your work edited and corrected. I had several more tries at producing a novel until eventually I think I had practised enough.
Where did you get the inspiration for Bridget Jones?
I’d been playing around with the idea of the character for a while – the idea of someone who has the idea that they're supposed to be better than how they actually are, and is constantly making resolutions and failing to keep them. The idea of the daily calorie log came to me from my university diaries which largely consisted of lists of food with the calories next to them: carrot 15 calories yoghurt 100 calories box of milk tray: 4,765 calories etc.
Do you think she is representative of modern women?
I didn't think that particularly when I started writing the newspaper columns where Bridget began - but the fact that the books sold so many copies and so many people said they identified with Bridget suggests that she is. I think the thing people most identify with is this sense that everyone else in the world knows how to do it better than you - whatever "it" is. I think this comes from the influence of media - movies, airbrushed pictures of models in magazines - which give people the sense that they should be aspiring to be a kind of person who doesn't actually exist.
Have any women from the past inspired you in any way?
I think Jane Austin was a wonderful writer and woman. I once went to her grave and it said, on her epitaph "she opened her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue was the law of kindness."
Do you feel that being a woman has helped you or held you back in any way?
Oh a bit of both. I think when I first started working in television there was still a tendency to pat women on the head and patronize them - but I think things are much better now. I think the second half of the last century was a time of tremendous change for women and thus a complicated time - but that made it a very interesting time to be a writer.
Do you feel you have achieved everything you would like to in your life?
Well - I still haven't got down to 8 stones 7lbs.
What difficulties do you feel you have overcome in your life?
Like a lot of women I was, and still am to some extent, unconfident and insecure and too eager to please. I’ve learned how to say no to things, and am getting much better at the confidence thing - but I still get those moments, when I’m doing a reading or an interview, when I think someone's going to say "Helen Fielding, what do you think you're doing pretending to be an author, come out of there at once and stop being so silly."
What are your plans for the future?
I’m writing another book. I want to keep writing novels and get better at it. Be good and kind. Travel as much as possible (travelling is my favourite thing) and get down to 8 stones 7lbs. soon.
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