0:00:04 > 0:00:10This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17Jeanette Winterson published her first novel,
0:00:17 > 0:00:22Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, in 1985 at the age of 26,
0:00:22 > 0:00:25and has since then blazed a unique trail
0:00:25 > 0:00:28through contemporary literature.
0:00:33 > 0:00:37But no matter how high her imagination flies,
0:00:37 > 0:00:40how brilliantly luminous the world she creates,
0:00:40 > 0:00:43she's always tapped into something deep and dark
0:00:43 > 0:00:44in her own life story.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48When I'm standing up here,
0:00:48 > 0:00:50I'm thinking about that bit in Oranges,
0:00:50 > 0:00:52where the character Jeanette
0:00:52 > 0:00:56goes up to the top of the hill above her hometown, and she's looking out.
0:00:56 > 0:00:58It's a dismal sight.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01And she says, "It's just like Jesus on the Pinnacle,
0:01:01 > 0:01:03"but it's not very tempting."
0:01:03 > 0:01:04And this IS very tempting.
0:01:07 > 0:01:10This is that bit in the Bible story where Jesus has fasted
0:01:10 > 0:01:11for 40 days and 40 nights,
0:01:11 > 0:01:13and he goes up to the pinnacle of the temple
0:01:13 > 0:01:16and Satan appears and says,
0:01:16 > 0:01:20"Why don't you just throw yourself off?"
0:01:20 > 0:01:23Very modern, because it's the temptation of celebrity,
0:01:23 > 0:01:25to throw yourself off the roof of your own life.
0:01:28 > 0:01:32You look over this vast, lit up space.
0:01:32 > 0:01:37And that tiny moon behind the tower block.
0:01:37 > 0:01:38And this is success.
0:01:40 > 0:01:43It's beautiful, and it's frightening.
0:02:00 > 0:02:02- Who was the oldest man in the Bible? - Methuselah.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04- How old was he when he died?- 969.
0:02:04 > 0:02:06What sort of tea is this?
0:02:06 > 0:02:08Stand up and be counted.
0:02:09 > 0:02:11I mean, Empire Blend.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31In Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit,
0:02:31 > 0:02:35a magnificent monster was born - Mrs Winterson.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38A woman who kept a revolver in her duster drawer
0:02:38 > 0:02:41had plans for her adopted daughter.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45She was to be a missionary in the Pentecostal church.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47It didn't quite work out.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52In 2011, Jeanette returned to the story of her childhood
0:02:52 > 0:02:56with a new book, Why Be Happy, When You Could Be Normal?
0:02:56 > 0:02:59APPLAUSE AND CHEERING
0:03:06 > 0:03:08Before we begin, I just want to ask a question.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10Would you put your hand up
0:03:10 > 0:03:12if you've never read anything by Jeanette Winterson?
0:03:16 > 0:03:19This is marvellous! LAUGHTER
0:03:19 > 0:03:23You've been led here tonight to this tent
0:03:23 > 0:03:26because you know that something is missing in your life!
0:03:26 > 0:03:29LAUGHTER
0:03:31 > 0:03:33And so far, nothing has been able to fill that gap.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39And some invisible force prompted you to go online
0:03:39 > 0:03:42and get a ticket for tonight.
0:03:42 > 0:03:46And by the end of it, I can't promise a pot plant,
0:03:46 > 0:03:50which is what Mrs Winterson got when she found Jesus, but...
0:03:50 > 0:03:54LAUGHTER
0:03:54 > 0:03:57But I can promise you an experience.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59And I hope that by the end of the evening,
0:03:59 > 0:04:01when I ask you to raise your hand,
0:04:01 > 0:04:03all of you will be able to say, "I've been saved."
0:04:05 > 0:04:07She's a great advert for being a short arse!
0:04:09 > 0:04:13She has such power in that little frame,
0:04:13 > 0:04:15and she so dominates wherever she is,
0:04:15 > 0:04:17and I just think that's fantastic, you know?
0:04:17 > 0:04:21It's like, you don't have to be big and butch to rule the world,
0:04:21 > 0:04:23cos she does rule her world.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28The most recent version of her autobiography
0:04:28 > 0:04:29is a tale of two mothers.
0:04:29 > 0:04:34There's the overwhelming presence of one mother, Mrs Winterson,
0:04:34 > 0:04:38and the overwhelming absence of another, her biological mother.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41She's still my daughter!
0:04:41 > 0:04:45She's not your daughter. She's mine.
0:04:45 > 0:04:46You were unfit.
0:04:46 > 0:04:48Unfit to have a child.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50Just let me see her!
0:04:50 > 0:04:52God gave her to me!
0:04:52 > 0:04:55You've nothing to do with God!
0:04:55 > 0:04:56You've a heart of stone!
0:04:58 > 0:05:00You'll be in hell!
0:05:02 > 0:05:04Who told you to come out here?
0:05:04 > 0:05:06I said, who told you?!
0:05:06 > 0:05:08Was that my real mother?
0:05:08 > 0:05:10I'm your real mother.
0:05:11 > 0:05:14She was just the carrying case that bore you!
0:05:15 > 0:05:18'To be rejected by one mother is bad enough.'
0:05:18 > 0:05:20To be rejected by two is horrific.
0:05:20 > 0:05:23And I think that's the other thing about Jeanette,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25it's a miracle that she has survived that.
0:05:25 > 0:05:27And I think she absolutely did survive it
0:05:27 > 0:05:29by telling the stories, by recreating herself.
0:05:29 > 0:05:31And I sort of recognised it slightly too,
0:05:31 > 0:05:32because I think it is what you do
0:05:32 > 0:05:35when you can't cope with your environment.
0:05:35 > 0:05:37You can fall into books or art,
0:05:37 > 0:05:39and you can reinvent yourself through your own stories.
0:05:46 > 0:05:49"Chapter One - The Wrong Crib.
0:05:51 > 0:05:55"When my mother was angry with me, which was often, she said,
0:05:55 > 0:05:59"'The devil led us to the wrong crib!'
0:06:00 > 0:06:05"The image of Satan taking time off
0:06:05 > 0:06:08"from the Cold War and McCarthyism
0:06:08 > 0:06:14"to visit Manchester in 1960,
0:06:14 > 0:06:18"purpose of visit, to deceive Mrs Winterson,
0:06:18 > 0:06:22"has a flamboyant theatricality to it."
0:06:28 > 0:06:32She dedicates Why Be Happy..? to her three mothers, doesn't she?
0:06:32 > 0:06:34Of whom I am one, yes.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Of whom you are one.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38And, erm, yes,
0:06:38 > 0:06:42I was immensely pleased by that.
0:06:42 > 0:06:45I like to think that she thinks of me like that.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47I believe she does.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51I think that Why Be Happy..? is a wonderful book,
0:06:51 > 0:06:53and it...
0:06:55 > 0:06:59..it's the quintessential autobiography, really.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03But she knew it, and wrote accordingly.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07She wasn't going to be dissuaded or swayed in anyway.
0:07:07 > 0:07:11It's very positive, very straightforward,
0:07:11 > 0:07:13and, oh, absolutely real.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16You believe every word.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19Folks, do your good deed, have a good read!
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Do your good deed and you have a good read!
0:07:24 > 0:07:27"I was born in Manchester in 1959.
0:07:27 > 0:07:29"It was a good place to be born.
0:07:32 > 0:07:34"Manchester was the world's first industrial city,
0:07:34 > 0:07:39"its looms and mills transforming itself and the fortunes of Britain.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45"Manchester spun riches beyond anybody's wildest dreams,
0:07:45 > 0:07:50"and wove despair and degradation into the human fabric.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57"Manchester is either bling or damage."
0:07:57 > 0:07:59Ladies, you're looking fine, me lovelies! Not twist your arm?!
0:08:04 > 0:08:08Jeanette's portrait of Manchester as radical and contrary
0:08:08 > 0:08:10fits with her own combative energy,
0:08:10 > 0:08:14her passionate feminism and her belief in the power of art.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21Gallery eight. In Pursuit Of Beauty.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24The Victorians really believed in beauty
0:08:24 > 0:08:26and did everything they could to destroy it.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28Ha!
0:08:29 > 0:08:31Oh, no!
0:08:31 > 0:08:34- Oh, yes! - SHE LAUGHS
0:08:34 > 0:08:37I can't believe it! It's my first ancestor! It's Sappho!
0:08:37 > 0:08:42There she is, looking rather pouting and magnificent.
0:08:42 > 0:08:44Mrs Winterson would never have had that in the house.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49It's astonishing, this idealisation of women.
0:08:52 > 0:08:54Women who didn't look like that, and never would.
0:08:54 > 0:08:56But also, the fact that women are so absent from public life
0:08:56 > 0:08:59and so present in art.
0:08:59 > 0:09:01That's ridiculous.
0:09:02 > 0:09:05That's ridiculous and fantastic. I love it!
0:09:05 > 0:09:09I love the way her feet match her tiger skin.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11That could be a Vogue shoot, couldn't it?
0:09:11 > 0:09:13SHE LAUGHS It could be!
0:09:13 > 0:09:15I mean, some of this is so dreadful,
0:09:15 > 0:09:19it just tips over into another kind of experience, doesn't it?
0:09:21 > 0:09:23If I'd been around at the turn of the century,
0:09:23 > 0:09:26I definitely would have been a militant suffragist,
0:09:26 > 0:09:28and they were all here, of course, in Manchester.
0:09:28 > 0:09:29The Pankhursts.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32And in 1913, they came into the gallery
0:09:32 > 0:09:33and slashed some of the pictures,
0:09:33 > 0:09:35including this one, which is a bit bizarre.
0:09:35 > 0:09:36Paolo and Francesca.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39But I think they were probably just running riot by then.
0:09:39 > 0:09:44And they continued and had a go at Rossetti, had a go at Leighton,
0:09:44 > 0:09:47and I think part of what they were doing
0:09:47 > 0:09:52was trying to desecrate and destroy this false image,
0:09:52 > 0:09:55this artificial idea, of what a woman is.
0:09:55 > 0:09:58That she will always be decorative, that she'll always be passive.
0:09:58 > 0:10:00That she's ornamental.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02That you can paint her
0:10:02 > 0:10:05and she doesn't have high passion, feeling, a heart.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07And by smashing everything up,
0:10:07 > 0:10:09it had to change that image.
0:10:10 > 0:10:12Would I do it, even though I love these pictures?
0:10:14 > 0:10:16- Would you do it?- I think I would.
0:10:16 > 0:10:17You know, it's like that business
0:10:17 > 0:10:20where some people know they couldn't commit murder,
0:10:20 > 0:10:22but I'm not one of those people.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26- THEY LAUGH - That's reassuring!
0:10:35 > 0:10:38"Where you were born, what you were born into,
0:10:38 > 0:10:41"the place, the history of the place,
0:10:41 > 0:10:43"how that history mates with your own,
0:10:43 > 0:10:45"stamps who you are,
0:10:45 > 0:10:49"whatever the pundits of globalisation have to say.
0:10:50 > 0:10:54"Sometime between six weeks and six months old,
0:10:54 > 0:10:58"I got picked up from Manchester and taken to Accrington.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04"It was all over for me and the woman whose baby I was.
0:11:04 > 0:11:06"She was gone.
0:11:06 > 0:11:08"I was gone.
0:11:08 > 0:11:09"I was adopted.
0:11:11 > 0:11:13"21st January 1960 is the date
0:11:13 > 0:11:19"when John and Constance Winterson got the baby they thought they wanted
0:11:19 > 0:11:23"and took it home to 200 Water Street, Accrington."
0:11:27 > 0:11:29When did they first buy the house?
0:11:29 > 0:11:31Well, my parents got married after the war,
0:11:31 > 0:11:37and they came here in 1947, which was the coldest winter of the century.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39And she said that the snow was so high
0:11:39 > 0:11:42that it was at the top of the piano when they pushed it through the door.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44HE LAUGHS
0:11:44 > 0:11:46And, of course, she lived here until she died.
0:11:46 > 0:11:48She died in 1990. She was only 68.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52This was their home, and it didn't change.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55- And there it is.- There it is.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59200 Water Street, Accrington, Lancashire, BB5 6QU.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03- Mrs Winterson's house.- Yes.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07One thing I'm missing here is, there used to be a doorstep.
0:12:07 > 0:12:09- You were thrown out most nights. - That IS the doorstep.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12- You see that York stone doorstep? That's it.- You poor thing!
0:12:12 > 0:12:14- You weren't sitting on that, were you?- I was!
0:12:14 > 0:12:17That's got the imprint of my bum on it somewhere!
0:12:17 > 0:12:20- Ooh, let's have a closer look here! - That's the step.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23That's where I was shut out many a night.
0:12:23 > 0:12:25But it works perfectly well.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29I mean, even now. You can sit here quite comfortably.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31You don't get rained on.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33And this is where I made up stories.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35Mrs Winterson wasn't that keen on Accrington,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39and she always said that it would be blown up in the apocalypse,
0:12:39 > 0:12:41because she lived in end times.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44She was longing for the apocalypse, where everything would be destroyed.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47Revelations was her favourite book of the Bible.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50This was the woman who read the Bible to us every evening.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55'Mrs Winterson was absolutely Old Testament.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58'There was nothing of insecurity or softness about her.'
0:12:58 > 0:13:02She literally spoke in great statements all the time.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05She was a huge, larger-than-life figure,
0:13:05 > 0:13:07and Jeanette was this tiny, little creature.
0:13:07 > 0:13:10This little elf. And I think that's the thing.
0:13:10 > 0:13:13There's nothing New Testament about Jeanette either!
0:13:13 > 0:13:15I'm always saying that to my daughters.
0:13:15 > 0:13:16Jeanette does almost the same thing.
0:13:16 > 0:13:19She talks in great, cathedral statements.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21She lives her life in this great way.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23There's no light and shade there.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25It's there, and I think that is part of the dance
0:13:25 > 0:13:27that her and Mrs Winterson played all the time.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30She used to read the Bible standing up.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Start at Genesis, go right through the 66 books to Revelations,
0:13:33 > 0:13:36and then give us a week off to think about things.
0:13:36 > 0:13:37And then start again.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40But if you hear that every day of your life,
0:13:40 > 0:13:44and you hear a woman with a rather startling turn of phrase...
0:13:44 > 0:13:46you know, she spoke like the Bible.
0:13:46 > 0:13:50Lord help me to defeat this limb of Satan!
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Hear the word of the Lord from the book of Deuteronomy.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56"The Lord will smite you with the boils of Egypt
0:13:56 > 0:13:58"and with the ulcers and the scurvy
0:13:58 > 0:14:01"and the itch of which you cannot be cured!"
0:14:05 > 0:14:09One of the things I love about Jeanette is her use of words.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13And I love it in her books, but I also love that in my life.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15I send her a text message,
0:14:15 > 0:14:18and I get an A-star text back!
0:14:20 > 0:14:23Nothing is unconsidered.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27Nothing is not sort of fully formed, fully grown.
0:14:27 > 0:14:30That sort of abundance in her writing
0:14:30 > 0:14:32is actually in her personality.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41Drink. They spend all their money on drink,
0:14:41 > 0:14:44and they're as filthy as anything.
0:14:44 > 0:14:45They've never seen soap or polish
0:14:45 > 0:14:47and they buy all their clothes from Maximores.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49Catalogue seconds. They can't afford new ones.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52They cut corners and swallow every penny.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55'She was telling her truth,'
0:14:55 > 0:14:58and she was telling the truth of someone very small, yeah?
0:14:58 > 0:15:03Who was brought up by someone very big and powerful,
0:15:03 > 0:15:04and very, very determining.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07And here's this little, determining creature
0:15:07 > 0:15:11inventing herself against this huge creature,
0:15:11 > 0:15:12which was Mrs Winterson.
0:15:12 > 0:15:16And Oranges is actually the story of that clash,
0:15:16 > 0:15:19and the growth of this little one
0:15:19 > 0:15:22into someone who can stand on her own two feet.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26I had to be able to set my story against Mrs Winterson.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30She was such a powerful storyteller in her own way.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33She had these dark narratives, you know,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35the devil in the wrong crib, that kind of thing.
0:15:35 > 0:15:39If somebody says to you,"The devil led us to the wrong crib,"
0:15:39 > 0:15:41immediately you're in a fairy story, aren't you?
0:15:41 > 0:15:43You think of all the stories where the Queen gives birth,
0:15:43 > 0:15:46and she looks in the cradle and it's a cat.
0:15:46 > 0:15:50It has furry ears or furry feet, and that's what it was like.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54When you finally left home,
0:15:54 > 0:15:58and you lost touch with your mother, didn't you, really, almost, you...
0:15:58 > 0:16:02Yes. I came back once to see her in the Christmas holidays,
0:16:02 > 0:16:05I'd left home for two years and got myself to Oxford.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Then I wrote to her and asked if I could come back in the holidays,
0:16:08 > 0:16:09and bring a friend.
0:16:09 > 0:16:11She said yes, which was unusual,
0:16:11 > 0:16:14because she was not a welcoming woman.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16I should say that where that letterbox is positioned now
0:16:16 > 0:16:19is exactly where the poker would come out
0:16:19 > 0:16:22if somebody knocked at the door and she didn't want to answer.
0:16:22 > 0:16:25She'd just run down the lobby and stick the poker through the letterbox.
0:16:25 > 0:16:27Not welcoming.
0:16:27 > 0:16:29But she said yes, I could bring a friend,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32and I came back here in that Christmas holiday,
0:16:32 > 0:16:35and actually it was like something out of Edgar Allan Poe.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38- I hate cooking.- So do I.
0:16:38 > 0:16:40If it wasn't for you and your dad, I'd be a missionary.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44It's too hot to cook out there. You just eat pineapples all the time.
0:16:44 > 0:16:47Explain how Mrs Winterson responded to you.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49Let's hear it first hand.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51I know, the story is legendary.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53Literally, I walk in the door,
0:16:53 > 0:16:55and she said she'd been to the missionaries
0:16:55 > 0:16:57to find out what is it they eat.
0:16:57 > 0:17:00So as I came in the door, she handed me a plate of pineapples from tins,
0:17:00 > 0:17:04handed me a plate, and she brought the dinner wagon out.
0:17:04 > 0:17:07She had the best dress on and best dinner service out,
0:17:07 > 0:17:11and she brought it in, and she said "Vicky, would you like some gammon
0:17:11 > 0:17:15"and pineapple, or perhaps pineapple and cream, Vicky?"
0:17:15 > 0:17:17Everything!
0:17:17 > 0:17:19And then I went to bed, and the bed was like, I kid you not,
0:17:19 > 0:17:22seven duvets and about five hot water bottles,
0:17:22 > 0:17:24"Because they feel the cold. They feel the cold."
0:17:24 > 0:17:27It turned into like being in a Joe Orton play.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30It started getting weirder and weirder.
0:17:30 > 0:17:33So we went out one evening, thought we'd told her, came back.
0:17:33 > 0:17:35Mrs Winterson was at the frying pan.
0:17:35 > 0:17:38She'd been frying our dinner for five hours.
0:17:38 > 0:17:40She was like this. Like that.
0:17:40 > 0:17:43She said, "I've been cooking your tea for five hours." Literally.
0:17:43 > 0:17:46I thought, "OK". Then in the morning, we were washing up.
0:17:46 > 0:17:48Her mum comes storming down the stairs
0:17:48 > 0:17:50with a Victorian postcard
0:17:50 > 0:17:52of two little dogs going, "Nobody loves us."
0:17:52 > 0:17:56"That's your dad and me." And she stalks off again.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59From then, it just spiralled out of control.
0:17:59 > 0:18:04And eventually she got the revolver out, and laid it on the table.
0:18:04 > 0:18:07I said to my friend Vicky, "I think it's time to go."
0:18:07 > 0:18:10And Vicky thought it was time to go because she'd gone up to bed,
0:18:10 > 0:18:12and found her pillow had disappeared,
0:18:12 > 0:18:15and the pillowcase had been entirely stuffed
0:18:15 > 0:18:19with tracts about the apocalypse and the second coming.
0:18:19 > 0:18:23Which was Mrs Winterson's way of trying to save her soul.
0:18:23 > 0:18:27The other very odd thing she did was, one night Jeanette
0:18:27 > 0:18:29went to see a friend, without me.
0:18:29 > 0:18:31She sat beside me and went, "Vicky," like this.
0:18:31 > 0:18:33She brought out this book,
0:18:33 > 0:18:36and it was this extraordinary album of Jeanette's life.
0:18:36 > 0:18:38Documented in extraordinary detail.
0:18:38 > 0:18:41Tiny handwriting, every single moment. It was obsessive.
0:18:41 > 0:18:46And she sat with me, and we had to go through the entire book.
0:18:46 > 0:18:50The strangeness of it was the incredible love
0:18:50 > 0:18:54and intensity she had for Jeanette, incredible fixation almost,
0:18:54 > 0:18:57and Jeanette being the chosen one, the special one,
0:18:57 > 0:19:01at the same time as not being able to deal with each other at all
0:19:01 > 0:19:02when they were in the same room.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06A line I love from the book particularly
0:19:06 > 0:19:11is when somebody has described her to Jeanette as a monster,
0:19:11 > 0:19:15I think expecting sympathy and understanding from Jeanette,
0:19:15 > 0:19:19and Jeanette says "Yes, she was a monster, but she was MY monster."
0:19:19 > 0:19:23- Were you like that?- Yes. Yes.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27What were the reasons you got thrown out, by and large?
0:19:29 > 0:19:32Usually because I'd broken some code, you know.
0:19:32 > 0:19:36It was very difficult not to do things wrong with Mrs Winterson,
0:19:36 > 0:19:40and the punishment always came a long time after the crime.
0:19:40 > 0:19:43So she'd make my dad hit me if he came home from work,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46or she'd just say "Get outside and sit on the step."
0:19:46 > 0:19:49But kids were often shut outside.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52It was a routinely brutal world, a different world.
0:19:52 > 0:19:55They wouldn't have thought they were being cruel.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58You know, nowadays you'd have social services round.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00In those days, somebody would come by and say,
0:20:00 > 0:20:03"Jeanette's sitting on the step again, give her a bag of chips,
0:20:03 > 0:20:05"we know what her mother's like."
0:20:05 > 0:20:08That's how I started to tell myself stories.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12Because either you can sit there and think, "My life's over,"
0:20:12 > 0:20:14or you can go into your head and start inventing something.
0:20:17 > 0:20:19It's very strange coming back here.
0:20:19 > 0:20:23I have so many emotions about it.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26Part of me is still proud of it,
0:20:26 > 0:20:31still connected to it in a very deep way which will never change.
0:20:31 > 0:20:34And another part of me actually can't bear it
0:20:34 > 0:20:38and wants to run away the moment I return.
0:20:43 > 0:20:47We all used to play around here when we were kids.
0:20:47 > 0:20:48There are a lot of children.
0:20:48 > 0:20:50That's something that has changed, hasn't it?
0:20:50 > 0:20:55Tons of kids on the street, there was a streetlife.
0:20:55 > 0:20:57CHILDREN SING AND CHANT
0:20:58 > 0:21:01I used to love that. We used to sit up there.
0:21:01 > 0:21:03In fact, that was one of my spots for telling stories
0:21:03 > 0:21:05because I knew more stories than anybody else,
0:21:05 > 0:21:08so you imagine a group of snotty-nosed, dirty kids.
0:21:08 > 0:21:11We weren't clean, you know, that needs to be stressed,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14nobody had a bathroom, so we'd be up there telling stories
0:21:14 > 0:21:17to the dead of night and then some mother would come out down the road
0:21:17 > 0:21:21and shout, "Susan, Jeanette, come in", and that'd be it.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26What did Mrs Winterson make of it when she read the book?
0:21:26 > 0:21:30It was dreadful. We hadn't seen each other for years
0:21:30 > 0:21:31and she sent me a note
0:21:31 > 0:21:35in her beautiful copperplate handwriting that she was very proud of,
0:21:35 > 0:21:38saying that I had to give her a phone call, but she had no phone
0:21:38 > 0:21:41and I had no phone, so I went to a phone box
0:21:41 > 0:21:42and she went to a phone box.
0:21:42 > 0:21:45The phone box is still there around the street.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48And I telephoned her and that's the moment when you think,
0:21:48 > 0:21:49"Who needs Skype?",
0:21:49 > 0:21:53because I could see her in the phone box, larger than life, filling it
0:21:53 > 0:21:55up, 20 stone, surgical stockings,
0:21:55 > 0:22:00flat sandals, crimpolene dress, headscarf. And she said to me,
0:22:00 > 0:22:05"It's the first time I've had to order a book in a false name."
0:22:05 > 0:22:08That was the beginning of our conversation
0:22:08 > 0:22:12and I tried to explain, but you know, what was going through my mind
0:22:12 > 0:22:16all the time was, "Why aren't you proud of me?"
0:22:16 > 0:22:21And she did say to me, she said, "But it's not true."
0:22:21 > 0:22:25And I was rather taken aback by this, because this was a woman
0:22:25 > 0:22:31who had explained the flash-dash of mice activity in the kitchen as ectoplasm.
0:22:31 > 0:22:33ALAN LAUGHS
0:22:33 > 0:22:36Their whole life was a story of them versus us.
0:22:36 > 0:22:39It was "Me and this chosen child that I have
0:22:39 > 0:22:42"and the rest of the world...don't go there, Jeanette, don't, it's us".
0:22:42 > 0:22:44That's how she started the story.
0:22:44 > 0:22:48That's why I think she was obviously so devastated when Jeanette
0:22:48 > 0:22:52became her own person and more importantly, was a lesbian.
0:22:52 > 0:22:53That was the thing.
0:22:53 > 0:22:57Because up to then, she had created the narrative of who Jeanette was
0:22:57 > 0:22:59and who Jeanette was in relation to her,
0:22:59 > 0:23:01and it all completely broke down.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04And it was at that point, one cannot imagine what Jeanette's darkness
0:23:04 > 0:23:05must have been like,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08because Mrs Winterson was her lifeline to the world, her mother,
0:23:08 > 0:23:12and it completely smashed between the two of them.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15There are two of our number have committed a great sin.
0:23:15 > 0:23:21A terrible sin. The sin that dare not speak its name.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25Jess, Melanie, come to the front, please.
0:23:28 > 0:23:30WHISPERS: Keep calm, keep calm.
0:23:38 > 0:23:43These children of God have fallen foul of their lusts.
0:23:45 > 0:23:49Their bodies have proved stronger than the spirits,
0:23:49 > 0:23:53their hearts are fixed on carnal things.
0:23:53 > 0:23:58- These children are full of demons. - I'm not, neither is she.- Be quiet.
0:23:58 > 0:23:59I've said it's not true.
0:23:59 > 0:24:02Now we hear the voice of the demon arguing with the voice of the Lord.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05Now we hear Satan's voice.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08Do you deny that you love this young woman with a love
0:24:08 > 0:24:10reserved for husband and wife?
0:24:10 > 0:24:12Yes! No, it's not like that.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Even when she first published that book, I think,
0:24:15 > 0:24:16people were so busy laughing at it
0:24:16 > 0:24:19that they didn't actually look at it and think
0:24:19 > 0:24:23"This is actually a portrait of psychological and religious abuse
0:24:23 > 0:24:26"of the worst sort, from somebody who was your adoptive mother,
0:24:26 > 0:24:28"so you were already given away."
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Mrs Winterson believed that we're called to be a part
0:24:31 > 0:24:34and in a small northern town, that's a full-time job.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36But she liked an occupation,
0:24:36 > 0:24:40so we lived in the closed world of the church.
0:24:40 > 0:24:44We weren't really meant to interact with unbelievers and the heathen.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47They were all going to be damned and we weren't.
0:24:47 > 0:24:48So there was a cut-off point for us.
0:24:48 > 0:24:53And I think that's why she tried so hard to keep secular influences out.
0:24:53 > 0:24:54I think she had been well-read
0:24:54 > 0:24:58and she didn't want books to fall into my hands.
0:24:58 > 0:25:02She had a line which is a typical Mrs Winterson line.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05She said, "The trouble with a book is that you never know what's in it
0:25:05 > 0:25:06"until it's too late."
0:25:06 > 0:25:08LAUGHTER
0:25:10 > 0:25:12I used to think "Too late for what?"
0:25:12 > 0:25:13LAUGHTER
0:25:13 > 0:25:15It's this other world, so naturally,
0:25:15 > 0:25:18as these things were forbidden, I wanted them.
0:25:18 > 0:25:21Mrs Winterson used to love reading mystery stories
0:25:21 > 0:25:23and so I was packed off to the library to bring back
0:25:23 > 0:25:26her sackful of mystery stories and when I challenged her about this
0:25:26 > 0:25:29and said, "Why can you read mystery stories and I can't read books?",
0:25:29 > 0:25:33she said, "If you know there's a body coming, it's not so much of a shock."
0:25:33 > 0:25:35LAUGHTER
0:25:39 > 0:25:41In Accrington public library,
0:25:41 > 0:25:44Jeanette found the means to transform her world.
0:25:44 > 0:25:46She found books.
0:25:48 > 0:25:52They were sitting there on shelves, marked English Literature A-Z.
0:25:55 > 0:25:58By the time she was 16, she had got to M.
0:26:06 > 0:26:08I love this building.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12This was my escape from Mrs Winterson and it was going to be the beginning
0:26:12 > 0:26:18of my escape from Accrington, because the book would be a flying carpet.
0:26:18 > 0:26:20That's how I was going to get away
0:26:20 > 0:26:24and I always thought of myself as both of these figures,
0:26:24 > 0:26:29reading the book, so intent and so serious, so caught up in it.
0:26:29 > 0:26:31They're beautiful and they gave me hope.
0:26:31 > 0:26:34There's the boy and girl and I was both because I was never
0:26:34 > 0:26:38quite sure whether I was a girl who was a boy or a boy who was a girl,
0:26:38 > 0:26:41or if I was all of those things together and it didn't matter.
0:26:41 > 0:26:45What mattered was the book and I'd go around saying to myself,
0:26:45 > 0:26:47"Oh, for a book and a shady nook",
0:26:47 > 0:26:48either indoors or out,
0:26:48 > 0:26:52and "a book is better to me than gold", which it was.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54Money was meaningless, we didn't have any anyway,
0:26:54 > 0:26:59but the fact that you could read and learn and change
0:26:59 > 0:27:02and then invent yourself and reinvent yourself, disappear,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05to me it was like performing the Indian rope trick, that you
0:27:05 > 0:27:10climb to the top and then you vanish and never come back again.
0:27:11 > 0:27:17# What is life to me without thee?
0:27:17 > 0:27:24# What is left if thou art dead?
0:27:24 > 0:27:31# What is life, life without thee?
0:27:31 > 0:27:38# What is life without my love? #
0:27:38 > 0:27:43So you had the library and more than anything, you had this place.
0:27:43 > 0:27:44Yes, I had escape.
0:27:44 > 0:27:47I mean, Mrs Winterson wasn't interested in child protection,
0:27:47 > 0:27:51so she let me wander about as much as I liked, so I could come up
0:27:51 > 0:27:55here day and night and not have to go home until it was dark or even then.
0:27:55 > 0:27:59You look at this view and it does give you something, it makes
0:27:59 > 0:28:04you feel that there are other places, places that you can go and escape.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06It's quite liberating and exhilarating up here, isn't it?
0:28:06 > 0:28:09It is. Well, I suppose that down there defines you, doesn't it,
0:28:09 > 0:28:11whereas up here, you can define yourself.
0:28:11 > 0:28:14- Yes, this is the runaway place. - Yeah.- Yeah.
0:28:14 > 0:28:18Of course, I felt like Heathcliff or something out of the Brontes.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21The one thing I have never been in my whole life is bored.
0:28:21 > 0:28:24There has always been a place to go and that place has been
0:28:24 > 0:28:25the world of imagination.
0:28:25 > 0:28:29And what about this sort of sense of...did it give you time
0:28:29 > 0:28:31to think about who you were, your own sexuality,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34your own desires, your own aspirations in that sense?
0:28:34 > 0:28:39- Did you...- I never thought about sex, I just did it.- Really?
0:28:39 > 0:28:43Yes, I never wasted any time thinking about it.
0:28:43 > 0:28:46I just made the most of the opportunity
0:28:46 > 0:28:49and also it never worried me, it wasn't a concern.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52It's strange, because it's never been really at the forefront of my mind.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55I mean, it became something that was political later
0:28:55 > 0:28:58that I knew that I had to fight for, a civil liberties issue,
0:28:58 > 0:29:00for the dignity of difference,
0:29:00 > 0:29:03but in myself, my body, my head, my imagination,
0:29:03 > 0:29:07it was always something I was very comfortable with.
0:29:07 > 0:29:08I was comfortable with being me.
0:29:08 > 0:29:12And when you read Murder In The Cathedral, for instance,
0:29:12 > 0:29:14and you say that you sobbed in the library,
0:29:14 > 0:29:17where you're not supposed to make any noise.
0:29:17 > 0:29:19No, the librarian was furious
0:29:19 > 0:29:22because you weren't allowed to sneeze in the library in those days.
0:29:22 > 0:29:24When we went in today and saw everybody scooting around,
0:29:24 > 0:29:27it being user-friendly, part of me is horrified,
0:29:27 > 0:29:29thinking you've got to be quiet and just read.
0:29:29 > 0:29:34But it was a bad day because Mrs Winterson was throwing me out
0:29:34 > 0:29:37because I loved another girl and I always felt that the failure
0:29:37 > 0:29:41was my failure, that I couldn't be in a family and couldn't belong.
0:29:41 > 0:29:43So I was really unhappy and I thought "Where will I go?
0:29:43 > 0:29:45"I have nowhere to live.
0:29:45 > 0:29:47"I don't know how I'm going to make enough money",
0:29:47 > 0:29:50and I got one of her books and she'd put on the list
0:29:50 > 0:29:53Murder In The Cathedral by TS Eliot
0:29:53 > 0:29:56because she thought it was a story about monks.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59And she loved anything that was bad for the Pope.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01So I got it and I opened it and thought "It's a bit short"
0:30:01 > 0:30:03and it's written in verse which, by and large,
0:30:03 > 0:30:07mystery stories are not, and thought, "She's not going to like this".
0:30:07 > 0:30:11And I opened it on the line - which I'll never forget -
0:30:11 > 0:30:16where Thomas a Becket is saying, "This is one moment,
0:30:16 > 0:30:22"but know that another will pierce you with a sudden, painful joy."
0:30:22 > 0:30:25And that's when I burst into tears and I went outside
0:30:25 > 0:30:29and sat on the library steps in the usual freezing northern gale
0:30:29 > 0:30:31and I read it all the way through, and I thought,
0:30:31 > 0:30:33"Yes, this is one moment,
0:30:33 > 0:30:37"but there'll be another and there will be joy",
0:30:37 > 0:30:39and I thought could go forward.
0:30:39 > 0:30:43And that's why it's always seemed to me that the great writers were not remote,
0:30:43 > 0:30:46they were my friends, and they were in Accrington.
0:30:54 > 0:30:57When I was growing up, I used to hide books under my mattress,
0:30:57 > 0:31:01and anybody who's got a single bed, standard size
0:31:01 > 0:31:03and a collection of paperbacks, standard size,
0:31:03 > 0:31:07will know that you can fit 72 under the mattress.
0:31:07 > 0:31:10And it was when Mrs Winterson realised this
0:31:10 > 0:31:12and she pulled one out and the whole lot came tumbling down,
0:31:12 > 0:31:16and it was DH Lawrence, Women in Love - terrible choice -
0:31:16 > 0:31:19and she knew that Lawrence was a Satanist and a pornographer,
0:31:19 > 0:31:22and she took the whole lot and threw them into the back yard,
0:31:22 > 0:31:25then poured paraffin on top of them from the little stove
0:31:25 > 0:31:28that used to warm our freezing house, and set them on fire.
0:31:31 > 0:31:34And watching them burn that night, I realised two things.
0:31:34 > 0:31:37One, that everything outside of you can be taken away.
0:31:40 > 0:31:42And also as I saw those volumes burning
0:31:42 > 0:31:46and the scraps of paper flying around the yard up into the air -
0:31:46 > 0:31:51a Saturnian, January night, never forget that night -
0:31:51 > 0:31:53I thought, "Fuck it, I can write my own."
0:31:53 > 0:31:54LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
0:32:04 > 0:32:10"I was 16, and my mother was about to throw me out of the house for ever
0:32:10 > 0:32:15"for breaking a very big rule - even bigger than the forbidden books.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17"The rule was not just no sex,
0:32:17 > 0:32:21"but definitely no sex with your own sex.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25"In many ways, it was time for me to go.
0:32:27 > 0:32:29"The books had got the better of me.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32"And my mother had got the better of the books."
0:32:36 > 0:32:41Immediately after leaving home, Jeanette had nowhere else to go.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44She began sleeping in a borrowed Mini she was learning to drive.
0:32:44 > 0:32:46A late '60s Mini. Perfect.
0:32:46 > 0:32:50Extremely smart, though. Mine wasn't at all smart like this.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52Mine was rather battered.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56However, I will now demonstrate how you live in a Mini.
0:32:56 > 0:32:59Yeah, tell me. In we go.
0:32:59 > 0:33:02You get into the front, into the driving seat.
0:33:05 > 0:33:08- Perfect amount of space. - Yeah.
0:33:08 > 0:33:11These large, old-fashioned steering wheels
0:33:11 > 0:33:14are ideal for reading a book or for writing letters.
0:33:14 > 0:33:16So this is really very comfortable.
0:33:16 > 0:33:18And you have your own little library and office in this space.
0:33:18 > 0:33:21And then when you want to eat, you eat where you're sitting now.
0:33:21 > 0:33:23But you mustn't just slide across,
0:33:23 > 0:33:25because that will just feel
0:33:25 > 0:33:28like you're some scruffy, homeless person eating in a car.
0:33:28 > 0:33:32No, you have to get out of this side...
0:33:32 > 0:33:35I shall close the door. Come round to the other side...
0:33:35 > 0:33:39Because then immediately you've got two doors, which is gracious,
0:33:39 > 0:33:40and two rooms.
0:33:40 > 0:33:45Then you get into this side and there's plenty there for you to eat
0:33:45 > 0:33:48and here you can put your food, your cups, whatever you want.
0:33:48 > 0:33:51- Of course.- So that's all perfect. - Yeah.- You've got room.
0:33:51 > 0:33:55And when night time comes, you must get your things out,
0:33:55 > 0:33:57go round to the back of the Mini -
0:33:57 > 0:33:59very important to have dignity and order -
0:33:59 > 0:34:03put everything away in the back, neatly, close the boot
0:34:03 > 0:34:05and then it's time for bed.
0:34:06 > 0:34:08So in order to go to bed,
0:34:08 > 0:34:10your sleeping bag's ready in the back,
0:34:10 > 0:34:12in you get.
0:34:12 > 0:34:15I would normally close the door by now.
0:34:17 > 0:34:21Put your feet up, and it's good night from me.
0:34:21 > 0:34:23And it's good night from me.
0:34:25 > 0:34:27Perfect.
0:34:27 > 0:34:32And how long did you actually spend in the car? Sleeping in the car?
0:34:32 > 0:34:35Not long. About a couple of months.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37- ONLY a couple of months...! - Yes. Yes.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41And then I found better accommodation for the winter.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44- Do you ever yearn to be back again in the Mini?- No.
0:34:44 > 0:34:47I don't long to be in those difficult places,
0:34:47 > 0:34:51but I know that if everything were to be taken away from me,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54if I had nothing again, I'd still have the books inside me,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58I'd still know the poetry, and I'd always know how to survive.
0:35:00 > 0:35:02ENGINE STARTS
0:35:19 > 0:35:23"I decided to apply to read English at the University of Oxford
0:35:23 > 0:35:26"because it was the most impossible thing I could do."
0:35:28 > 0:35:31"I had no idea that there could be such a beautiful city
0:35:31 > 0:35:34"or places like the colleges with quadrangles and lawns
0:35:34 > 0:35:39"and that sense of energetic quiet that I still find so seductive."
0:35:47 > 0:35:50"I'd never seen a shop with five floors of books.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53"I felt dizzy, like too much oxygen all at once.
0:35:55 > 0:35:57"And I thought about women.
0:35:57 > 0:35:59"All those books, and how long had it taken for women
0:35:59 > 0:36:02"to be able to write their share?"
0:36:02 > 0:36:04Here we go.
0:36:04 > 0:36:06ENGINE RUMBLES
0:36:06 > 0:36:10That soothing sound... Is that familiar? Do you miss it?
0:36:10 > 0:36:11I do miss it, yeah.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13And it sounds like a real car.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15I can't hear my car at all.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21Isn't it interesting...
0:36:21 > 0:36:23You arrive here in your 1960 Morris Minor
0:36:23 > 0:36:30and there is the 1962 classic Modernist building by Jacobsen.
0:36:30 > 0:36:32This glorious thing.
0:36:32 > 0:36:35And there you are, this working-class girl from Accrington.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38Yes, it's a good symbol of the two worlds,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41and the huge space in between them.
0:36:41 > 0:36:43The car and this college,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45where I'd come from and where I was now,
0:36:45 > 0:36:47and where I was going to be.
0:36:54 > 0:36:59It was 1978, and it'd been only four years since St Catherine's
0:36:59 > 0:37:03had changed the terms of its foundation charter
0:37:03 > 0:37:06to become one of the few Oxford colleges to admit women.
0:37:08 > 0:37:13It was here that Jeanette met one of her closest friends.
0:37:13 > 0:37:16I take it you were both experiments, according to...
0:37:16 > 0:37:18(LAUGHS) That's right. The famous story is true,
0:37:18 > 0:37:21of our tutor, dear Michael Gearin-Tosh, on the first day,
0:37:21 > 0:37:24saying, "Now, you're the working-class experiment,
0:37:24 > 0:37:27"you're the black experiment - how exciting!"
0:37:27 > 0:37:28And after that we thought,
0:37:28 > 0:37:31"Well, we'd better be friends, then, really."
0:37:31 > 0:37:33It was still very sexist, very patriarchal,
0:37:33 > 0:37:36in a way which would be extraordinary to students studying now.
0:37:36 > 0:37:39And there is a gender difference here. And it's huge.
0:37:39 > 0:37:42It's changed, it's changing, which is wonderful for women now
0:37:42 > 0:37:45who feel that they can do whatever they like.
0:37:45 > 0:37:46But coming here, I thought,
0:37:46 > 0:37:50"I'll have to use this space, use what the university offers me.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53"But there are all sorts of things they can't offer me.
0:37:53 > 0:37:57"They don't understand that being a woman is different to being a man.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01"They don't understand - really - what it's like to be a working-class girl,
0:38:01 > 0:38:03"who wants to get her own book on the shelves
0:38:03 > 0:38:05"of English literature in prose."
0:38:05 > 0:38:09There's also that sense that women aren't just child-bearers,
0:38:09 > 0:38:13and the possibility that women who have the creative spark
0:38:13 > 0:38:16can devote and dedicate themselves to creativity.
0:38:16 > 0:38:18That's part of that story, isn't it?
0:38:18 > 0:38:21Yes, because of course the four great women writers, supposedly -
0:38:21 > 0:38:26the Brontes, Eliot and Jane Austen - didn't have children.
0:38:26 > 0:38:28I wish I'd been able to do it. I couldn't.
0:38:28 > 0:38:30But I think now, suppose it all started again,
0:38:30 > 0:38:35how great it would be, to be in a situation where I could do both.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39Whilst at Oxford, Jeanette also discovered
0:38:39 > 0:38:41the novels of Virginia Woolf.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45No-one understood so well, or wrote so tellingly,
0:38:45 > 0:38:48about how women could storm the citadel of literature.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52The first steps were an independent income,
0:38:52 > 0:38:54and a room of one's own.
0:38:57 > 0:39:01So here I am and this was a room of my own.
0:39:01 > 0:39:05And bigger than anything that I'd ever had before in Accrington -
0:39:05 > 0:39:07certainly a lot bigger than a Mini.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11And it felt like freedom. It was freedom.
0:39:11 > 0:39:15And I enjoyed this monastic austerity,
0:39:15 > 0:39:22which seemed perfect for the life of the mind and serious study.
0:39:22 > 0:39:24And then you get that fabulous view.
0:39:27 > 0:39:31When I first came here, in the first couple of weeks,
0:39:31 > 0:39:34and I was reading - every time there was a knock on the door,
0:39:34 > 0:39:37I still used to hide the book under the pillow.
0:39:37 > 0:39:39Because I couldn't remember for that split second
0:39:39 > 0:39:41that it wouldn't be Mrs Winterson.
0:39:41 > 0:39:44And that the whole thing wouldn't have to be a secret.
0:39:44 > 0:39:48That you could be here BECAUSE you wanted to read books!
0:39:48 > 0:39:50It was astonishing.
0:39:50 > 0:39:51And delightful.
0:39:51 > 0:39:55And, actually, I thought, slightly mad.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57But, of course, it was the other world that was mad,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59not this one.
0:40:03 > 0:40:07At this point, there's an extraordinary and rather playful
0:40:07 > 0:40:10leap in the chronology of Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
0:40:10 > 0:40:12It takes a break.
0:40:13 > 0:40:15Allows itself an intermission.
0:40:15 > 0:40:18And skips 25 years.
0:40:19 > 0:40:21So, taking a leaf out of her book,
0:40:21 > 0:40:24let's flash forward to 2012,
0:40:24 > 0:40:27and the now successful author is visiting Paris,
0:40:27 > 0:40:29one of her favourite cities.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31# Deshabillez-moi... #
0:40:31 > 0:40:33And, of course, the city of love.
0:40:33 > 0:40:35# Deshabillez-moi... #
0:40:35 > 0:40:38In 2000, she chose it as one of the locations
0:40:38 > 0:40:41for a very modern love story, The PowerBook,
0:40:41 > 0:40:46whose narrator is a writer for hire on the world wide web,
0:40:46 > 0:40:50giving Jeanette the opportunity to reinvent the city, and herself,
0:40:50 > 0:40:52for the digital age.
0:40:54 > 0:40:57"You pointed to the Cafe Marly,
0:40:57 > 0:41:01"and we walked across to a glittering table.
0:41:01 > 0:41:04"She said, "What brings you to Paris?
0:41:04 > 0:41:07"A story I'm writing."
0:41:07 > 0:41:08"Is it about Paris?"
0:41:08 > 0:41:12"No, but Paris is in it."
0:41:12 > 0:41:14"Well, what is it about?"
0:41:14 > 0:41:16"Boundaries, desire."
0:41:16 > 0:41:19"Can't you write about something else?"
0:41:19 > 0:41:21"No."
0:41:21 > 0:41:24"So, why come to Paris?"
0:41:24 > 0:41:26"Another city, another disguise."
0:41:26 > 0:41:28Salut!
0:41:28 > 0:41:30Salut.
0:41:31 > 0:41:35One of the things I love about this book
0:41:35 > 0:41:38is the way you kind of rediscover words.
0:41:38 > 0:41:41So, when I'm looking here, and I'm thinking about this virtual world,
0:41:41 > 0:41:43a virtual world is a world you can invent in your own image,
0:41:43 > 0:41:46that's what people do with these machines they have, anyway.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49Then they can search, they can save.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52They kind of reinvent the world, just like, in a way, Paris,
0:41:52 > 0:41:57this is the place where you imagine you find those cliched love stories.
0:41:57 > 0:41:59But you've turned it all upside down.
0:41:59 > 0:42:01I think that's my job.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04There's a line actually in Written On The Body, where she says,
0:42:04 > 0:42:06"It's the cliches that cause the trouble."
0:42:06 > 0:42:10Every time, we have to try and detonate the cliche, and begin again.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12It's important for our imaginative life,
0:42:12 > 0:42:14and, actually, for our spiritual life.
0:42:14 > 0:42:17And what I try and do here in The PowerBook
0:42:17 > 0:42:19is retell all kinds of love stories.
0:42:19 > 0:42:21Not with happy endings, because I don't believe in those,
0:42:21 > 0:42:24but with something in them that forces the person
0:42:24 > 0:42:26to grapple with the size of their own feelings
0:42:26 > 0:42:29so that things should not be lukewarm or insipid,
0:42:29 > 0:42:32but they should be urgent.
0:42:32 > 0:42:34Maybe I'm one of the last romantics,
0:42:34 > 0:42:37but I do believe that you do it from the heart, or not at all.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39And that, probably, the only way to live
0:42:39 > 0:42:43is to love with your whole nature, and leave the rest to fate.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46And, there's love and being loved.
0:42:46 > 0:42:48- Yes, which are not the same thing. - No.
0:42:48 > 0:42:50SHE LAUGHS No.
0:42:50 > 0:42:53You've had a struggle with both, of course.
0:42:53 > 0:42:54Yeah.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57But usually in my life, I've chosen to go out there
0:42:57 > 0:43:00as the suitor, or as the knight, searching,
0:43:00 > 0:43:02because we're back to the Grail stories,
0:43:02 > 0:43:04hoping that, by looking for love,
0:43:04 > 0:43:06I could conceal from myself
0:43:06 > 0:43:09the fact that I might not know how to love,
0:43:09 > 0:43:11either the giving or the receiving.
0:43:11 > 0:43:13Sometimes you have to watch your enthusiasms,
0:43:13 > 0:43:16because they tell you where you're actually lacking.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18The PowerBook is partly about that.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21It's about a search for something which cannot be found,
0:43:21 > 0:43:24that leads back, inevitably, to the self.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28She says in there, "I can change the story. I AM the story."
0:43:28 > 0:43:31Which is very freeing, but also very risky.
0:43:31 > 0:43:34Did I hear you say you have had several affairs in Paris?
0:43:34 > 0:43:36I have had several affairs in Paris, yes.
0:43:36 > 0:43:40So I guess it is a question of art imitating life.
0:43:47 > 0:43:53# Bien sur nous eumes des orages
0:43:53 > 0:43:59# Vingt ans d'amour C'est l'amour folle
0:43:59 > 0:44:04# Mille fois tu pris ton bagage... #
0:44:04 > 0:44:05I suppose, for me,
0:44:05 > 0:44:10bridges are always emblematic of relationships,
0:44:10 > 0:44:13in that I feel the closeness of the connection,
0:44:13 > 0:44:16and at the same time, the absolute separation.
0:44:16 > 0:44:19I feel that we're here, we meet in the middle.
0:44:19 > 0:44:22But at nightfall, we can't help it, we have to go our separate ways,
0:44:22 > 0:44:25because I live on that side and you live on that side.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27And there is nothing we can do about it,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30except hope that the bridge stays up.
0:44:30 > 0:44:34I'm never more lonely than when I'm in a relationship.
0:44:34 > 0:44:41# Je t'aime. #
0:44:52 > 0:44:55How did vermin find their way into your love story?
0:44:55 > 0:44:57- I mean, they're in The PowerBook. - SHE LAUGHS
0:44:57 > 0:45:00There are two kinds of love, two ways of being in love.
0:45:00 > 0:45:05There's what Dante calls "The love that moves the sun and all the stars"
0:45:05 > 0:45:09which is an ecstatic, all-consuming, joyful love.
0:45:09 > 0:45:15And then there's what Freud calls "the overestimation of the object",
0:45:15 > 0:45:18which is what happens when you're really just projecting
0:45:18 > 0:45:21all your own ideas and desires onto the other person.
0:45:21 > 0:45:23Of course, soon that falls away.
0:45:23 > 0:45:26And then, you just want to get rid of them.
0:45:26 > 0:45:29And they become "animaux nuisibles", like these,
0:45:29 > 0:45:32and you just want to stick them in a trap, and get rid of it.
0:45:32 > 0:45:35And that's why I was writing about love as the snare.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38Love is the thing which is the opposite of ecstasy,
0:45:38 > 0:45:40which is the thing that traps you
0:45:40 > 0:45:43and also the thing that you desperately want to get rid of
0:45:43 > 0:45:46at all costs. These are all the rejected lovers, aren't they?
0:45:46 > 0:45:48These are all the overestimations of the object!
0:45:48 > 0:45:50SHE LAUGHS
0:45:50 > 0:45:53It is fabulous. I love the macabreness of it.
0:45:53 > 0:45:54It's very active, this shop.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56Have you noticed how many people are in and out?
0:45:56 > 0:45:59- I know, it makes you wonder about Paris, doesn't it?- It does.
0:45:59 > 0:46:01Exactly.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04- I think we should just go on. - Shall we just go?
0:46:07 > 0:46:11In 2007, long after the death of Mrs Winterson,
0:46:11 > 0:46:16Jeanette came across a formal adoption notice among her father's papers.
0:46:16 > 0:46:19The name was scribbled out.
0:46:19 > 0:46:24Suddenly, she felt trapped by her past, as she never had before.
0:46:27 > 0:46:30It coincided with the break-up of a long-standing love affair.
0:46:33 > 0:46:38"My six-year relationship was rocky and unhappy for us both.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42"I have written love narratives, and loss narratives.
0:46:42 > 0:46:46"Stories of longing and belonging.
0:46:46 > 0:46:49"It all seems so obvious now.
0:46:49 > 0:46:52"The Wintersonic obsessions of love, loss, longing.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55"It is my mother.
0:46:55 > 0:46:56"My mother.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58"It is my mother.
0:47:00 > 0:47:04"Soon after that time, I began to go mad.
0:47:04 > 0:47:07"There is no other way to put it."
0:47:07 > 0:47:12She was very close to the edge at that moment in her life, wasn't she?
0:47:12 > 0:47:15I think she was close to the edge, yes.
0:47:15 > 0:47:18Perhaps more than she had ever been,
0:47:18 > 0:47:21um, perhaps because she was older.
0:47:21 > 0:47:26When she was young, when she was very young,
0:47:26 > 0:47:30she was so full of hope and ambition.
0:47:30 > 0:47:35And she, she... She carried it out.
0:47:35 > 0:47:37She did these things that she intended to do.
0:47:37 > 0:47:41But I suppose with Deborah, it was a terrible blow.
0:47:41 > 0:47:44And she didn't expect it.
0:47:44 > 0:47:46And, it was...
0:47:46 > 0:47:50It hadn't happened to her very often, if at all before.
0:47:50 > 0:47:51I come from a Catholic background.
0:47:51 > 0:47:54I believe very much in the dark night of the soul, I respect it.
0:47:54 > 0:47:56And so I wouldn't ever presume to know or understand
0:47:56 > 0:47:58how she was going to come out of that.
0:47:58 > 0:48:00I didn't know what to expect,
0:48:00 > 0:48:04because I knew that it was so true and so deep,
0:48:04 > 0:48:06I had no sense of how she was going to survive it,
0:48:06 > 0:48:08where she was going to be at the end of it.
0:48:08 > 0:48:10There's a very strange moment when all that was going on
0:48:10 > 0:48:12when I realised she hadn't been in touch.
0:48:12 > 0:48:15And I couldn't get hold of her.
0:48:15 > 0:48:20And I started sending messages, you know, saying,
0:48:20 > 0:48:22"I know you're in hiding,
0:48:22 > 0:48:25"but I just want you to know I am thinking about you.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27"I know you don't want to talk,
0:48:27 > 0:48:29"but I just want you to know that I'd love to talk."
0:48:29 > 0:48:31And so on and so on.
0:48:31 > 0:48:35And then, in fact, that did mean that we had some conversations,
0:48:35 > 0:48:39and we had some walks, we often go on walks and have conversations.
0:48:39 > 0:48:43And so I was aware that things were pretty bad.
0:48:47 > 0:48:50"There's a field in front of my house, high up,
0:48:50 > 0:48:52"sheltered by a dry stone wall,
0:48:52 > 0:48:55"and opened by a long view of hills.
0:48:55 > 0:48:59"When I could not cope, I went and sat in that field,
0:48:59 > 0:49:02"and fixed on that field.
0:49:02 > 0:49:06"The countryside, the natural world, my cats,
0:49:06 > 0:49:12"and English Literature A-Z were what I could lean on and hold on to.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14"My friends never failed me.
0:49:14 > 0:49:18"And when I could talk, I did talk to them.
0:49:22 > 0:49:24"But often, I could not talk.
0:49:24 > 0:49:26"Language left me.
0:49:26 > 0:49:29"I was in the place before I had any language.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31"The abandoned place.
0:49:33 > 0:49:34"Where are you?"
0:49:41 > 0:49:44The best reprieve for her at the time
0:49:44 > 0:49:48was that truly remarkable bookshop in Paris, Shakespeare And Company.
0:49:55 > 0:49:57It's run by Sylvia Whitman,
0:49:57 > 0:50:00whose father, George, opened the store in 1951,
0:50:00 > 0:50:03reviving the name made famous in the '20s
0:50:03 > 0:50:08as the haunt of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and others.
0:50:12 > 0:50:15For Jeanette, it was a place of sanctuary,
0:50:15 > 0:50:18with an unfailingly warm welcome from Colette, the dog.
0:50:30 > 0:50:33George's motto for the bookshop was,
0:50:33 > 0:50:38"Be not inhospitable to strangers, for they may be angels in disguise."
0:50:42 > 0:50:45It's certainly a book lover's heaven.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51Since George opened the shop,
0:50:51 > 0:50:55more than 40,000 impoverished, aspiring writers
0:50:55 > 0:50:58have been welcomed and given a bed for the night,
0:50:58 > 0:51:04some staying for days, some for months, some for years.
0:51:05 > 0:51:10It's true that it really is a little island of literature.
0:51:10 > 0:51:12A place to get lost amongst the books.
0:51:12 > 0:51:16Sometimes, you can be completely oblivious about the city around.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19And George's rule was that everybody who worked here
0:51:19 > 0:51:21- had to read a book a day. - Read a book a day.
0:51:21 > 0:51:24- As he did himself, didn't he, all of his life.- Absolutely.
0:51:24 > 0:51:29Anyone can walk in that door and be welcomed, almost anyone.
0:51:29 > 0:51:31He'd look up and he'd say, "What's she doing here?"
0:51:31 > 0:51:33And then you'd say, "Dad, it's Jeanette Winterson."
0:51:33 > 0:51:36He'd say, "Oh, yeah, she's a really good writer,
0:51:36 > 0:51:37"she can stay as long as she likes!"
0:51:37 > 0:51:40THEY LAUGH And throw the keys at me.
0:51:40 > 0:51:44So, yeah, it very much evolved around his personality.
0:51:44 > 0:51:49And there are a lot of people that felt like Jeanette does,
0:51:49 > 0:51:50it's a home away from home.
0:51:50 > 0:51:57I think that filling a place with books makes people feel at home.
0:51:57 > 0:52:01I want to talk to Jeanette about how down she was when she came here.
0:52:01 > 0:52:05- Which we didn't know.- You didn't know.- That's interesting in itself.
0:52:05 > 0:52:07When I read the book, I couldn't believe it.
0:52:07 > 0:52:13And how much, and how much care you took of her when she came here.
0:52:13 > 0:52:15How fragile she was.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19Well, you know about, you know about making me stay, and the pyjama episode.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22- Oh, yes! - SHE LAUGHS
0:52:22 > 0:52:28- You did, you forcibly made me stay. - Yeah. Changed the ticket.- Yeah.
0:52:31 > 0:52:34Usually, it's easy for me to be cheerful and optimistic.
0:52:34 > 0:52:38I usually need a reason not to be optimistic.
0:52:38 > 0:52:40I think that was one of my strengths
0:52:40 > 0:52:44and survival strategies, I suppose, when I was growing up.
0:52:44 > 0:52:50So what happened to me in 2007 was both unprecedented and unexpected,
0:52:50 > 0:52:54and that's why I talk about it as living in a haunted house.
0:52:54 > 0:52:59Because some days you would get up, and you felt entirely normal.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02And I thought, "Oh, everything is fine again".
0:53:02 > 0:53:04And then, it would be an invisible blow,
0:53:04 > 0:53:07it had the physicality of a blow,
0:53:07 > 0:53:11to the chest or to the stomach, or behind the knees.
0:53:11 > 0:53:14And I would feel it again,
0:53:14 > 0:53:17this pain of despair, this agony of mine.
0:53:17 > 0:53:20I'd collapse, I would just go on to the floor
0:53:20 > 0:53:22and hold on to a piece of furniture,
0:53:22 > 0:53:25and think, "Don't let it start again."
0:53:25 > 0:53:29At that point, I had no language to describe my situation
0:53:29 > 0:53:31in those waves of despair.
0:53:31 > 0:53:35No way of talking about it at all to myself or to anybody else.
0:53:35 > 0:53:38And I would simply curl up, or be in a place where I felt safe,
0:53:38 > 0:53:41until the worst of that moment passed.
0:53:41 > 0:53:44So I couldn't trust my mind any more.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47And, for me, that was the most frightening thing that could happen.
0:53:52 > 0:53:57I was concealing this from everybody because I was also deeply ashamed.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59I didn't feel that I had a right to this misery,
0:53:59 > 0:54:01you know, I looked at my life
0:54:01 > 0:54:05and I thought, "You're a successful writer, you've got money in the bank,
0:54:05 > 0:54:08"you've got your own home, you've got really good friends.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12"What is the matter with you?" And there was that shame
0:54:12 > 0:54:15as well as the despair and the self-destruction,
0:54:15 > 0:54:17so I didn't want to talk about it
0:54:17 > 0:54:22but through all of that, I was able to come here.
0:54:23 > 0:54:25So books were here,
0:54:25 > 0:54:28which have always been the way that I have coped,
0:54:28 > 0:54:33and an unspoken, unquestioning, unjudgmental friendship.
0:54:33 > 0:54:38I didn't have to explain. I was simply allowed to be in this place.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46When we met Jeanette, we had no idea
0:54:46 > 0:54:49that she was going through that kind of experience
0:54:49 > 0:54:54and it's amazing that she says that she couldn't count on her mind
0:54:54 > 0:54:57because her mind was exactly what we were all drawn towards,
0:54:57 > 0:55:01so it's extraordinary to hear that interiorly,
0:55:01 > 0:55:05she was going through something quite different to what we saw.
0:55:05 > 0:55:11I didn't want to live without that space that I knew was me.
0:55:11 > 0:55:13I would rather be dead
0:55:13 > 0:55:17and I thought, "If I cannot get back to who I believe I am,
0:55:17 > 0:55:19"then I don't want to be here at all,
0:55:19 > 0:55:22"I don't want to live this lukewarm half-life,
0:55:22 > 0:55:26"I want to be in the intensity of creativity,"
0:55:26 > 0:55:30and this luminous, this lit-up world that I've always found,
0:55:30 > 0:55:34even when I was at home or shut in the coalhole or out on the step,
0:55:34 > 0:55:37the world has always been luminous to me.
0:55:37 > 0:55:39I've lived in the present very well
0:55:39 > 0:55:42and seen it and got great joy from it,
0:55:42 > 0:55:46and if that was going, then I thought I should go too.
0:55:46 > 0:55:48And the other thing is that of course,
0:55:48 > 0:55:52- Jeanette talks to herself and... - THEY LAUGH
0:55:52 > 0:55:54So when she wasn't talking to you, Sylvia, she was obviously
0:55:54 > 0:55:58- having this argument with this other Jeanette...- To the dog.- It's great!
0:55:58 > 0:56:00A dog is a very good excuse
0:56:00 > 0:56:03because you can talk to yourself and nobody thinks you're crazy.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06It's funny, because now, looking back
0:56:06 > 0:56:10and realising what Jeanette was going through, I realise
0:56:10 > 0:56:14that we were able to provide her with something that was very simple
0:56:14 > 0:56:16and that was books and food,
0:56:16 > 0:56:19- and that's really what I feel that we...- And love.
0:56:19 > 0:56:22Yes, and love, of course, but often, you know,
0:56:22 > 0:56:26we would just hand her a pile of books. "This has just come in,"
0:56:26 > 0:56:30or "There's this unusual edition of Gertrude Stein, I'm sure you'd be interested in that.
0:56:30 > 0:56:33- "And here's some really good food." - And then food would appear.
0:56:33 > 0:56:38- Yeah, and you felt she was nourished by both of those things.- I was.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41People say to me, "How amazing that you survived that childhood
0:56:41 > 0:56:43"and you didn't have a breakdown."
0:56:43 > 0:56:46Then they say, "Amazing that you survived Oxford
0:56:46 > 0:56:50"as a working-class girl arriving with no parents, no support" -
0:56:50 > 0:56:53Oxbridge is notoriously a ruthless environment
0:56:53 > 0:56:58and a lot of kids either do break down or drop out or commit suicide -
0:56:58 > 0:57:00get through that,
0:57:00 > 0:57:03become a writer and a success early, get through that,
0:57:03 > 0:57:06and then have the bit about, "We hate her, we hate her work,"
0:57:06 > 0:57:09you know, the British press, "Let's kill her now."
0:57:09 > 0:57:13Get through that, and it was almost as though I kept escaping the fire
0:57:13 > 0:57:16and the fire was coming after me, and there was going to be a moment
0:57:16 > 0:57:18where I was not going to be able to escape it,
0:57:18 > 0:57:21that I had to turn and confront it.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25I was at bay and I did confront it, and there was no way out but through.
0:57:25 > 0:57:29MUSIC: "Art Thou Troubled" from "Rodelinda" by Handel
0:57:29 > 0:57:32# Art thou troubled?
0:57:32 > 0:57:36# Music will calm thee
0:57:38 > 0:57:42# Art thou weary?
0:57:43 > 0:57:48# Rest shall be thine
0:57:48 > 0:57:55# Rest shall be thine... #
0:57:58 > 0:58:00"Sylvia arranged for me to stay
0:58:00 > 0:58:03"in the unmodernised, old-fashioned Hotel Esmeralda,
0:58:03 > 0:58:05"next door to the shop.
0:58:05 > 0:58:07"On the top floor, with no phone, no TV,
0:58:07 > 0:58:11"just a bed and a desk and a view of the church,
0:58:11 > 0:58:14"I found I could sleep and even work.
0:58:15 > 0:58:19"Those times were temporary, but they were precious.
0:58:19 > 0:58:21"I wasn't getting better.
0:58:21 > 0:58:23"I was getting worse.
0:58:25 > 0:58:29"I didn't go to the doctor because I didn't want pills.
0:58:29 > 0:58:33"If this was going to kill me, then let me be killed by it.
0:58:33 > 0:58:36"If this was the rest of my life, I could not live.
0:58:40 > 0:58:43"I knew clearly that I could not rebuild my life
0:58:43 > 0:58:45"or put it back together in any way.
0:58:46 > 0:58:51"I had no idea what might lie on the other side of this place.
0:58:51 > 0:58:55"I only knew that the before world was gone for ever."
0:58:57 > 0:59:02In February 2008, Jeanette tried to end her life.
0:59:02 > 0:59:06She shut herself in her garage and turned on the car engine.
0:59:09 > 0:59:13- And what about the cats? - Oh, you can't live without a cat.
0:59:13 > 0:59:15In a way, a cat saved your life.
0:59:16 > 0:59:18When I tried to end my life,
0:59:18 > 0:59:21although I thought about it many times prior to that,
0:59:21 > 0:59:27I didn't think about it at all in the moment, the hour, whatever,
0:59:27 > 0:59:31I have no sense of the timing, actually, of when it was happening.
0:59:31 > 0:59:33I simply could not go on any more
0:59:33 > 0:59:37and I thought that the simplest way to do it
0:59:37 > 0:59:40and the most dignified and least messy,
0:59:40 > 0:59:44I mean, I could never jump under a train or anything like that,
0:59:44 > 0:59:47would be to just go into the garage
0:59:47 > 0:59:51and turn on the car engine and get on with it,
0:59:51 > 0:59:53which I did,
0:59:53 > 0:59:56and carbon monoxide is a heavy gas,
0:59:56 > 1:00:00so it's on the floor before it's higher up,
1:00:00 > 1:00:04and what I didn't know was, when I locked myself in the garage
1:00:04 > 1:00:08and fastened everything up properly, it's a good, well-fitted garage,
1:00:08 > 1:00:11that one of my cats was in there with me
1:00:11 > 1:00:17and it was the cat scratching my face as I was falling unconscious
1:00:17 > 1:00:21which brought me, literally, to my senses,
1:00:21 > 1:00:25like having a bucket of cold water thrown over you
1:00:25 > 1:00:30and I'm not quite sure how I moved from there to outside on the gravel
1:00:30 > 1:00:33but at some point, I remember opening my eyes
1:00:33 > 1:00:36and seeing the sky studded with stars
1:00:36 > 1:00:41because this was in the country, so they were bright and deep and myriad,
1:00:41 > 1:00:42these miraculous stars,
1:00:42 > 1:00:46and what I was saying out loud,
1:00:46 > 1:00:50I think, unsurprisingly, was something from the Scriptures,
1:00:50 > 1:00:53which is that "you must be born again".
1:00:53 > 1:00:57And I'm lying there, repeating this over and over, and thinking...
1:00:57 > 1:01:01that this is a second life, this is a choice for life,
1:01:01 > 1:01:03it's not a movement towards death,
1:01:03 > 1:01:08so for me it was a moment...
1:01:09 > 1:01:12Was it a moment of surrender? I think it was.
1:01:12 > 1:01:17I did feel that I'd stopped battling with something at that moment. Yes.
1:01:18 > 1:01:22But I am certain that I'll never have to go through that again
1:01:22 > 1:01:24with or without my cat.
1:01:24 > 1:01:29But yes, I think if I was ever to have a crest,
1:01:29 > 1:01:32a cat would be on it!
1:01:32 > 1:01:33THEY LAUGH
1:01:35 > 1:01:39I remember, obviously, after her very, very dark, almost breakdown,
1:01:39 > 1:01:41I remember her just saying to me,
1:01:41 > 1:01:44"I think I'm going to look for my mother, my birth mother."
1:01:44 > 1:01:46I think we'd mentioned it a few times,
1:01:46 > 1:01:48over our entire length of friendship,
1:01:48 > 1:01:52and I'd always backed down and never said anything, I kept my own counsel
1:01:52 > 1:01:54as to whether she should search for her mother,
1:01:54 > 1:01:55so this was a huge thing,
1:01:55 > 1:01:58she just slipped it into the conversation like so.
1:01:58 > 1:02:01In many ways, I don't know if it's a journey she could have done alone
1:02:01 > 1:02:03and I'm eternally grateful for Susie
1:02:03 > 1:02:06for being with her and being a strong presence for her,
1:02:06 > 1:02:09because I don't think Jeanette could have done it on her own
1:02:09 > 1:02:11or with her existing friends.
1:02:11 > 1:02:14I mean, we all played a part, but I think she couldn't have done it
1:02:14 > 1:02:16without an extremely strong figure standing with her.
1:02:16 > 1:02:20Well, it's not an unusual thing to be interested
1:02:20 > 1:02:22at a particular moment in your life,
1:02:22 > 1:02:24about discovering your origins,
1:02:24 > 1:02:27particularly if they've been clouded
1:02:27 > 1:02:32with a lot of stories that don't quite fit together,
1:02:32 > 1:02:36so I understood that it might be very important for her.
1:02:37 > 1:02:41If you've been told that you should have been sent back home
1:02:41 > 1:02:43or sent back to where you came from,
1:02:43 > 1:02:46then there's a particular bite
1:02:46 > 1:02:51in the need to find why you hadn't been held on to.
1:02:59 > 1:03:03Jeanette's investigation into the true story of her adoption
1:03:03 > 1:03:06became another quest into a past
1:03:06 > 1:03:09where adoption had been both shameful and hidden.
1:03:11 > 1:03:15It was a bureaucratic nightmare, which left her angry and frustrated.
1:03:18 > 1:03:23Eventually, the trail of paperwork led back to Manchester.
1:03:23 > 1:03:27The city was now more than ever a part of her story.
1:03:29 > 1:03:32It was here, after much soul-searching,
1:03:32 > 1:03:34that she finally met her birth mother Ann,
1:03:34 > 1:03:38a woman who Mrs Winterson had told her was dead.
1:03:43 > 1:03:47In fact, she was a seamstress, who had worked
1:03:47 > 1:03:51in one of the city's great clothing factories, Raffles Mill.
1:03:52 > 1:03:55So this could have been your destiny.
1:03:55 > 1:03:59Yes. I could have been sewing tablecloths here,
1:03:59 > 1:04:01making overcoats.
1:04:02 > 1:04:05I suppose that IS what would have happened to me.
1:04:05 > 1:04:09I'd have gone into the rag trade. What else would I have done?
1:04:09 > 1:04:11It was a detective story all of the way through.
1:04:11 > 1:04:15I thought she was probably involved in the rag trade.
1:04:15 > 1:04:18I mean, why wouldn't she have been? And she was born in Blackley,
1:04:18 > 1:04:21where Queen Victoria had her wedding dress made.
1:04:21 > 1:04:24You know, everything around here was about seamstresses and sewing.
1:04:24 > 1:04:27She's a very good sewer, and when I met her, she said to me,
1:04:27 > 1:04:29"Oh, I can make anything. There's nothing I can't do.
1:04:29 > 1:04:32"You can show it to me and I'll cut it out and I'll sew it for you.
1:04:32 > 1:04:37Raffles used to make all the overcoats and gabardines
1:04:37 > 1:04:41for Marks and Spencer's, and they looked after their employees
1:04:41 > 1:04:44and it was Old Man Raffles, as she called him,
1:04:44 > 1:04:46who found my mother the mother and baby home
1:04:46 > 1:04:48when she told him she was pregnant.
1:04:48 > 1:04:51He didn't put her out of a job. He found her somewhere to go
1:04:51 > 1:04:55and he said, "And when you come back, there'll be a job for you."
1:04:59 > 1:05:01- Right.- Come on, then.
1:05:01 > 1:05:03- Shall we go in?- Definitely.
1:05:13 > 1:05:15"There are three kinds of big endings..."
1:05:15 > 1:05:17Wow.
1:05:17 > 1:05:20"Revenge, tragedy,
1:05:20 > 1:05:22"forgiveness.
1:05:22 > 1:05:25"Revenge and tragedy often happen together.
1:05:25 > 1:05:29"Forgiveness redeems the past.
1:05:29 > 1:05:32"Forgiveness unblocks the future."
1:05:32 > 1:05:33Incredible.
1:05:35 > 1:05:39"My mother tried to throw me clear of her own wreckage,
1:05:39 > 1:05:41"and I landed in a place
1:05:41 > 1:05:44"as unlikely as any she could have imagined for me.
1:05:44 > 1:05:47"There I am, leaving her body,
1:05:47 > 1:05:50"leaving the only thing I know
1:05:50 > 1:05:52"and repeating the leaving again and again,
1:05:52 > 1:05:56"until it is my own body I'm trying to leave,
1:05:56 > 1:05:58"the last escape I can make.
1:06:00 > 1:06:02"But there was forgiveness."
1:06:17 > 1:06:19I walked through this cemetery many times
1:06:19 > 1:06:21when I was growing up in Accrington
1:06:21 > 1:06:24because I used to steal flowers from the newly-laid graves
1:06:24 > 1:06:26to take to my girlfriend, who lived over in Huncoat
1:06:26 > 1:06:30and I couldn't afford to buy them, so I'd run up from Water Street,
1:06:30 > 1:06:33run through here, grab the flowers and make off over the back wall.
1:06:33 > 1:06:37But this is your first visit since your mother died?
1:06:37 > 1:06:39I haven't been here since my father died
1:06:39 > 1:06:44but I didn't go to Mrs Winterson's funeral.
1:06:44 > 1:06:46We were estranged. I hadn't seen her
1:06:46 > 1:06:49since the time I was in Accrington over the Christmas holidays
1:06:49 > 1:06:51and she got the revolver out
1:06:51 > 1:06:56and I'd fled with my best friend, thinking that we might be murdered,
1:06:56 > 1:07:02and she died, just really, around the screening of Oranges for the BBC,
1:07:02 > 1:07:04which was extraordinary.
1:07:04 > 1:07:05So I rang up my father
1:07:05 > 1:07:09and I got through to him eventually,
1:07:09 > 1:07:14and he said, "She died of a broken heart. You broke it."
1:07:14 > 1:07:17- Did he?- He did. She was 68.
1:07:17 > 1:07:21And I controlled myself and I said, "Look, Dad,
1:07:21 > 1:07:26"she did have an enlarged heart and a prolapse and a thyroid condition
1:07:26 > 1:07:30"and whatever she died of, it wasn't a broken heart."
1:07:30 > 1:07:35And he said, "Well, you're no daughter of mine."
1:07:35 > 1:07:39It was very upsetting. And that was a really bad point between us,
1:07:39 > 1:07:41so I didn't go to the funeral,
1:07:41 > 1:07:43but I did send some flowers,
1:07:43 > 1:07:47and what I sent was a dog,
1:07:47 > 1:07:51a dog made out of flowers, because Mrs Winterson liked dogs
1:07:51 > 1:07:53and there's one in Oranges, actually,
1:07:53 > 1:07:57where the lady who runs the funeral home makes it out of wire
1:07:57 > 1:08:01and then puts flowers all over it, and that's what I sent up,
1:08:01 > 1:08:05so for a little while, there was a flower dog to look after her
1:08:05 > 1:08:07but I've never been to her grave
1:08:07 > 1:08:08and I don't know where it is.
1:08:10 > 1:08:12Well, we're going to find it now, I think.
1:08:12 > 1:08:16It's down here somewhere. Come with me.
1:08:16 > 1:08:22- So it's been 22 years since she died.- Yes. Yes.
1:08:22 > 1:08:25- So you've had time to reflect, haven't you?- Oh, yes,
1:08:25 > 1:08:31and that's one of the reasons why I wrote Why Be Happy, to my surprise,
1:08:31 > 1:08:34because I began to understand her for the first time ever
1:08:34 > 1:08:36and also to forgive her
1:08:36 > 1:08:39and there's that wonderful line in William Blake, isn't there,
1:08:39 > 1:08:41where he says, "Throughout all eternity,
1:08:41 > 1:08:43"I forgive you, you forgive me."
1:08:44 > 1:08:46Well, here she is. Look.
1:08:58 > 1:09:02It says, "A beloved wife and mother."
1:09:02 > 1:09:04It does.
1:09:04 > 1:09:06I suppose my dad must have done that, mustn't he?
1:09:06 > 1:09:08- He must have.- Yeah.
1:09:09 > 1:09:11And he will have chosen the headstone
1:09:11 > 1:09:14and look, there's the Bible in the corner.
1:09:14 > 1:09:17I think that's right.
1:09:17 > 1:09:20So what do you feel now, then, really?
1:09:20 > 1:09:23Despite having discovered your birth mother,
1:09:23 > 1:09:26you might have been a very different person
1:09:26 > 1:09:28if you hadn't had Mrs Winterson.
1:09:28 > 1:09:32Completely different, and though she is Constance, she always used to,
1:09:32 > 1:09:35she talked to herself all the time, which I still do as well,
1:09:35 > 1:09:39she'd wander around the house, going, "You're a fool to yourself, Connie."
1:09:39 > 1:09:41We never knew quite what she meant.
1:09:41 > 1:09:45I mean, we assumed it was something to do with me and my dad,
1:09:45 > 1:09:48and she always felt rather put-upon and burdened,
1:09:48 > 1:09:50you know, this is a woman who'd say,
1:09:50 > 1:09:52"The Bible tells us to turn the other cheek,
1:09:52 > 1:09:55"but there's only so many cheeks in a day."
1:09:58 > 1:10:03- I'm a bit confused, though, by this headstone.- Because?
1:10:04 > 1:10:06Well,
1:10:06 > 1:10:08there's Mum, Constance Winterson,
1:10:08 > 1:10:12and then it says, "Also a dear father, John William Winterson,
1:10:12 > 1:10:15- "1877 to 1951."- It does.
1:10:16 > 1:10:21Which is really baffling, because my father's John William Winterson
1:10:21 > 1:10:26and he's buried over there cos I buried him in 2008.
1:10:26 > 1:10:30He certainly isn't here, and I wonder if they were saving money
1:10:30 > 1:10:33and deciding to get the headstone done all at the same time.
1:10:33 > 1:10:35Well, maybe this is her mystery story.
1:10:35 > 1:10:38- I think it is. - Maybe she's responsible for this.
1:10:38 > 1:10:41I think it is. I think this is the cover of her own book.
1:10:41 > 1:10:45Yes! She's taken a bit of a leaf out of your book, hasn't she?
1:10:45 > 1:10:48Sort of confusing fiction and fact
1:10:48 > 1:10:51and sort of turning it into a sort of...
1:10:51 > 1:10:54- She'd like that, wouldn't she? - She would.- Yeah.
1:10:54 > 1:10:57I think we should give her that, then.
1:10:57 > 1:11:01- All right, well, I'll leave you to look round it.- Thank you.
1:11:04 > 1:11:06In fact...
1:11:22 > 1:11:24They'll not know, will they?
1:11:47 > 1:11:50I keep thinking of her singing God Has Blotted Them Out
1:11:50 > 1:11:54and then me singing Cheer Up Ye Saints Of God,
1:11:54 > 1:11:57which pretty much sums up the difference between us, I guess.
1:12:06 > 1:12:08And she wanted me to be a missionary
1:12:08 > 1:12:11and of course, she did get what she wanted
1:12:11 > 1:12:14because I am, but just not for Jesus.
1:12:14 > 1:12:17It was for the power of the word,
1:12:17 > 1:12:21and I suppose even that is something of what she wanted,
1:12:21 > 1:12:25because it does begin, doesn't it, "In the beginning was the Word,
1:12:25 > 1:12:28"and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
1:12:29 > 1:12:32And I suppose the word is God, to me.
1:12:34 > 1:12:38And she hated her life. It was too small, too mean, too narrow.
1:12:38 > 1:12:40She just wanted to escape
1:12:40 > 1:12:45and the sad thing is that I was her means of escape.
1:12:45 > 1:12:47I was the golden ticket,
1:12:47 > 1:12:50I was the one who could have got out of here for ever.
1:12:50 > 1:12:53She could have had everything that she wanted,
1:12:53 > 1:12:57she could have had the house she wanted, the life she wanted.
1:12:57 > 1:12:59She was always praying for a miracle
1:12:59 > 1:13:03but it had already happened, and it was me.
1:13:03 > 1:13:07And sometimes, the thing you really want is standing right next to you
1:13:07 > 1:13:10and you don't know it because it comes in the wrong package
1:13:10 > 1:13:14and I was just the wrong package, you know, too wild, too risky.
1:13:16 > 1:13:19But I think she got the right daughter
1:13:19 > 1:13:22and I think I got the right mother.
1:13:25 > 1:13:26I'll leave her now.
1:13:28 > 1:13:31MUSIC: "After the Gold Rush" by k.d. lang
1:13:31 > 1:13:36# I dreamed I saw a silver spaceship
1:13:36 > 1:13:40# Flying in the yellow haze of the sun
1:13:42 > 1:13:47# There were children crying and colours flying
1:13:47 > 1:13:52# All around the chosen ones
1:13:52 > 1:13:57# All in a dream, all in a dream... #
1:13:57 > 1:13:59I think you should give her your jacket, Alan.
1:13:59 > 1:14:02I think she's... All these years there, it's a long time
1:14:02 > 1:14:06- to stand without any clothes on. - Can we give her my jacket?
1:14:06 > 1:14:08- OK, she shouldn't be... - Cover her up.
1:14:08 > 1:14:10Yeah, she shouldn't be like that.
1:14:10 > 1:14:14That's better. You see, we'll make a suffragist of you yet!
1:14:14 > 1:14:16THEY LAUGH
1:14:17 > 1:14:19Actually, that's sexier.
1:14:19 > 1:14:21It is sexier!
1:14:21 > 1:14:27# Flying Mother Nature's silver seed to a new home. #
1:14:27 > 1:14:30Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd