'I've definitely got more daring with age'
Talking ageing, overcoming anxiety, clothes as a magic carpet, self-destructive lateness, sisterhood and pushing yourself in your 60s with the designer, innovator and podcaster, Bella Freud
One of the very best things about this platform is the fascinating people it allows me to talk to. I have spent so many very privileged hours rummaging around inside the heads and hearts, ideas and experiences of some incredible women. And I’m pretty sure I’ve never come away from a conversation without feeling more than a tiny bit wiser. When fashion designer
launched her podcast Fashion Neurosis last autumn, combining her love of fashion with a knowing nod to her family heritage (she’s a granddaughter of Sigmund Freud), she and I got together to compare notes on ageing, families, making clothes work for you (not against you), podcasting and pushing yourself when people start expecting you to take your foot of the pedal.If I’m not pushing myself to do new things, I feel weirdly like I’m kind of dying. I know it sounds quite extreme, but I am quite emotionally extreme and I manage it by moving ahead and moving forward.
Sam: What a fabulous house. I’ve got such room envy.
Bella: Thank you. I love this place. I built it and I just would happily stay here the whole time. I don’t really like travelling. I love coming home, and it’s very, very quiet and peaceful here. I just feel good as soon as soon as I walk through the door. Sometimes I get terrible headaches and occasionally I’ve walked in and it’s just gone.
OK, so from the outside, where I’m sitting, you look like a real insider. You know, the friends, the life, all that. Are you actually a secret introvert?
Totally. I mean, I don’t know anyone who feels like an insider really. I think all those people that I know, everyone seems to have so much self-doubt and I kind of get it because when I was growing up, we were outsiders. My mother was a hippie and my parents weren’t married. They didn’t even live together. All our positioning in life was outside of the conventional. So I’ve grown up with that from the very moment I was born. And I’m now so used to it that it’s comfortable. I’m comfortable with being in my own world and I’ve made it how I like it and I enjoy a certain amount of time being alone.
I’ve never really been in a group as such, but maybe that’s made me good at being interested in people and being friends with people. There are certain people I’m really drawn to, I’m fascinated by, and I was like that at school as well. I would have an adoration of certain people in my school and wonder how I could be a good co-conspirator.
When did you first become aware as a little girl that you were, that your family set up was, different?
I don’t think I ever wasn’t aware of it because most people had what was then a conventional family, the mum and dad and a little house. We never had that. We never actually had our own place to live. We always moved about and lived in other people’s houses and I saw that it was difficult, but that was what I’d grown up with. There were certain aspects of normality that I longed for, me and my sister, that seemed exotic to have that regularity. Often to do with things that people ate. They had snacks and stuff, and we didn’t have snacks. Everything took about 24 hours to cook. So I was envious of those things.
I’m getting wiser through wanting to learn about things…And learning not to be phased by the moments in between having an idea and realizing it, even if it’s in a relationship or developing a piece of work or a new idea. I’m getting the hang of appreciating the unknown space in between
What was little Bella like?
I seem to have had this drive ever since I can remember. I was quite fierce. I had these goals, things I wanted to do. I was quite self-sufficient probably, which wasn’t necessarily an ideal way to be, but I was, and I learned how to be very good at that. I learned how to be agile in an unfamiliar situation. That sort of served me. It kind of works for and against. I think it made me daring, but it also made me, um, depressed as well because feeling as a young person, that if I wanted things to happen, I had to make them happen, was a bit of pressure. But on the other hand, I discovered that if I tried to make things happen, I could, but sometimes they got sort of wrapped up in tests, tests for myself, and that’s not progress. That becomes very insular. Testing to see how strong I was. Could I endure this? Could I do that? Could I run two miles when I was 10. I don’t know. I mean, I wouldn’t want my son to have that kind of attitude particularly. But I had it.
Was that a reaction to the peripateticness of your childhood, do you think? Introducing your own strictures?
Yeah, I think so. Very much. I had this kind of strategy that made me feel I know A to B type of thing. But I was thinking earlier this morning before you arrived about things that I wished I’d done. I don’t really have any regrets, but I have a couple of regrets, when I started my own label in the nineties, and I remember being invited to this party that Martin Margiela threw. Very unusual, he was known for… no one knew what he looked like. Anyway. I-d magazine and Martin Margiela had a party in Florence and they invited me. My mentors, who were my dad and Vivienne Westwood, they didn’t go to parties, they didn’t do anything except work. So I didn’t go. And then years later, I think it was one of the editors of I-d said, ‘oh, you didn’t come’. And I thought, ‘you idiot.’ What possessed me? Why did I think any sort of enjoyment would mean I would take my eye off the ball and I would forget how to do my job. And I remember that. It’s such a sort of small thing, but… I was thinking this morning how Alexander McQueen invited me to his early shows and I didn’t go because I was busy, always busy, working, working, working.
I don’t know what I was doing, you know? But the more time you give yourself to do something, the more time it takes. But if you give yourself less, you do everything within that time. I really wish I’d done a few more of those things. And I think it links back to how I was as a child, If I do things in this kind of Alexander The Great style, you know, he was always my hero. I thought I have to know how to cut through the knot. Not faff around trying to unravel it. But actually there’s lots to be gained by untangling things. Finding other things. I just always thought that I need to know and it has to be immediate, my fight or flight has to have the perfect outcome. Now I’m discovering that I can get great outcomes without being so severe.
Is that a product of getting older?
It’s inadvertently from getting older, of getting wiser through wanting to learn about things, not just about myself, but about everything. And learning not to be phased by the moments in between having an idea and realizing it, even if it’s in a relationship or developing a piece of work or a new idea. Appreciating that in the unknown space in between - which is totally nerve wracking when you are kind of addicted to ‘two and two! Four! Or even 400!’ So I’m getting the hang of that in between thing and getting the hang of enjoying it too, or not being, being associated with if I don’t know what I’m doing, it must be because something’s wrong. But all it means is I haven’t got there yet. So this is a new phase in my life that I am actually enjoying.
So you’re finally shaking off some of the coping mechanisms that you developed when you were really young?
I am. Any feeling of progress at any point in life is a wonderful feeling. It just feels like there’s so much there, no matter how old you are, there’s loads to be had out of it.
I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit like I’m actually more open to life now than I was probably 10, 15 years ago. That that point I was still very much like kind of like you: busy, busy, busy, mustn’t show any weakness, got to look like I know what I’m doing, mustn’t be sick. You know, all of those things.
I find that too. My anxieties are much less. And that’s such a relief. They don’t sink me like they used to. I don’t get so wrapped up in the superstition of things. I can hold, I can sort of stay level, even when I’m having an attack of the fears or whatever it is I get. I can just hold on and think. It’s just, it’s just happening. Just stay with… And also I find when I feel like the sort of energy force goes down, if I find out how someone else is or do something for someone else – I know it sounds ghastly in a way, but it actually gets me out of myself and then I realize things are okay because I don’t have to do the same thing. It’s not the same repertoire every time. That can shift my mood and remind me that progress is happening, even if it’s ordinary things like tidying up.
There are all sorts of things to do with like chaos that I’ve changed in my life in the last 10 years. And I didn’t know that it would be changing to be able to less chaotic. ‘cause I was so used to it.
You were used to chaos?
Yeah, but just, like, I used to be really late for everything. I was just so late for everything. So every time I went to meet someone, I had the same extreme panic of, ‘what am I doing? Why is this happening?’ So I would arrive there in this stupid frame of mind. And then it started changing and it was just so much fun. I used to think that if I set off early - what I considered to be early, which was on time - I was wasting this time that I could be doing something. Maybe I’d have a brilliant idea in that time. Now I do the opposite. I find I have the brilliant idea in this time where I’m not being late because all my intelligence, the thing that things that give me good ideas, isn’t busy having a freak out about being late. I mean, that’s the most banal thing on earth. How stupid. So now I’ve developed this new set of habits, of leaving on time, and I still get such a kick out of it. But what I get a kick out of is what it brings me. It brings me this whole, like another life almost, in my head. These things to do with being older, I love. I really love it.
The feeling of freedom is so much greater than it used to be. I feel lucky to be alive. I can reassure myself from my experience in life and have confidence that if I’m struggling with something, that I can come through it. Having this experience of life feels like a huge privilege really.
It’s so interesting hearing you say that because what you were saying about being late and then being stressed because you’re late, you could be describing me. I’m much better too now, but I do always feel like there’s something wrong with me if I’m early.
I used to think that, but now I don’t. I just think this is great, I have some time to think, If I’m early, I love it. I see now that it’s like a club that people are in and they all get it. And I also notice how few people are late. Now when someone’s late I think, oh, I know where you’re at. And then there’s a boring conversation about why someone’s late. It’s like, shut up, it’s fine. You’re here. Or whatever. It’s so rare that it happens, but the last time I met up with someone and they were nearly an hour late. And I just thought it was such a waste. I remember doing that. I remember being nearly an hour late for someone who’d given me their time - this very bigwig type of businessman - and the look of disappointment when I actually showed up. There was nothing to talk about because it had been destroyed. I had destroyed it. It was awful. I remember every second of that feeling, and it was about 15 years ago or 20 years ago.
Was it a bit intentional, seeing how far you could push it? I
I think, yeah. I mean obviously I didn’t think it was, but my shrink said to me, when I asked him why I was late, he said, ‘I think it’s a love test’. It’s pathetic. This awful kind of death wish of, will they still be there when I arrive? Will they still like me? Can I win them round? That was my measure of success, even though I didn’t really understand what I was doing. But this thing of losing them and trying to win them back took up a lot of time. You know, I never want to lose my time like that again. Even hearing myself saying it now, I’m just so grateful that I don’t have those kind of things that ran me so much, those ingrained habits of self-destructive behaviour.
I get it. Totally. I’m listening to you and thinking that most of the rows I’ve had over the years with my husband were to do with me being extraordinarily late to meet him. And I always thought that there was a good reason. I’d been really busy at work. I’d been trying to get out the door and someone had said, ‘can you just?’ You know? ‘Can you just look at this? Can you just do that?’ And I never saw it from his perspective. What I was doing was endlessly putting other people before him. It wasn’t conscious at the time, but now I can absolutely see that, and how many evenings I ruined.
It is the most aggressive thing that you can do to someone, to be late for them, to really imprint that anything matters more than just being there when you’ve made an agreement to meet. It’s such an aggressive act.
Were you consciously a different sort of parent than your parents?
Very much so. My mother was late for me every single time, and it was depressing, really. I wanted to be very noticing as a parent as it’s hard to say things to people when you feel under. I wanted to be someone who I hoped would pre-empt, you know, say, is everything okay? Or, you seem this way, or that? Just someone who was present to the mood shifts because of having that a lot in my life I’m quite attuned to that. So I wanted to be a safe port, even if it wasn’t ever needed. Not to be over meddling, but just to seem like a safe person was a really important, conscious thing that I wanted to be as a parent. I have one son, in his twenties, and he’s the light of my life.
Does your ex still live upstairs?
Yes. Yeah. So we have a really great family structure now, separated but friends, really good friends. Good parents, in our different ways. I mean, everyone thinks they’re a good parent. I hope I am. But I think that we are.
Who inspired you growing up, your mum or your dad? Inspired is the wrong word, but I can’t think of the right one.
They were so different. My dad seemed like an invincible person. He was just so… deft is a word I always really like. And he was very much, if you wanted to do something, he would do it.
And my mother was actually quite similar in a way, but she just didn’t have money. So she had no money and she was very intrepid and courageous person. She loved to read. She always had a book and she read to us when we were children. I think her value system is something I’ve inherited. But as a child, my dad was the strong person. He could just do whatever he wanted when he wanted. And I, of course, wanted that. It seemed he could just change things and my mother didn’t have that means, but she certainly had that spirit. They both died, weirdly, in the same week. In 2011. And as time passes I admire her more and more. They were great role models in their different ways and also role models in how I don’t wanna be too.
If you prefer to listen, you can hear a longer version of this conversation on The Shift with Sam Baker podcast:
When did you kind of develop your aesthetic? The aesthetic that has become synonymous with Bella Freud.
I’ve always been conscious of clothes as a kind of foil, as a way of feeling safe. My sister Esther wrote this book based on our childhood called Hideous Kinky, which is brilliant. It was about how we went to Morocco and lived in Morocco for two years and I was, I think I was six when we set off. When I was there, I quickly learned how to blend in and speak Arabic. The people spoke a dialect of French and Arabic, and I learned that very quickly. I had these certain clothes. I always wore Arabic clothes. We all did. Mum bought us a couple of things from the market. I had a lilac nylon kaftan, and I also had a viscose cotton print one, and those were my two things that I wore all the time. I knew when I was wearing those things I was indigenous, I felt part of it. I hung around with the local kids. And I appreciated being part of them because our family unit, we were very outsider. We didn’t fit in anywhere. We weren’t like rich hippies. We were poor hippies, which wasn’t great at all.
And then when we moved back to England, I was very tomboy. I wanted to dress in boys clothes. I was interested in this formality that existed in how boys dressed. And I wanted that. I wanted that container. I wanted an edit. I wanted restrictions. And then I’m always banging on about how my school uniform was abolished. They had one, and then as I was kind of pretending I didn’t want to wear it, but actually really looking forward to wearing it, they did away with the uniform. I just loved the idea of people having the same clothes and how different everyone looked in them and what people did to their uniform to make it glamorous.
Clothes have always been a big thing for me without even really knowing. But I just knew that there were certain ways that if I could dress like that, I would feel strong and free and not preoccupied.
Yeah, the rolling the skirt up of the waist or doing a different thing with your tie.
The tie was such a thing. I was just obsessed with the tie. When I was about eight, nine, I was really conscious of a look that I was into, and then I suppose that evolved. I left home when I was 16 and got into the punk. I lived with my older half sister and she was a punk into punk and she was like a London girl and I was just an idiotic country girl. So I felt really green as they used to call it then.
Clothes have always been a big thing for me without even really knowing. But I just knew that there were certain ways that if I could dress like that, I would feel strong and free and not preoccupied. I’m talking to you now and I’m thinking, when I was a child we always got attention - most of it quite negative - because we looked different. My mum would be in a long kaftan. She was incredibly beautiful. So she’d have people looking at her anyway for being so beautiful and so young. But then she was dressed like a hippie and it was, in those days ,an invitation to, to just be rude to people. People were really rude and dismissive and looked down on us and it was hard, you know? But we were very proud, mum was really proud. It was a weird feeling like, I don’t want to be like you, but I really object to being objectified that we’re like nothing.
That’s what’s great now. Everyone dresses so differently, and when someone dresses differently, people think, oh that’s interesting. Something’s going on. Even in very conventional situations. It’s more normal now, it doesn’t feel so precarious or dangerous. You don’t feel like you’re gonna be attacked. Well, t is easy for me to say. I don’t feel like that, and I know it is always dangerous for anyone when you show yourself, especially young people. But there’s definitely more love for it than there used to be, when I was a child.
When you launched the business that aesthetic - your aesthetic, boyish as opposed to masculine - was pretty unusual. There’d been the whole eighties shoulder pads, enormous big mannish jackets - was really unique. And it still is, but at the same time a lot more women dress your way now.
I suppose I always had this feeling of an idea of how I would love to dress people, and you’re right when you say it’s very much about boyish and not mannish. I don’t want mannish or masculine, but there is a femininity in a boyishness, which I find very attractive, charming, and also, I suppose it just suited me a lot because I’m not a very femme-ish woman. I’m a more of a boyish type of woman. But I want to look feminine. I don’t want to look masculine. You know that picture of Rimbaud the poet in his little jacket with a bow tie, all wonky? I just think that has everything. It’s all distilled in there. And I wanted to make that look, but sexy. I was also fascinated by Lady Penelope from the Thunderbirds and how chic she was in her perfect outfits. She was so droll and low key. And anything to do with Paris-y type of clothes. This chic thing. So I wanted to put that all together. I was also obsessed with Colette’s books about Claudine, the very naughty school girl, with all her thoughts and her sexual fantasies.
I just felt all that into my clothes and it grew out of that. And now I feel that I’ve figured out a way to make clothes for women who enjoy that. I love suits, but I don’t want people to become invisible in them. I want them to become visible in this kind of slinky way or this safe way that you can feel a bit more daring.
There’s something about the shirt and tie that I find very sexy, so I love doing that. It’s a soft thing, not a strict thing. The tie’s very soft, the shirt’s very soft, and I think it’s suggestive. I’m interested in those kind of interim kind of moments where that feeling of attraction or curiosity is starting to germinate, in your own feeling about yourself or someone else who you are hoping to attract the attention of. I love that moment, and that is something I’m interested in kind of infusing when I’m making clothes, even if they’re quite covering up, that they are suggestive.
When I was growing up, I was surrounded by girly girls. And I was never a girly girl because I was just like ginger, freckly, a bit blocky, not one of those pretty little blonde girls. And they all had Girls Worlds. You know those? Those doll heads you put makeup on? She was very blonde and you could pull her hair out, make it longer or shorter. I never had one of those, but I don’t think I really wanted one, I just wanted one because everyone else had one. But that’s the way little girls learn to be ‘girls’. Did you have that?
No, I didn’t, my mum wasn’t like that at all. She wasn’t sort of anti, but we never had any thing like that. And also I was never interested in that. I had a teddy bear, but I just wasn’t interested in dolls. I wasn’t going against how it was. Even me and my sister, we were quite different. My sister was more… the clothes she had, she had these patent leather shoes. I don’t know where she got these nice things, but I didn’t even want them anyway. I remember I had these huge leather gloves, which I must have bought in a jumble sale. There’s a photograph of my sister, Esther and I, with our mum standing in Trafalgar Square when they had the pigeons and you could get a picture taken. (Above) And Esther’s wearing a little rabbit fur coat. I’m wearing this jumper, and I always used to like to wear a kerchief around my neck to be like…
Raffish?
Yeah. And then I had these huge gloves that I wanted to seem like I could tame a falcon.
How old were you then?
I was eight, so I was very into that vibe. And there probably were loads of dolls and stuff, but I wasn’t at all… it was just totally off my radar. I definitely got how much a certain outfit was important, but was looking as much like I could, you know, be a gypsy, be hanging around with horses and stuff. That’s what I wanted to look like. And I did. And my mom was great. She was totally with me and I learned how to sew. I used to make my own clothes as well and make things for her. And she used to make things for us. I mean partly ‘cause it was cheaper, you know? So I had very strong codes, but I probably only had a few clothes back in those days, people just didn’t have a lot compared to now.
Do you have a lot of clothes now?
I’ve got loads of clothes. I love having tons of stuff. They’re all so useful to me. And obviously I’m really lucky because I design them and I mostly wear my own things. I realize they are my means to something. I can, if I need to shake myself up a bit, I’ve got a new collection, I can wear a new suit. It sounds indulgent, but it’s not. It’s much more, it’s much more essential than that. And I think part of getting older is re-interesting yourself as often as possible in a new variation. I mean, it’s always very subtle. I just got this chocolate brown suit and I didn’t think I would wear brown ‘cause I love black. then I tried it on in my shop and it was fantastic. And I thought, yeah, I’m going to try that. It’s so fun and it’s empowering and it’s soothing as well. So those things are things I know I need in my life because I have to do so many things and be thinking of new things all the time. So I want to find things to bring to myself that are going to enforce that or make that more likely. And so if I’m like, ‘oh God, am I really wearing this thing again?’ I mean, I often do, I like a lot of my old things too. But I think it’s important to have this influx of shifting things, moving things along up a bit and seeing what happens. And it gives me ideas.
Fashion is a great, magical carpet. It can take you places that you don’t even know how to get there, but sometimes the right outfit can mysteriously get you there.
Has your style changed as you’ve gotten older?
I’ve become a bit more daring. Often when I’d get dressed, I’d think, oh, I better not, am I kind of showing off? Am I gonna be insecure if I dress up a bit? Now I think, dress up. That’s a great starting point. It’s much more fun like that instead of trying to hide. I mean, I’m always hiding a bit because that’s where I feel good, but it’s not hiding out. I know how to show myself within quite a lot of covered-upness. So I look to do that and not think there’s something wrong with that.
How much has your own body image played into the way you designed, do you think?
I think it has played in a lot, especially in the beginning. Sometimes I would get wrong footed by hiding too much. Like making a slit in the skirt not as high as it should be, thinking, oh, I better not, I don’t wanna show, I’m not good enough. Just so much debate about how I felt about my body. But that’s the great thing about being a designer. You get to work with models and other people, and I’ve always loved everyone else’s bodies, but sometimes my own hangups got in the way. But less so, less so now. I suppose as I get older I appreciate the form so much that any bit of it that you get a look at is great, or you get to kind of make something that shows someone looking delighted with themselves. That’s definitely something I’m motivated by now.
Did that interest in newness and new ideas, lead into deciding to do your podcast?
There are lots of things that made me want to do, and but, but the main driver was how many amazingly funny stories there are in the fashion world, the way people talk about things that have happened and the chat and the code. I’ve never seen that. Films about fashion are often quite boring, very reductive often. And when we’re reductive it’s the opposite. It’s hilarious. And you don’t see how hard people work in fashion. Fashion, God, it’s a hard job. And then with all the reality shows, you just saw that somehow it was as though if you sat on the sofa and watched enough TV you’d suddenly be a designer. It’s the opposite. It’s like being a cook. No one imagines a cook is going to understand about ingredients, know how to mix them up, you know, refine them. Fashion is a kitchen.
With the podcast, my guest lies on the sofa, where you’re sitting now. Obviously I’m piss taking about Sigmund Freud and that relationship. But I also thought if I could make this work and I could travel around, this would be my prop. My prop is my guest is lying on the couch and I’m sitting in a chair. I wanted an overhead camera so they could be lying back and we could see into their thoughts or give that feeling. I wanted to replicate that feeling that I always try to have in my work, which is about intimacy and feeling when you do get clothes that make you feel your best self, you feel like someone’s noticed you.
I want to talk about that and see how other people have felt about these transitional moments in life and why in some of those moments clothes are the gateway to that and how you can find your identity through what you wear, even if your work has nothing to do with how you look. What a great kind of magical carpet it is. It can take you places that you don’t even know how to get there, but sometimes the right outfit can mysteriously get you there. It’s so much fun but it’s also quite nerve wracking and I enjoy that feeling.
I’m always interested in what makes people push themselves to do something new and different when they really don’t need to.
That’s a good question. I know that if I’m not doing that, I feel weirdly like I’m kind of dying. I know it sounds quite extreme, but I am quite emotionally extreme and I manage it by moving ahead and moving forward. Fashion is especially a difficult arena at the moment, but there are other ways to move things forward or make things interesting, not just new clothes. This is another way of being fashion, of having conversations. It’s like Trojan Horse. You can do all sorts of, you can get in to people’s consciousness in other ways, and I’ve always been kind of stimulated by that. I love having something that I’m exploring and experimenting with, and sometimes they never come to fruition, but this has.
If you feel weird about something, then it’s weird. Especially when someone shows you the bit of them that you like the most and it’s actually the smaller part of them. You keep waiting for the rest of that to emerge. And actually that was it.
What does success look like to you now?
Um, gosh, success… I feel like anxious just at the thought of it! I think success looks like being able to try out different things and put them into the world and not to be restrained and to have a lot on my plate and to do it all, without being someone with an awful schedule. I have got a lot of things I need to do and I remember most of them by having hundreds of bits of paper scattered about. But I want to be self-reliant too. I have a very small but incredibly wonderful team that I work with. There aren’t many of us so everyone’s fault out in their jobs and I need to be flat out in mine. And I find the more, I assume I’m capable, the more I am and then the more I can do and that makes me feel successful.
It’s quite something to still be independent after what, 34 years? Do you think that that gives you now more freedom? You don’t have the financial backing of one of the big conglomerates, but the flip of that is you can, do you?
Yeah. It’s not a bad time to be a small business ‘cause I can be agile and, um, I think that’s a useful way of knowing how to be. I can operate on a low budget and I need to, in a way, my training in life has been to do as much as possible without tons of money. I mean, it’s great having some money because you don’t have to plot things. But that plotting is good because it makes you think out of the box. But there’s a point where you are so financially challenged that nothing ordinary is easy because you have to spend all your time figuring it out. But when it is just right, it does make you more creative. It makes you ambitious and inventive.
What has been the best thing about getting older?
I think the feeling of freedom is so much greater than it used to be. I feel lucky to be alive. I can reassure myself from my experience in life and have confidence that if I’m struggling with something, that I can come through it. I really like that. Having this experience of life feels like a huge privilege really.
And the worst?
oh, the worst is always about wrinkles and aches and pains or something. But I think the way to find that bearable is by being creative. And then somehow those things aren’t so preoccupying. It’s no joke, aging. I mean, God, no one can possibly tell you, but it’s a shocker. But I, if I am living life to the maximum, then it’s, it’s okay.
I’m going to ask you the questions I always ask at the end. What’s your emotional age?
Oh my God. I don’t know because I feel like when I was younger, my emotional age was just living in an era of torture. So I dunno what age that is, but now I feel liberated, relatively calm, but I don’t know what age that would equate to, because being younger, managing my moods and anxiety levels was horrible. Whatever it is, I’m enjoying it.
Give us a book recommendation.
Oh, so many, but right now, I’m reading the first volume of Karl Ove Knaussgard’s My Struggle.
And how is that?
It’s totally riveting. I can hardly put it down. I read about it when it first came out, and then I started reading it a couple of weeks ago and it’s just brilliant and I feel so connected to it. The way he describes deep feelings. It’s everything. There’s extremes of intense emotion. And all the detail. He describes things in so much detail, yet it’s somehow essential. My heart and my gut and my mind are all riveted by this thing.
I haven’t really read any of Sigmund Freud’s work, but I have read comic books about it!
I’m not sure you’re allowed to admit that.
It was really good. I read this comic book about him and his theories and I learned everything there.
Has the Freud surname been a blessing or a weight?
Well, I suppose it’s both. When I was growing up, no one had heard of Freud. My parents weren’t married, but my mother just gave us the name. She told me that people in the local shops used to call her Mrs. Freud in the brief period that they were around together. And then my dad really being my mentor in that work aspect. He never talked about it or made anything of it and didn’t talk about his past hardly at all. In a way I wish I’d asked him more questions.
What advice would you give younger women?
I remember someone saying to me, if you feel weird about something, then it’s weird.
And that was a really useful, especially being in slightly kind of frightening situations and I thought that is a really good bit of advice.
That is such a brilliant bit of advice. It’s like that slightly cliched thing, when someone shows you who they are, believe them. It’s about trusting your own judgment, which we’re not necessarily trained to do.
Well, especially when someone shows you the bit of them that you like the most and it’s actually the smaller part of them. You keep waiting for the rest of that to emerge. And actually that was it.
Who’s your old bird role model?
I don’t know if Nan Golden is older than me, but she really inspires me. I look up to her. She’s magnificent.
What is it particularly about her?
She’s just not put off by how daunting the task ahead is, and she’s an artist of impeccable magnificence.
What’s your superpower?
I suppose it’s my drive. I have an incredible energy to keep at it.
No sign of any stopping soon is there.
No, I hope to die on the job.
How many fucks do you give?
I was thinking about this one because I do give a lot of fucks about certain things, and it’s to do with adhering to my value system really. And so I do, I care a lot about that, but I suppose in a more conventional sense, I’m not put off by things that are difficult.
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(This is an abridged transcript of an interview that took place in autumn 2024.)
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