Freya North - 'Secrets' - the endpages

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Inside: • Freya’s photos • Freya and Saltburn • Up close and personal with Freya • Don’t miss Freya’s other bestsellers • www.freyanorth.com

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The Halfpenny Bridge 1869, demolished 1974

Photographs Frank Sutton

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The Transporter Bridge, 1911

At the Transporter bridge – on a very chilly Boxing Day 2008

On the walk way 160 feet over the Tees, 2007

Under construction

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Freya and Saltburn

Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Christmas Day, 2008

F

or me, the greatest perk of my job is not glitzy soirees with fellow writers trying to out-syllable each other (I don’t think I’ve ever been to one of those), it’s research. A snippet in a newspaper can fire my interest in a certain subject (sleepwalking for Pillow Talk) or a prior passion or hobby of my own can be indulged (pottery classes for Chloe, a lot of massage for Love Rules, an accessall-areas pass in the Tour de France for Cat). My accountant tells me that if I set novels in exotic, far-flung places, ‘research trips’ are tax deductible. But thus far, no heroine has appeared in my mind’s eye insisting on an adventure in the Maldives, or the Seychelles – North Yorkshire is fine, thank you very much.

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Which brings me to Tess Adams – the heroine about whom you’ve just read.

I don’t plan my novels, I simply start with Chapter One and then let the story unfold organically until I think to myself, 140,000 words later, oh boy, that was the final full-stop. Before I started Secrets, I knew Tess lived in London. And I knew she needed to run away. But I also knew that she was not well travelled and she’d have scant knowledge of suitable hiding places. Lucky for Tess, I knew Saltburn-by-the-Sea. Lucky for me, Secrets meant I had to return frequently to a place I already loved, all in the name of research.

It was fascinating disciplining myself to see Saltburn through Tess’s eyes.

When you are familiar with a place (and Andy had introduced me to Saltburn over a decade ago), the tendency is to forget to look up and around, to stop focussing on details, to no longer ponder the scents in the air, to take the feel of a place for granted. Therefore, I couldn’t just stroll along the beach yakking to my children, or mooch along the pier with an ice cream, or daydream away while rambling through the Valley Gardens. I had to see Saltburn anew; to smell it, taste it and think about it as Tess might. I made many visits with my camera, my Dictaphone, my notebook, sometimes my sun cream and flip-flops, sometimes my North Face jacket and thermal gloves, and usually with my designated driver and packhorse (thanks Andy).

I’m a southern girl, a city girl, but I’m mad about the specific part of the North East in which my last two novels have been set. This part of North Yorkshire doesn’t have the brooding drama of Brontë country, or the picturesque ‘ee by gum’ of Herriot country. Cleveland is different. It is as gritty and grimy as it is beautiful and unspoilt, it is as thoroughly mundane as it is majestic, it is unarguably grey Under the pier, Christmas 2008

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The Cliff Lift and pier, June 2008

and hard but also colourful and gentle, it is rich and it is also deprived. All of these bind to make it real. I love the way the sci-fi landscape of the vast ICI chemical works – all monstrous towers, pipelines and flares (the inspiration for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner) – sprawls at the foot of the beautiful, melancholy, quiet Cleveland Hills.

I like the dichotomy of the elegant Regency towns like Stokesley sitting so sedately a stones throw from Middlesbrough. The accent and local vernacular isn’t that pretty but the sense of humour is warm and I like it that people call me ‘pet’. There are no-go areas, certainly – but these are off-set by so many places where open arms await. In the landscape, in the towns, along the coast – down-to-earthness and drama coexist so seamlessly.

In the Cliff Lift, June 2008

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Personally, I’m as happy slogging through the industrial drabness of Middlesbrough’s nether regions in order to come across the sudden bright blue wonder of the Transporter Bridge, as I am happy gulping lungs-full of clean air from the end of Saltburn Pier. To me Saltburn exemplifies the black and white, the yin and yang, the poetry and prose of the entire area. From the pier, look one way and you see the mighty cliff of Huntcliff Nab. Look Keiths Sports, Milton Street, July 2007 the other and you see the bellowing factories at Redcar. The Victorian architecture is beautiful and extravagant and, in some cases, quite flamboyant. Though the ‘jewel’ streets are a stark contrast, somehow they add to the balance of the place. That’s why the town works so well – there’s room for the fantastically stocked modern deli as well as for the dodgy pub around the corner. The mouth-watering, fancy high-class chocolatiers courts trade alongside the 1970s timewarp dress shop. Saltburn’s Victorian heritage is preserved brilliantly – the residents ensure it; quite rightly they are passionately town-proud, house-proud and landscape-proud and that makes them especially friendly and welcoming.

Huntcliff Nab, Christmas Day 2008

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Saltburn does not have the chocolate-box beauty of Staithes, or the breathtaking, postcardperfection of Runswick Bay. It’s not as famous as Scarborough or Robin Hoods Bay. It might not be a big place but it’s quirkily grand.

The beach is unbelievably vast and so are the skies. The pier is plain but it marches out Poohsticks Bridge, The Valley Gardens, July 2007 confidently into the grey slab of North Sea. I’ve experienced Saltburn changing over the last few years – but it’s growth is clever – the spirit of the place has not been compromised but there’s a growing energy and the town seems increasingly fresher and more vibrant.

It really wouldn’t matter at all if you couldn’t get a cappuccino in Saltburn, but that you now can is actually quite nice. The town’s founding father Henry Pease would approve of modern day Saltburn-by-the-Sea. And if an apartment comes up for sale at what was the Zetland Hotel, the world’s first railway hotel, would someone please, please let me know...

On the pier, Christmas 2008

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Up close and personal with Freya Q.

How do you write?

On my gorgeous Apple laptop, from my local library.

There are too many distractions at home – not least the fridge, the invisible weeds in the garden and atrocious daytime TV... I love the reverential hush in the library – plus being surrounded by books, of course. I don’t plan my novels, I do a few months of research and then I simply sit down, start with Chapter One and trust that the characters will show me what happens and when.

Q.

Do you ever suffer from ‘writer’s block’? If so, how do you overcome it?

I haven’t yet been stuck for what to write – but I have come up against how to write...You need a surprising amount of physical energy for 5-6 hours at the keyboard, plus a large reserve of emotional energy too because, though fictitious, your characters need you to ‘feel’ their lives. I’ve had periods when I’ve felt so drained or simply tired that I’ve sat in the library thinking bugger this, shall I just nip off to Brent Cross shopping centre for a couple of hours.

But actually, I’m pretty disciplined – you just have to knuckle down and squeeze one word out after another. Strong coffee, Red Bull and Skittles help, it must be said...

Q.

Is there one character in all your novels that you secretly have a soft spot for?

One? But that would be like having a favourite amongst your children! I do feel an affinity with Thea in Love Rules and Petra in Pillow Talk. As for my heroes, well I continue to hope that there just might be an attractively stroppy potter called William living on a Cornish cliff with a goat called Barbara. And then there’s Django McCabe, who has appeared in four of my novels and who I miss so much I’m considering writing a prequel set in the early 1970s so I have the chance to meet him at his most eccentric!

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Q.

What makes you happy?

The funny things my children say and the funny things my horse does.

Q.

What makes you sad?

Seeing loneliness in an elderly person’s face. I was blessed with close relationships with my grandmas and great aunts. I hate to think of elderly people on their own without company – when they themselves are such good company.

Q.

If you were only allowed to take three things to a desert island, what would you take?

Oh good God – only three? For starters, I’d hate being on my own on a desert island. So I'd take a solar-powered laptop fully loaded with photos and I'd write stories and invent characters for company. And I’d take a bottle of Jil Sander ‘Woman Pure’ – which is a perfume I’ve worn since I was 15. It’s not made anymore and I’m down to my last few dabs. I’ll look such a state, I may as well be fragrant. Finally, my pillow.

Q.

What’s your favourite recipe?

Donna Hay is a marvellous chef and my favourite dish is one of hers – it’s spaghetti with rocket, parmesan, fresh chilli, garlic, capers and lemon juice.

I can happily eat my weight of that!

Q.

What’s your ‘brain food’?

This is a dreadful thing to admit, because actually I’m a relatively healthy, quite fit, long-term vegetarian. But in my experience nothing beats a can of Coke (proper ‘fat coke’) and a bag of ready salted Kettle Chips and a Curly Wurly (or a Fab ice lolly in summertime). All readily available from the little shop opposite the library...

Q.

Do you remember your first kiss?

Of course I do! And I bloody well hope he does too....

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Q.

What’s your all time favourite book?

Well, I don’t want this to sound poncey, but it really would have to be Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe, because it’s such an extraordinarily rich, colourful book – bawdy, humane, original, outrageous and it still romps along at such a pace almost 300 years later.

Q.

What’s your most treasured item of clothing?

My Repetto silver mary-jane high heels which I bought in the Liberty sale and wore to the Pillow Talk launch party. And my Horka breeches – which I wear daily for riding, cool in the summer, warm in the winter. Perfect.

Q.

Is there somewhere you’ve always wanted to visit?

Alaska. Since watching Northern Exposure twenty years ago.

Q.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone’s ever given you?

“Everything passes”. That’s what my Dad says. And it’s so true. If you hold on tight to that concept, you won’t take the good times for granted and you’ll manage to muddle through the bad times too.

Q.

If you weren’t a writer, what job would you do?

Oh blimey. I can’t answer that. I love my job. Let me think... Well, at a push I’d quite like to have a very small café in North Yorkshire that’s open only for Elevenses, Lunch and Tea. Oh! Well there’s an idea for a future novel...!

Q.

What’s the last film that make you laugh (or cry)?

I sobbed at The Waiting Room, a lovely understated British movie. And I laughed hysterically at Tropic Thunder – I have a pretty puerile sense of humour!

Q.

What’s the last book that you couldn’t put down?

A remarkable first novel What Was Lost, by Catherine O’Flynn.

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pillow talk

The sleepwalker.

By day, Petra Flint is a talented jeweller working in a lively London studio. By night, she sleepwalks. She has 40 carats of the world's rarest gemstone under her mattress but it's the skeletons in her closet that make it difficult for her to rest.

The insomniac.

Forsaking a rock-and-roll lifestyle for the moors of North Yorkshire, Arlo Savidge teaches music at a remote boys' boarding school.. But, like Petra, ghosts from his past disturb his sleep.

Putting the past to bed.

Petra and Arlo were teenage sweethearts.

Now, years later, in a tiny sweet shop one rainy day, they stand before each other once more.

Could this be their second chance?

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love rules

Love or lust, passion or promise?

Thea Luckmore loves romance and lives for the magic of true love. She's determined only ever to fall head over heels, or rather, heart over head.

Alice Heggarty, her best friend, has always loved lust – but she’s fed up with dashing rogues. Now she’s set her sights on good, sensible husband material. And she’s found him.

For Thea, a chance encounter on Primrose Hill ignites that elusive spark. Saul Mundy appears to be the perfect fit and Thea’s heart is snapped up fast.

However newly-wed Alice finds that she’s not as keen as she thought on playing by the rules and she starts to break them left, right and centre. At the same time, a shocking discovery shatters Thea’s belief in everlasting love.

When it comes to love, should you listen to your head, your heart, or your best friend?

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home truths

Our mother ran off with a cowboy from Denver when we were small.

Raised by their loving and eccentric uncle Django, the McCabe sisters assume their early thirties will be a time of happiness and stability.

However, Cat, the youngest, is home from abroad to begin a new phase of her life – but it’s proving more difficult than she thought. Fen is determined to be a better mother to her baby than her own was to her – though her love life is suffering as a result.

Pip, the eldest, loves looking after her stepson, her husband, her uncle and her sisters – even if her own needs are sidelined.

At Django's 75th birthday party, secrets are revealed that throw the family into chaos. Can heart and home ever be reconciled for the McCabes? After all, what does it mean if suddenly your sisters aren’t quite your sisters?

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