Live webchat with Judy Finnigan - Weds 20 March 1-2pm

purplehairstreak

Hi Judy,

Would love to know if you now prefer writing & being alone to being up front on air and if you see this as your future career? If so, do you feel this is a natural career development for you - to move away from presenting live to presenting your ideas, thoughts, life experiences etc. in the form of the novel?

Looking forward to what promises to be an excellent read, so thanks in advance!

I'm glad to have stopped working as a presenter partly because it's nice to be my own person again and have more privacy. I'm quite shy really so it's always felt odd to have my life so exposed. I would love to continue writing and make it a second career, and I find the idea very exciting and yes, it's nice to be able to do it myself instead of with a whole team of people.

closetgran

I know you have said you are prone to depression. Are you a worrier?

I am a worrier and I am prone to anxiety. I had very bad PND with my last child, my daughter Chloe. When I finally got help she was about 10 months old. It's a horrible experience and I've used it to describe the depression felt by the main character in my book Eloise, Cathy.
The thing is you don't understand what's happening to you in PND and think you're going mad. I would recommend anti-depressants to anyone who feels that way - I got my life back when my GP finally prescribed them. I feel sad when women are frightened of taking them because they think they're addictive - they're not and they are truly miraculous in their effects.

watsoa

During your TV shows there was always a lot of banter and friendly witticism between yourself and Richard, while you were writing your book did Richard stay out of your way or was he there to give constructive help and criticism.

I found that Richard was a really big help when I was writing. When I started I was too self conscious to show the book to anyone but him, but he was always fantastically encouraging and a tremendous sounding board when I was a bit stuck for an aspect of the plot. We had loads of conversations about the book which helped a lot. He's just finished his first novel which is published in July and I read his as he wrote in exactly the same way. We've always worked really well together whether it's on screen or on the page.

crostini

Did you learn anything useful for your own writing from running the book club for so many years?

Yes I did find that running the book club made me very aware of what is a really good story. It also made me realise that I personally prefer books that are quite pacy and so when I started writing Eloise I bore that in mind. I think running the book club simply means that you discover what makes a really good read and so I guess I've applied that, or at least tried to, in my own book.

helenclare

Hi Judy

Not sure if its true but were you born at Beech Mount maternity home as I was sixty two years ago. Moved to Cheshire and now on the Isle of Wight but such happy memories of my beginnings.

Helen

Yes indeed! I was born at Beech Mount maternity home in Manchester. Sorry, but I obviously don't remember much about it! But I remember my mother seemed very proud that I was born there. In her eyes, at least, it was quite posh to be born at Beech Mount.

annemac101

I've just read Judy's book on my kindle and I must say I loved it. I loved the way she described the Cornish coast ,very poetic. I didn't like the husband in the book and the way his wife seemed so dependant on him. But it was a great read and I would recommend it to anyone. I'd like to ask Judy if she has started another book and if she would tell us what it's about.

It's interesting you don't like Cathy's husband in my book, Chris. I've had a lot of comments about him including one from someone who said that he has to be the most unsympathetic psychiatrist on the planet. The thing is, I've got a real soft spot for Chris, and you have to remember that he's been living with Cathy and her mental fragility for a very long time. He thought she was cured of her depression but then she starts telling him that she's seeing a ghost and children are in danger, so obviously he thinks she's going a bit bonkers again. He just loses patience and is at the end of his tether. Cathy is dependent on him, simply because she is aware of how mentally flakey she is. For all their marriage he's been her rock and she's terrified of driving him away.

Iwasframed

If someone gave you the opportunity to make a television programme about anything at all, have you got any burning issues you'd like to bring to the nation's attention?

No, I'm all burned out.

Kizzie

Haven't read your book yet, but hope to soon. Do you find it easier to write in the calming peaceful atmosphere of Cornwall?

I do indeed find it easiest to write in Cornwall. It's one of my most favourite places in the world and in our house in the tiny hamlet of Talland Bay I feel completely calm and peaceful. Cornwall is very very mysterious and it's easy to imagine there are ghosts and spirits down there. It was cut off from the rest of Britain for so long because of the River Tamar that it really does feel sometimes like a foreign country - ancient and mystical.

topshot

Hi Judy,

Your own story has been a bit like a novel - starting quite poor in the North, ending up presumably quite well off and a household name. Has going from poor to rich taught you anything?

I think that coming from a working class background, as I do, means that you can never be extravagant with money, no matter how much you're earning. I'm glad that we're now comfortable but I think if you're born poor you're always cautious. I once went shopping for a dress for a special occasion in Selfridges and saw a beautiful Alice Temperley silk gown that I would have loved. I almost bought it, and then I saw the price tag. It was £2,200! I ran out of Selfridges as fast as I could.

floribunda

The recommendations of the Richard and Judy book club are probably the benchmark of what's hot and what's not for many avid readers - so did you feel a huge amount of pressure for your own book to match up to the quality of the ones you have picked out in the past?

Yes, I felt an enormous amount of pressure about the launch of my own book. I'm not a desperately confident person and was well aware that if Eloise did not go down well critics would say "Oh, she spends her life pontificating on other people's books and now we find she can't write for toffee herself!" Fortunately that hasn't happened, and the reviews have been kind, but that's one of the reasons why in the early days I would only show what I wrote to Richard. It took me days to pluck up courage to show what I wrote to an agent, and then a publisher.

cinnamonstix

Hi Judy - you're often seen in the celeb world as 'Richard and Judy' - a duo, like 'Ant and Dec'. You both have spent years creating the 'Richard and Judy' brand. How does it feel to step away from that and going solo with your book?

Yes, I guess we'll always be known as Richard and Judy, although we never created that as a brand. It's just how people started referring to us in the early days of This Morning and it stuck. I must say that although I love working with Richard it is really nice to achieve something on my own. Although I actually don't think I would have had the confidence to finish the book without his real encouragement and enthusiasm.

getmehrt

Was it difficult to bring up your children when their parents were household names? You have done a great job of keeping them out of the limelight. And a related question - I think being a step parent is the hardest job, even harder than being a parent - was Richard good at it?

We've never found it difficult to bring up the kids, even though we were on the telly. They've all regarded it as just a job and for them the TV studio was just like Mum and Dad's office.
As for Richard - yes he's stepfather to my two oldest - twin boys and has been since they were 7 years old. He's a very, very good stepfather and has never made any differentiation between my twins and the two we've had together. Basically I don't think our relationship would have worked had he not been so loving towards my boys - they always came first for both of us.

Bonsai

Hello Judy congrats on becoming a grandma! When she's able to talk, do you have an idea of what you'd like her to call you? Grandma/Nanny/Granny etc? Do you even get a choice?!

Before she was born I agonised about that. To be a grandma seemed so old! And I thought of asking her to call me something like Mamma Judy. But I know she won't and actually I don't think you have a choice. I think I'll have to make do with what's left over after her other grandmother, my daughter in law's mum, gets first dibs. I do think that the mother of the new mother is somehow entitled to choose first. But frankly anything's fine and Grandma is lovely.

glammanana

Hi Judy Congrats on you new book I have always followed you recommendations for books to read and found them mostly to my taste what a great change of career for you,do you see yourself as continuing to write and to keep the topic's of your writings in the Cornish area or further afield ?.Well done you. glamma.

Yes, I do want to continue writing and certainly my next book is again set in Cornwall. I find it incredibly inspiring there. There are so many legends. It's incredibly ancient and elemental and that's the kind of stuff I like when I write.

distaffgran

Hi Judy, are you keen on social media? We are all supposed to be broadcasting ourselves all the time now. Do you tweet?

No, I don't at all, I leave all that to Richard!

glassortwo

Hi Judy welcome to Gransnet.

I want to thank you for some of the fantastic books I have read through the book club. I remember seeing you on This Morning years ago and you mentioning how you would love to write, and I wonder how it now feels to have achieved your ambition.

Yes, I've always liked the idea of writing. I love reading - in fact it's really my only hobby. Now I've actually published a book I feel incredibly pleased and relieved.

downwithcupcakes

When you set out to write, did you worry about whether you were going to write a literary novel that would be reviewed or a commercial novel that would sell? Do you think it's a helpful distinction?

That's a very interesting question. Recommending books through our book club has made me very aware of the success of popular novels and I think they're what people want to read. The thing is everybody wants to read a really good story and that to me is the only criterion for writing. One of my favourite novels is Jane Eyre and I don't know if you would categorise that as 'literary' although it is a classic, but it's a classic because it is a really fantastic story. So no, I don't want to be up there with Charles Dickens (as if I could) although he too wrote popular fiction. I just want to write stories that people enjoy reading.
Another of my favourite authors is Daphne du Maurier and her books are compulsively readable, especially Rebecca.