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BBC News
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Jacqueline Wilson: 'I don't want to return to Tracy Beaker as an adult because we'd learn about her sex life'
Celebrated children's author Jacqueline Wilson has said she "would feel very wary" of writing about her beloved character Tracy Beaker in an adult book because "it would seem inappropriate [as] we would learn about Tracy's sex life".Dame Jacqueline has touched on Beaker as an adult through the eyes of the character's daughter Jess in her children's books My Mum Tracy Beaker and The Beaker Girls. But having recently announced Picture Imperfect, an adult sequel to her 1999 children's book, The Illustrated Mum, it doesn't look like an adult book based on Beaker will follow suit."I don't want to go there. That's my girl [Tracy] who I made everything happen for," Dame Jacqueline told an audience at the Hay Festival. She added that she had said "no, I would never do that" before, when planning future writing projects, but noted she had sometimes changed her mind, "so who knows?"Dame Jaqueline's Tracy Beaker books were made into a popular TV series for the BBC. Beaker was a young girl who was placed in a children's home due to neglect and domestic violence. The author said that she did generally enjoy returning to some of her characters once they had grown up: "I've been thinking about it over the years, because I've invented so many different girls, and it's interesting to think what happens to them when you finish writing about them."Dame Jacqueline recently brought back Ellie, Magda and Nadine in her adult fiction book Think Again, a continuation of her Girls in Love novels. The much-loved author, who was made a dame in 2008, is known for writing about difficult and dark issues in accessible of her books, some of which explore topics such as suicide, mental health and divorce, are aimed at children aged between seven and foray into adult books has brought a new kind of satisfaction, she explained."I'm an obsessive writer but worry people think I'm churning that [same] stuff out again, so it's lovely to challenge yourself."She said she enjoyed seeing many of her audiences come along to see her at events "because they read my books as children"."The children are still keen but it's the mums that get really excited! It's like a sort of farewell tour that hopefully will go on." Writing in pyjamas Despite having written more than 100 books, Dame Jacqueline said she still felt anxious when writing."Always about halfway through a book, even now, you think 'I've got the hang of this with all these books that I've written', but I get that terrible doubt and worry about it and and it's just something you learn. Work through it, get to the end."One habit that must help is that she writes in her pyjamas in bed, once she's fed the cat and let the dogs out first thing in the morning. "That's the magic time, and it just works for me. Apparently Michael Morpurgo does exactly the same!"But it wasn't always so easy to pick and choose her times to Jacqueline said: "I was idiotic enough to be married at 19 and had a child at 21."My husband wasn't a terrible man in the slightest but it was an age [the 1960s] when men went out and did, and women did everything else."She said she "adored" her baby daughter but she would only sleep for two hours at a time. When she did doze off, Dame Jacqueline said she wanted to sleep too but used the short window available to write. She got a little more time when her daughter Emma went to nursery in the mornings."It gave me an urgency. I'd write for two hours and then concentrate on her in the afternoon." Now the writing challenges are different, with the threat of AI looming over the writing profession. But Wilson doesn't seem too worried about it."I take comfort from the fact that my partner's brother-in-law... asked some AI thing to write a story for his daughter in the style of Jacqueline Wilson, and then he sent it to us. And either I've been blissfully unaware and I've been writing garbage or.... it was just unbearably awful."
The Independent
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Jacqueline Wilson explains decision behind departure from long-time illustrator Nick Sharratt
Jacqueline Wilson, the acclaimed children 's author, has revealed that her 30-year collaboration with illustrator Nick Sharratt ended in 2021 after the release of 'The Runaway Girls'. Speaking at the Hay Festival, Wilson explained that Sharratt wanted to focus on other illustration projects, a decision she understood despite being 'devastated'. Wilson noted that Sharratt's desire for change was influenced by the pandemic, leading him to seek more time for his other artistic endeavors. Sharratt, who began illustrating for Wilson with 'The Story of Tracy Beaker' in 1991, created the iconic covers for books like 'The Illustrated Mum' and 'Dustbin Baby'. Wilson also discussed her new book, 'The Seaside Sleepover', illustrated by Rachael Dean, and her recent adult novel, 'Think Again', praising Dean as equally talented as Sharratt.
Telegraph
13-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Johnny Ball on Playschool: ‘I dropkicked Humpty through the round window'
'Last night, somebody in the pub told me I'd changed their life.' Apparently this sort of thing happens to Johnny Ball frequently, but perhaps it's no surprise. For three decades, the presenter was one of the most recognisable faces on children's TV, charming toddlers on Play School, and then breaking new boundaries by bringing maths and science to a wide audience on shows such as Think of a Number and Think Again. But as his new memoir My Previous Life In Comedy explains, it could have all been very different. Ball was a stand-up comedian for 17 years, before finding his niche in the nation's living rooms. Ball tells me he inherited his sense of humour from his dad. 'He was a comic, but he never had a chance in life, he never even had a car. I couldn't think of any better career than making people happy, which in a way is what I've always done.' Chatty and energetic, Ball, 86, welcomes me into the cheerful sitting room of his large Buckinghamshire home of 46 years, where his wife Di is sitting in on the conversation just in case he says something he shouldn't. 'We call her the manager,' he quips. Two dogs tumble about, while photos of his family – three children (including, of course, presenter Zoe Ball) and six grandchildren – line every surface. Despite a lack of money, Ball says his childhood was happy. He was an academically engaged child, pouring over encyclopaedias and, unsurprisingly, a whizz at maths (although he only got 2 O-levels), before joining De Havilland Aircraft Corporation where he shone in accounts and then spent three years in the RAF as a radar operator. Following a stint as a Red Coat at Butlins in Pwllheli, he tried to launch a career in comedy. 'I was very shy. So, for my opening, I used to come on shaking a paper bag – 'bag of nerves' – and it always got a laugh,' he says. He was invited to appear on the BBC talent show Opportunity Knocks several times, but always turned it down. So instead he toiled away in a world of sticky-floored clubs, watching the likes of Bob Monkhouse ('The best technician in the world') and Frankie Howerd, learning the tricks of comedy. He also compered shows by the Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield ('Fabulous, a tomboy'), and worked at big venues of the day including the City Varieties in Leeds. 'A sh–thole,' he mouths. Indeed his was a Zelig-like existence saw him rub shoulders over the years with stars including Matt Monro, John Profumo, Val Doonican, Bud Flanagan, Muhammed Ali, the Duke Of Edinburgh ('I told him I had a crush on his wife'), Scott Walker and Freddie Starr. Starr, he says, was 'anti-social but sheer genius. He was trying to get Brian Epstein to sign him, but he didn't want to know. Two years later I gave him my agent's number – and bang!' Ball himself, however, still wasn't getting the breaks. Was it bad timing, bad luck or bad agents? 'I always blame the agents,' he says. 'I always ended up at loggerheads with them. It's a very up and down life.' And then, in 1967, he was offered a job on the relatively new Play School at the BBC. 'At first, I didn't take to it. They said, 'You're brilliant but when you're doing something you think is beneath you, you're terrible. So do you want this or not?' The money wasn't great but was keeping me out of the rougher clubs.' And what about those toys – Big Ted, Little Ted, Humpty, et al? 'We were never irreverent on screen, but as soon as it was a wrap I'd dropkick Humpty through the round window.' He was also writing and starring in other BBC Children's shows such as Cabbages And Kings and Play Away, but off-screen, life was tricky. Ball had married Julie Anderson, nine years his junior, and in 1970 they had Zoe. But he was travelling all over the place for work and cracks were beginning to appear in the relationship. While doing a summer season in Blackpool in 1973, a fortune teller told him there were two women in his life. He rubbished it then, 45 minutes later, met Di. 'Then I went home, and my wife told me she was leaving me,' he says. 'But the marriage was totally dead in the water anyway. I was really half a person. It was a clean break, there was no animosity. But I'd met Di and I knew she was very special.' At this point in the mid 1970s, Ball had to endure both personal and professional upheaval. He called time on his stand-up career and started to think big. 'I didn't enjoy being in other people's shows, I wanted my own.' Did he think he'd failed? 'No, I feel circumstances failed me. I got the mucky end of the stick. And then I had to think again. So I started writing…' Then came the big successes: Think Of A Number, Johnny Ball Reveals All and Knowhow, each demystifying maths and science with Ball's warmth and slight zaniness offsetting the sometimes complex subject matter. His own children – broadcaster and presenter Zoe, Nick, who works in the arts, and Dan, a structural engineer – were no great shakes at maths. Regardless, Zoe became one of Britain's (and the BBC's) highest-paid stars, which he says he could never have predicted. As her career began to flourish, he explains that: 'People started saying things like, 'Isn't your Zoe lovely?', and it seemed to be more marked than just casual. She's a great broadcaster, and the girl is still going full tilt.' He doesn't agree with what's happened to children's TV, now a fragmented digital force, and victim of horrific budgetary cuts, although a cough from Di shuts down any expansion on that. Despite the BBC's denuded children's coverage, he says that the Corporation still has a place in his heart. 'It's worth its weight in gold,' he says. 'It's a stabilising influence on society. I've got so much trust and faith in the BBC, and it's got to be supported.' Ball has found himself at the heart of several controversies. There was the knotty incident in Strictly Come Dancing in 2012 when his professional partner Aliona Vilani withdrew after an injury which, in a subsequent interview, Ball said was faked which Vilani then denied. Now, Ball will only say that he shouldn't have left the show when he did. At around the same time, he was also accused in some quarters of climate change denial after questioning the theory of man-made climate change. He later said that he had been turned into a 'global-warming heretic'. Today Ball seems, if not exactly mellow, then contented. 'When you're happy within yourself, then you're capable of anything,' he says. 'But you've got to strive to get it right, because when you do, you can't imagine what it was ever like being wrong.'
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
King steps down as U.S. Attorney for 32 North Carolina counties
U.S. Attorney Dena J. King announced that she will step down from her position as the Western District's chief law enforcement officer effective Wednesday. The Western District of North Carolina covers 32 counties across the western part of the state. New U.S. Attorney says she wants to protect civil rights in Channel 9 exclusive interview 'It has been a tremendous honor to serve the people of the Western District of North Carolina,' said King in a news release. 'I've had the privilege of working alongside some of the most talented public servants who are dedicated to serving our communities with integrity, distinction, and excellence. Our collective mission is to serve and protect the people of Western North Carolina. I stand proud of our accomplishments and our efforts to support law enforcement, build strong partnerships with our communities, and uphold justice.' King was the first person of color to be appointed to the position in the Western District of North Carolina. She was nominated by former President Joseph Biden on Sept. 28, 2021, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Nov. 19, 2021. She was sworn in on Nov. 29, 2021. 'Serving as U.S. Attorney has given me the privilege of working alongside our dedicated federal, state, and local law enforcement partners,' said King. King formed the district's first Civil Rights Team to enhance enforcement and community engagement regarding civil rights laws. She also reconstituted the Health Care Fraud Task Force, which recovered millions for government programs. King's initiatives, such as Think Again and United Against Hate, aimed to reduce gun violence and foster relationships between law enforcement and communities. King's office partnered with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and other districts to address school violence, teen dating violence, effective leadership, and positive conflict resolution. 'Being U.S. Attorney is an incredible job,' said King. 'It's been an honor and a privilege to have served in this role and I will always be incredibly thankful for the opportunity.' King will be succeeded by First Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence J. Cameron as Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina until there is a replacement. King did not specify in the news release why she left the position. VIDEO: New U.S. Attorney says she wants to protect civil rights in Channel 9 exclusive interview
