Nostalgia Interviews With Chris Deacy

My guest this week is Linda M. James, an author, poet, screenwriter and creative writing tutor, originally from Swansea. Linda (who explains the significance of the initial M) tells us why she is nomadic and about to make her 48th move. Linda has been running writing classes for 20 years, and we find out about her MAs and her historical novels set in the Second World War, especially involving Spitfires. We learn about her flying experience, too – all part of the inspiration for her writing – and she discusses how she draws on her life experiences in her novels. Linda explains how she had a good singing voice in school but, as a left-handed Protestant in a Catholic school, was told by the nuns who taught her at the age of 11 why she was ‘doubly damned’. This leads us to talk about these unhappy teachers, how it was a harsh environment, but that she had close friends with whom she is still in contact. We discuss what education is about, and how the discipline she had at school made her something of a rebel.