Another Fine mess

TRICKY things, families. Even trickier when they’re stepfamilies. Which, of course, makes them much more interesting to write about, especially when it comes to sibling rivalry.

“There’s something about full blood sisters that puts them in a stronger position – the sheer intimacy of their shared lives. But when it comes to step-siblings there’s always an element of politeness and guilt,” says novelist Anne Fine, who seems to have made a speciality of the ins and outs of family life. What’s more, she makes them funny, so even as you’re wincing, you’re laughing, too. If sometimes a little bitterly...

In her latest adult novel, she has invented a stepsister of towering duplicity. What’s worse is that it’s Lulu, the outsider, the cuckoo in the nest who is the glamorous, irresponsible one of the two sisters, brought up alone by her stepmother with the stepmother’s natural daughter Geraldine.

Imagine the Ugly Sisters with a winning smile and sneaky ways and you know poor Cinders wouldn’t stand a chance.

“So many stepfamilies start in such good faith, but it can all get very complicated,” says Anne, herself a happy stepmother to two grown-up children, as well as mother to two daughters by her first marriage.

Lulu is a monster, her little tricks constantly undermining her long-suffering step sister Geraldine.

“But everything that Lulu does is based on fact,” says Anne. “My daughter who lives in America told me about one – about the announcement of a pregnancy – that happened to a friend of hers. And when I was suitably horrified, she kept sending me more Lulu-isms.

So yes there really are people like that. “We all knew plenty like them in the playground when we were small, the sort of children who made everyone else’s lives a misery with the sheer cunning of their nastiness, bright children who get their jollies stamping on other people’s shadows.

Most people grow out of it, but there are some who take a lot longer than others.” Anne Fine, who has lived for many years in Barnard Castle, has written more than 30 books for children of all ages including Flour Babies, Goggle Eyes, Madame Doubtfire and Bill’s New Frock. and so perhaps it is not surprising that her sympathies are with the children.

“I heard someone say recently that no one should get divorced until their children were at least 18. And even though I was divorced when my daughters were young, I thought yes, you’ve got a point.

“Children have been raised in a family with a set of values and behaviour, then suddenly they’re expected to spend some or all of their time with a family that might have a totally different way of behaving. Meanwhile, the natural children have to learn how to make allowances for this stranger.”

Like many of Anne Fine’s books, especially those for children, there is a message, a light, witty and subtle guide to dealing with life’s problems. For this book is also about coping with any sort of emotional baggage, about the way families of all types put pressure on each other and themselves. You don’t have to have stepsisters to know that one.

“But families are the most fascinating thing. Marriage is almost impossible really, then you add children to the mix, from sleepless nights to Ucas forms and it’s a wonder how people cope. Absolutely amazing.”

Anne Fine has won a host of awards for her children’s books, was awarded an OBE and is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

As well as Our Precious Lulu, this summer she has a children’s novel published. This surge of work is in contrast to the time she spent as Children’s Laureate from 2001 to 2003 which she took not only seriously, but passionately, travelling round the country, encouraging children to read, trying to bring books to all children, especially those who might not automatically have them, children in care, for instance.

“I hardly wrote a word. There was so much I wanted to do that it didn’t leave much time or energy for anything else."

One of the legacies, still very active is My Home Library (myhomelibrary. org) which offers – among much else – bookplates by leading illustrators that children can download and use in their own books, to give them pride of ownership and make the book extra precious.

“They are still being downloaded from all over the world every day, which is a pretty good legacy, I think.”

SHE herself was a reading child from a very early age, reading anything and everything that opened up the world for her and she longs to gives every other child the same opportunity. Just mention television sets in children’s bedrooms and she will – commendably – hardly draw breath while she goes into a passionate argument of why such a thing is “wrong, wrong, wrong!

“Their brains don’t process things properly. They don’t question things, They just accept without understanding.”

She is small, slim and fierce, fizzes with energy, talks non-stop, is now 61 doesn’t look it, think it or act it – except when she suddenly slows down and says sadly

“Do you realise that ours is probably the last reading generation, the last age group for whom reading is automatically a large part of our lives?” However, she is doing her level best to reverse the trend and bring in new generations of readers. She constantly travels from her home in Barnard Castle to speak at literary events and, more importantly, in schools, to inspire new readers.

The children’s book Eating Things on Sticks is a wonderfully wicked story of hapless Henry, who ends up with his Uncle Tristram and Morning Glory, Tristram’s very New Agey girlfriend, stranded on a rain-soaked Scottish island where all the people, including the women, have beards and the ferry doesn’t leave for another week.

All that sustains them as they live on herb tea, nettles and pork pies is the thought of the island fair and the dream of the eating things on sticks competition. “That was based on my American son-in-law. A very grown-up academic of 41 who every years goes to the state fair where he and his brother have a competition to eat pickles, sausages, candy floss, ice cream, bananas – anything on sticks.

They even compare strategies about whether to start small and build up, or lay down a solid meat foundation before starting on the pickles and ice cream...”

Her daughters now live in the US and Australia – so as well as all that travelling for work, she’s constantly flying to the other side of the world to see her adored grandchildren, while currently working on a book for older children. In the middle of all this glorious wickedness there is one small sign of softening.

In Our Precious Lulu, unusually, for a writer who likes things dark and has most fun with people who are flawed, there is the portrait of Robert, the world’s most perfect husband. Not a fault in him, except, perhaps, his very perfection.

“I’m always told I write quite nasty characters so it was different to have someone who was just so good. He’s lovely isn’t he? But I still love my vile characters.” Very reassuring.

■ Our Precious Lulu (Bantam £16.99); Eating Things on Sticks (Doubleday £10.99).

Volunteers needed for free online diet plan

ARE you looking to shed a few pounds in time for your holidays – or are you feeling the pinch after over indulging?

The team behind a new online diet plan is looking for women aged 25 to 35 who are keen to lose weight to attend two focus groups in Newcastle.

In return, participants will receive £200 worth of motivational training from a nutritional expert and performance coach, as well as free access to the personalised diet plan – which looks at ways to shed the pounds and boost health and energy levels.

Common Sense Diet is the idea of sports performance coach Simon Hartley, who has worked with Olympic stars such as gold medal winning cyclist Victoria Pendleton and North- East swimmer and bronze medallist Joanne Jackson.

Other clients have included premiership football clubs, such as Sunderland AFC, first class county cricket clubs Yorkshire and Durham and several rugby clubs.

Mr Hartley believes there is no such thing as a generic healthy diet and that a successful nutritional plan needs to be highly individualised to the body. Participants who sign up for the diet will receive a comprehensive plan in answer to a detailed questionnaire about their health, lifestyle and eating habits.

Interested participants need to be available on Thursday, July 23, for a 90-minute session, as well as for an hour on Thursday, August 13, for a follow-up session. Both events will be held in the centre of Newcastle from 6pm. Following the second session, participants will be invited to attend a one-hour motivational session to help them lose weight and gain energy.

■ To sign up, email madeleine.griffith@ mikeparkermedia.co.uk or call 0191-378-4430.

Top hats

FASHION icon Carla Bruni, right, has been named the winner of this year’s Celebrity Hat Wearers list.

The Italian-born wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy beat the Queen to the top title of the annual list.

Philip Wright, of Luton milliners Walter Wright, said: “Carla Bruni’s neat, chic, pillbox hat was a supreme example of classic simplicity at its best – a stylish understatement which captured the attention of the world’s media.”

The top celebrity hat wearers are:

1. Carla Bruni and Hugh Jackman

2. The Queen and Sir Sean Connery

3. The Countess of Wessex and Daniel Day Lewis

4. Victoria Beckham and Johnny Depp

5. Madonna and Peter Andre