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..,r.Fffi -:r..;h[SN ;r;SgS "0irl Overboard", a column in The Observer's "Life" Magazine, tells the story of what it's like to reclaim a life alone, with wrv and sometimes painful clarity. Graeme Burk talks to writer Kathryn Flett about confessional writing and what it takes to be honest in this dav and age. D D ?utal Honesty ror the past year or so l've been I moved to, alternately, tears and laughter in Kathryn Flett's column I "Giil ou"rbourd" in the magazine section of the Observer.Her column has a dry wit and what has been termed by others a'brutal honesty' that has made reading it, for me, as much a Sunday ritual as going to Church or watching the EastEnders omnibus. Until February of this year, Kathryn Flett's front-page column was "Party Girl"- what she described as being "Tara Palmer-Tomkinson without the legs or the invitations"-but this changed with a Travel article in the Observer on the 9th February 1 997. Her brief was to write about a romantic weekend with her husband in Bruges. However, in-between the commissioning of the article and the actual trip, her husband-she had been married 16 months-had asked for a divorce. ln an article titled "By Waterloo Station I Sat Down and Wept" she interspersed into a simple travelogue the recounting of the final dissolution of her marriage; of being in a chocolate box of a romantic city while a mutual life eventually dies into a painful and awkward silence. I have never been in a relationship longer than three months, much less ever been divorced, but when I read "By Waterloo Station" I was profoundly moved by the rawness of it. When she wrote of the end of the weekend: "At Waterloo, people were being met by their'partners. As I watched mine striding ahead to the taxi rank, I felt him let go even more, unbouple and move on. By the time the taxi had taken us home, I knew nothing would stop him." I momentarily lost the ability to breathe. Subsequent articles in her rechristened column "Girl Overboard", continued with the same raw honesty about what it's like to find oneself on one's own. With sometimes painful clarity, the column talks about what it's like to go through the mundane experiences of loss (filling time in an evening, sorting out what to do with the rings, going to other people's weddings) as well as some difficult experiences (like discovering your husband has a new girlfriend). "Girl Overboard" isn't only about this-it's also a very funny column featuring Kathryn's funny and true observations on life-but it's the "arc" of the story of reclaiming a life alone. told with such unreserved honesty, that makes the column such a great, and sometimes powerful, read with a cuppa on a Sunday afternoon. And l'm not alone in this, as Kathryn discovered to her surprise when the post came in after the Bruges piece and her first columns. "Previously in /* one's career if you wrote something you only ever got negative responses because people will only ever pick up a pen and a bit of paper and write something if it's going to be negative. and this is not the case any more," she explains. "With this column I have had most incredible positive feedback, particularly in the early stages of it, which was just kind of a shock. As a writer you get so used to having people giving you a hard time and it was a very odd feeling to know that there were people who were rooting for you in some way." The word "honesty" is repeated constantly in my description of Kathryn Flett's writing. and it is probably what my "angle" is in interviewing her. lt strikes me that being honest isn't something that comes easily to us. Watch any edition of Newsnight and you can see that not being honest movemsnt 16 about screwing up is as natural as breathing to a politician; if asked how l'm doing during a difficult patch I tend to say "fine". Which is precisely what "Girl Overboard" doesn't do. I ask her about whether it's this honesty that touches a nerve for others. \? ffi a, raF.-.- "l think so. I think people are becoming increasingly wary of the kind of columns which say 'Oooh when I went to Sainsburys a very funny thing happened to me in the frozen veg counter'. I think-l wouldn't say I was wholly responsible for this at all, it's been going on forever-that when people read something which clearly comes from the heart they respond to it very intuitively, almost without realising why they're doing it. Which means that as
a writer you never can go back." But the honesty which touches a nerve in some people equally irritates others. "Girl Overboard" is very much a litmus test for people's comfort levels with this. One of my good friends the expectation that one will get on with it. She points out that after a column last summer where she reflected on Vogue's comments "l got the single biggest postbag of any week, which was people saying 'yes you're so .JIF YOU DON'T LEARN FROM EVERYTHING} tF YOU DOil'T LEARN FROl'l RELATIOISHIPS, TYHETHER THEY GO WRONG OR RIGHT, THEN WHAT IS THE POINT OF BXIXG H*REI LIFE IS VIRY ]VIUCH SCHOOL; WE'RE HERE TO LEARN.'' can't stand the column and thinks it's "whiny" and self-indulgent. Vogue and Pilvate Eye had a few negative things to say as well, the latter proclaiming Kathryn Flett to be one of the "New Solipsists". To me, the negative reaction indicates something about how people deal with being honest, and the lack of comfort our culture has towards this. "lt's a very English thing," Kathryn notes. "Certainly up until the point where Diana died and we all suddenly became American, to express your feelings in public is something we wouldn't do. It's a part of the national psyche. But I do think we are loosening up a bit. I think the recent Louise Woodward case has sort of unleashed a lot of touchyfeely emotions in people, whether rightly or wrongly. lthink this year (1997) may go down as the year in which people started to think 'Hey, being English needn't necessarily just be about stiff upper lips' and the whole thing. There are a lot of columnists and other writers pouring it out, letting it all hang out." Part of 'letting it all hang out' in "Girl Overboard" is talking about the after-effects of a divorce months after it happened. ln a recent column, Kaihryn herself admits that the readers' third-hand relationship with her husband has lasted almbst as long as the marriage itself. A tension expressed throughout the columns-and this certainly seemed to be the bee in Vogue's bonnet- is a sense of discomfort with this duration, a sense of 'okay you've talked about it and now be finished with it'. I've found that to be not only true of divorces. but bereavement of any sort, whether it be for a relationship or a death in the family. lt seems in many ways that Kathryn Flett is challenging an unwritten rule about how long one can talk about one's pain, and right- why is it that people say it's been five, six months, they're going to be alright, don't mention it again, just carry on."' "There becomes a point when the grieving process-and I use 'grieving' in the broadest possible sense- when people want you to pick up the pieces and carry on, and of course you do, inevitably- you are doing that, you are moving on. But it doesn't erase all the quickies What's your favourite possession? Things that connect me to the past. Old photographs, letters, my great-grandmother's wedding ring {which I wear every d"v)' What are you reading at the moment? There are always several on the go. Currently: Graham Greene's lhe End of The Affair, Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier and Roddy Doyle's The Woman Who Walked lnto Doors {doomed lovers the lot of them!) What's your favourite film? For All Mankind (a feature length documentary about the Apollo missions), The Right Stuff, ET ll'm into space!) and, er, Babette's Feast. fnovement 17 How do you relax? I don't! What's your favourite journey? Life What do you most like about yourself? My honesty! What do you most dislike about yourself? My self-absorption What's your favourite word? Bonkers lf you could be someone else who would you be? l'd only ever be any good at being me What are you scared of? F6ar Describe a recuning dream that you have I wrote a pain, because time has gone by, you actually take what you've learned and discovered about the situation with you and I don't think it ever goes away. lt gets compartmentalised, but it doesn't get forgotten and it doesn't go away. I do resent that [sentiment that you should pick up and carry onl, and from the reaction I got for saying that, a lot of people felt the same way. Some of the criticism l've had in the past few weeks has been 'oh for God's sake, when is she going to stop banging on? She's got one note and she keeps playing it.' But for me it's a part of my life. And even though I'm a lot happier in many ways, inevitably the results of what happened in the first part of this year are going to continue to effect me in numerous ways." Another recurring theme in "Girl Overboard" is, not surprisingly, change. I wonder how she sees herself having changed from the circumstances of the past year. beyond living alone. "Oh God, l'm going to slip into therapy-speak without being able to stop myself," she says wryly. "lf you don't learn from everything, if you do not learn from relationships, whether they go wrong or right or whatever happens to them, then what is the point of being here? Life is very much school; we're here to learn. Hopefully, we get a bit cleverer column about it once. It's called 'smooth planet/spidery planet' It's a bit complex! What do you never miss on TV? Well, it used to be EB until they moved it to Sky. Guess it's time to get cable. What music do you listen to most This week: The Verve's Urban Hymns, The Beach Boys'Per Sounds and Primal Scream's Screa ma delica (revisited !). What pet hates do you have? Male companions automatically being given the wine list in restaurants. What would your motto for living be? All Of Life ls School
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Page 21 and 22: Tim Woodcock reviews Elvis Costello
Page 23 and 24: The writer of Judge Dredd and a bun
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