Two hackneyed sayings ricocheted through my brain when I began this article.
Janet Hoggarth
‘Write about what you know’ and ‘Everyone has a book in them’. My latest novel, The Single Mums’ Mansion, marries both of those phrases together perfectly. Having written children’s books on and off for twenty years, I felt a change was much needed and asked my agent what he thought about branching out into adult books. He got very excited when he read a discarded blog I had written during my time in a single mum commune with my three kids, a friend and her small baby, and immediately declared that I should rework the collection of extremely defamatory, raw emotional essays into a book. I toyed with creating a memoir like Eat Pray Love (though it would have been more like Eat Chips Drunk), but couldn’t afford any expensive law suits, so settled on a fictional account of my time in what jokingly became known as the Single Mums’ Mansion.
When my ex-husband left me with three kids under five plunging me into a hell hole of grief and confusion, I floundered around for months feeling like the only person on the planet that this had ever happened to. However, a few months later, a dear friend experienced the exact same thing, but she was left with a four-day old baby. When her house was sold from under her feet, I suggested she move into my deserted attic room for a few months to collect her thoughts and hatch a plan. The few months turned into a few years and we quickly morphed into a patchwork family, adopting two rescue cats and another single mum along the way. Instead of feeling like we had all been abandoned, we began living once more. I started writing again and Vicki was able to return to work as a fashion stylist knowing that I was looking after her baby. We shared childcare duties, cooking, household chores, held Tarot card evenings, baked legions of cakes, drank far too much wine, kissed quite a few frogs, cried when the husbands got engaged, held crazy parties and honoured our open door policy to all the waifs and strays in East Dulwich where we lived. All of these real aspects are carefully woven into the narrative of the book and mingle perfectly with whole swathes of outrageous fictional antics that the characters Amanda, Ali and Jacqui get up to.
The Single Mums’ Mansion wrapped up quite a few years ago when I met my second husband, but the memories of our time in the commune will be treasured for ever. Even now, the children will often reminisce about the Santa Mummies’ Christmases, the endless parties, the cakes for breakfast and the bustling house that saved all of us from sinking without a trace. What could have been a torturous lonely time instead became a celebration of female solidarity, friendship, love and cake.
The Single Mums’ Mansion is published on June 1st