An interview with Kit de Waal

Kit de Waal is a writer, screenwriter, playwright and activist whose work brings a rare combination of compassion, humour and hard-won truth to the page. Raised in 1960s Birmingham by an Irish mother and a Caribbean father, she has spent much of her career exploring class, identity, and the care system in Britain, both through her writing and through her lived experience working in criminal and family law. From her debut novel My Name is Leon to her memoir Without Warning & Only Sometimes, de Waal writes with an unwavering commitment to those so often left out of the story.

Interviewer: You were born as Mandy but you write as Kit. Where does Kit come from?

Kit: Kit is a childhood name that I got when I had a lisp and I couldn't say kiss, so I used to say Kith. And having brothers and sisters makes absolutely certain you'll be teased mercilessly for any deficiencies, so I got called Kit.

Interviewer: You grew up in Birmingham in the 1960s. Your mother was Irish and your father was from the Caribbean. What was it like to navigate both cultures growing up?

Kit: Um, I didn't feel any sort of deficit from it. It was fabulous, you know? It was great to have these two- three cultures actually, because you have Irish, Caribbean, and we're Brummies, which is a culture all of its own. Wouldn't even say it's British. It's Brummie. Um, and it was... there weren't many mixed race people at all. There were very few Black people on telly, very few Irish people. Mostly comedians. Wasn't sort of taken seriously. I loved it. I loved moving between those two cultures. You find yourself code switching really easily, really early, and you become a master at it. I still do it now.

Interviewer: You worked in criminal and family law as a magistrate for 15 years. What was that like?

Kit: Fascinating. What I learned from working in criminal law particularly is that very few bad people. There's good people that do bad things. It's a very different thing. People that make mistakes, people that find themselves in a situation, people that think "I'm going to do that and I'm going to get away with it," it's not bad necessarily. Then there are really bad people that are capable of good things and capable of change. There's really bad guys I worked with who love their mom, really good to their next door neighbour, would save a cat, but they're bad guys and they break the law. And I found that really interesting, uh, and a real lesson in being non-judgmental, and seeing everyone as a human first and the things they do are secondary to that.

Interviewer: What do you think is people's biggest misconception about the care system in the UK?

Kit: Um, biggest misconception about care. I would say that love is... A) Love is enough, that if you adopt children and put them in a foster home, you can love their pain away. You can love their damage away. Love is not enough. You can't always love the damage away. Secondly, that it costs millions and millions of pounds and, um, that there's loads and loads of adoptive parents waiting to adopt children. There are not. There's lots of adoptive parents waiting to adopt babies. Not to adopt seven year olds, eight year olds, nine year olds, 15 year olds. These children are somehow bad, like they've done something wrong, like they'd be terrible to look after. It's the most rewarding thing you could ever do to care for a child that needs a family. I wish more people would come forward and, foster or adopt. It'd be so good for society and so good for the child. Mostly so good for you as a person.

Interviewer: Your debut novel, My Name is Leon, is about a mixed race boy navigating care in 1980s Birmingham. How long did you have the idea for the book before you started writing it?

Kit: The book came from a short story, actually. So I suppose I had it all together for about two years. And I only wrote it because I couldn't get my two crime novels published. No one wanted to publish them. Weren't very good. And so I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna have to write the thing I don't really want write. The big thing, the story that means a lot to me, the story where you better not fuck up." So I wrote it thinking, "I'm not up to this." You know? "I don't really know if this is the right thing for me to be doing. I'd much rather be writing my crime novels." Soon as I got into it, I just loved it. I loved it, and I found my voice. I found the thing I care about. But yeah, it took me a good two to three years to decide that's the book that I was gonna write.

Interviewer: It gives Leon's... it's such a vivid child eye perspective. Was it sort of difficult writing as a child, or was it quite nice to have a bit of innocence that was going on around him in the book that you, as the reader, spot things he doesn't spot

Kit: Yes. I never... You know, it, it sounds like I sat down and thought about alternatives. I didn't. Um, it was a boy... it was a book about a boy, therefore it was gonna be the boy's point of view. I wasn't interested. I know very well what social workers think, what foster parents think. Don't really know what boys think, nine-year-old boys think. So for me, that was an exercise in-... being really faithful to whose story is. There's loads of books written from adult perspective, not so many about boys in the care system. In fact, very few. I really wanted to be faithful to him and give him a chance to have his say and to be centre stage. So, I never played with alternatives. I was just like, "Yeah, this is Leon's story."

Interviewer: How were you involved in the BBC adaptation and what was it like seeing Leon brought to life on screen?

Kit: It was utterly fascinating to see lines that I had written being said by actors. You know, it was just like, oh my god, it sounded so much more powerful. And in the context, you know, I was on set for a couple of days and they had mocked up a 1980s hospital ward and it was just so believable even with all the cameras and the crew there. It was so interesting. And I have a micro part, so I've got a sort of four-second part when I'm, I'm not even an extra, I'm the extras' extra. The camera sort of floats past me and I'm there. Oh, it was fabulous. I loved it.

Interviewer: You've spoken a lot about the challenges working-class writers face. Do you think the publishing world has improved in the almost 10 years since your debut novel?

Kit: The publishing world has definitely improved for working-class writers getting into the industry, getting published, being recognised. As someone who has not got a fair crack of the whip. So, it's really good that now you could say, "I'm a working-class writer," and people will understand that that comes with challenges. That was definitely not the case before. So, it's improved. A long way to go. It's still not equal. It's, still massive challenges. The publishing industry being absolutely concentrated in London is still a thing. Not to say there aren't working-class people in London, but there's more working-class people outside of London who have to go to London, negotiate with London, be away from home, travel a lot, spend money on travel. Lots of literary events happen and end in London. So, there's lots of ways it could be improved. But it definitely has changed. I think the publishing industry has made huge attempts at change.

Interviewer: Tell us about setting up the Kit de Waal scholarship. What impact do you think it's had and what more would you like it to do?

Kit: So I set up the scholarship really because I wanted to give someone a chance that I never had. I wouldn't even say it was a way of paying back, 'cause I don't think I got anything, but it was, it was just a way of saying, "Look, you know, we could do this together." I really wanted it to be something that made people respond and made people think about it. And since then, there've been quite a few other scholarships set up by other writers, which is great. I would love to have three scholarships. Still only one. I wish there was more generosity from other writers and from organisations, mostly in the publishing industry. But we'll get there. You know, it's still doing its thing out in the world. The writers that have benefited from the scholarship are still writing, which is the point of it. Giving people a chance to see what it feels like to go to university. Many people have not been to university that would have liked to have gone, and this is their chance.

Interviewer: What advice would you give to someone that is trying to break into writing today?

Kit: It's tough, I'd say....it's very tough to break into writing today. First of all, learn the craft. First, second, third, learn the craft of writing. Don't think that you can do it without paying your dues to the craft. If you want to be a chef, you have to learn knife skills, you have to learn pastry, you have to learn how to cook. Uh, if you want to be a writer, you have to learn the craft.
Then you have to network. And it's a horrible word. I hate it. Everyone hates it. But you really have to get in there. Find out the organisations that can help you, go to their events, get stuck in. And mostly be persistent. Be persistent. You know, just knock on doors, get an agent, find a way into the industry, which is really difficult. I would never underestimate how difficult it is.

Interviewer: Going onto your memoir now, ‘Without Warning, Only Sometimes’. It's very personal, but it also has a lot of humour in it as well. Was it easier or harder to write about your own life or, than fiction?

Kit: Oh, it was way easier to write than fiction. For a start, I know the plot. I know all the characters. I know the setting. I don't have to make anything up. It was a joy and so easy to write and I just sat down and wrote a list of all the scenes I could remember from my childhood where something happened, and just wrote them. I mean, it was just lovely. It was, it was ... The hard thing was what to leave out. What am I not gonna talk about? And there were so many things I haven't... Just didn't get the space to write about. And it only goes from my birth to 22. It was brilliant. Loved it. Easy.

Interviewer: Do you think you'd write another one going from 22 to 40?

Kit: No, 'cause I, I really got boring when I stopped taking drugs. (laughs) I mean, I really did. It... I don't do anything, you know, I watch Coronation Street. I go to Tesco, I look after my plants. There's nothing interesting about me now. I was a bit weird up until 23, so... (laughs)

Interviewer: What did you learn about yourself in writing your memoir?

Kit: I sort of always knew that there was a lot of humour in, in my childhood. You know, we were poor, properly poor, and it was a weird childhood. You know, my mother was in a cult. My dad was pretty emotionally absent. Uh, it was, it was strange. But I think in, in the writing of it, I was laughing all the time. And also, I did the audiobook, and in the audiobook... You know, it takes about seven hours to record, maybe a bit more. I extended that by two hours because I couldn't get through the passages without laughing, you know, and I was mimicking my dad, and I was just thinking, "Do not, do not start laughing." And, and you can hear it.
There's a couple of instances in the book where I'm just about holding it together, and you can hear my voice, and my brothers and sisters who listened to the audiobook said, "You were nearly corpsing so many times." So, I think I had a greater appreciation of just how funny my childhood was and how much humour we found between us.

Interviewer: That's lovely. What a nice thing to find out.

Kit: Yes, yeah.

Interviewer: You've written novels, short stories, memoirs, plays. What's left to explore? Is there anything else you want to tick off?

Kit: That's really interesting. I would still like to write a crime novel. You know, I really would like to write, you know... Not a police procedural, can't stand them, but something... underworld. Underbelly. Yeah, still like to write a really good crime novel. I'd probably have to write it under a pseudonym. But yeah, that's, that's one of my dreams.

Interviewer: And just lastly, out of all your characters that you've written, which is the one you feel closest to?

Kit: A really bad guy called TV. His name's Thomas Federer, and he gets called TV. He's a Norwegian gangster. He's....I've never actually written a story about him, but he's in my first novel. He's utterly compelling, and one day I will get to write about him. He's great.