Lucy Caldwell: ‘I felt sick with despair at the idea of growing up'
Lucy Caldwell: 'Having children has made me see so much anew through their eyes'
I was born in Belfast in 1981. I’m the eldest of three sisters, all close in age, and we were very close growing up. Like the Brontë siblings, we had complex imaginary worlds that we lived in for years. I didn’t want to grow up and felt sick with despair at the idea that I’d have to. It still seems miraculous now to have come through and have children of my own. My son is 7 and my daughter is 4 — that age when the worlds of their own imaginations are so alive.
I believe I was born to be the person I am. I wanted to write books before I could actually write — I’d fold the paper and do the drawings and tell my mum what words I wanted where. Even before that, I would crawl behind the sofa and pretend to be a radio telling stories. People encouraged me at every step along the way — my mum, taking us to the library twice a week, Wendy Erskine, my English teacher for sixth form, Chris Hannan, the playwright who was my first mentor at university, Jenny Diski, who told me I was a true writer. As a mother, I see how wildly creative all young children are, and as a teacher I see so many adults who had their creative urges belittled or quashed, or simply not encouraged, and who are desperate to get back to that place.
