Come, it is by far, i am saying it, the finest Television Crime drama that we have in this country. Blue riband. I have seen this episode of which we speak. No spoilers. Who is this actress . She is the woman of the moment, she was in the replacement. A friend of mine thinks i look like her. They have enough of the familiar, adrian dunbar, vicky mcclure, who are excellent, every time, and then they have a guest antagonist, in this time, it is ten d newton, a list glamour, every single time, they have provided the spark. Thandie newton. I am a really big fan of it. It is some of the most tense television i have ever seen, i was watching it downstairs, as i came m, watching it downstairs, as i came in, plugged my headphones in that is the papers for this hour, they will be back at 11 30pm, for another look at the front pages. Coming up next, meet the author. Who doesnt enjoy a story that delves into the supernatural . It touches some of our deepest feelings and fears. Kate hamers new novel, The Doll Funeral, unfolds in a dark and mysterious place where a young girl, ruby, finds some escapee from a Nightmare Childhood at home and a strange kind of solace in the presence of ghosts. A story where the two strands in an adopted childs life are wound together in the world. Where we cannot be sure what is real and what is imagined. Welcome. I read somewhere, kate, that you were moved and i think horrified as a child by Grimms Fairy Tales, and having read The Doll Funeral im not really surprised because there is so much of that spirit in here. Definitely. I had a very old edition of Grimms Fairy Tales as well, i think it was from around the turn of the 19th, 20th century, so they definitely were not sugar coated in that version. In some ways, i feel the original Fairy Stories are crime stories, to a great extent. And so i was steeped in that from quite an early age. They are Horror Stories in a way, they are about lost children, about children being eaten, but fierce wolves coming out of the forest and witches, and so on. But our imaginations are stirred by these things, arent they. Yes, i think definitely because they speak to fundamental truths and fundamental fears within ourselves. So yeah, thats definitely something i have never shaken off, definitely. Particularly in this book. It begins with the revelation to a young girl, she is 13, ruby, that she was adopted. She is not a natural child of the parents she lives with. And to that extent she is confronted by the beginning which is what we are talking about. Yeah, definitely. Ruby finds out on her 13th birthday that she is adopted. And her reaction to this is that she runs out. Shes delighted shes delighted and sings forjoy, she just looks at the sky and start singing the joy. But there is a reason for this because her life has been such a brutish one up until that point. That was a very strong central image, a starting image for the book, i think. Of a girljust bursting out of the back door almost like a camera was following behind her. It was kind of a Jumping Off Point for the whole book. And what she then dares is to immerse herself, in a way, in an alternative world, where she is in the darkness of the forest of dean, dark in every sense, physically dark, a place you can get lost in, but also dark because there is evidence of the supernatural, there are strange People Living different lives. It is in that sense a journey into the unknown. Yeah, very much so. And i think fairy tales again come in here, because a lot of them, i mean, the forest is so important in fairy tales. It is about maybe straying off the path and goodness knows what is going to happen if you do, it could be dangerous but its often people looking for alternatives as well to the well trodden path, i think. And that is definitely what ruby does in the forest. Above all, it is a dark place. And there is a very, very strong Supernatural Element in this story which i will not go into details because it will spoil it for the reader. But she finds for herself that the division between the real world and the past world and the world of her imagination is a division that she can easily get rid of, quite easily. Yes, she slips between them quite comfortably. And i think its a lot to do with the book, is about how the past kind of enacts its presence on the present. And it is kind of, can you break away from that . Is the past resonating on the present, ruby is trying to escape that. She goes through trials, trials of fire and ice, and all sorts of things, and its the question, can we escape our past, can we make a new feature with different people. And a different outcome, can we find that Alternative Path in the forest . Because as this story unfolds she is at a very important point in her life physically and mentally, she is 13, she is going into adolescence, all sorts of things are happening to her, physical and mental. And it is a story that in our own way, we all know. I think it is just an interesting age where you are on the threshold and the cusp of so many things, it is an age where, i think, things happen for you. And also can go badly wrong, quite easily. The girl in the red coat was a book that made a huge reputation feel and like the book, this book is written in a way that grabs you from the first page. Are you one of those writers who thinks that really in the end, everything is in the first Li S Paragraphs . Oh, that is really interesting. I will tell you the way i write, i tend to write the beginning, maybe the first two chapters, Something Like that, and then very quickly move on write to the last paragraph, definitely the last line, which doesnt seem to change. Which suggests that they are related yes that is very interesting because there are people who just head off into the wide blue yonder and say where will this idea take me, you are not one of them . I think, from point a to b, there can be various ways. Things can happen there. Did the Supernatural Element grow in your hands, once you got your teeth into the story . I think it did. There is a little character called shadow in it. Quite a tricksy dark little character. He is an imp. His presence was much lighter in the first draft, i found, and this is what i find more than anything, its the characters that kind of tag on your sleeve. And he was definitely one of those. Do you find yourself susceptible to the idea of occurrences that are inexplicable . I have never actually experienced it but i know people who i sort of trust, rational, sane people, who believe that they have. I just think its fascinating. I believe the really supernatural thing is the mind, fundamentally. And actually the mind, it can do anything. And it plays tricks we cant understand. Exactly. But in the end, to go back to where we began, it takes us into the world of the fairy tale because that kind of story, the gothic gloom and excitement of some of those old fairy tales, passed down the generations, turn up in all sorts of cultures in different forms, neverfades, does it . No, i think there is something about these folktales, these old stories thatjust goes very, very deep. And i bet you that if you picked up that battered old copy of your Grimms Fairy Tales you would know before you turn to each page what the picture was going to be on the next page thats so true. Because i have still got it and those illustrations are so familiar, absolutely. I know exactly what you mean. Kate hamer, thank you very much indeed. Thank you very much. Even here, sky is not as blue as they were yesterday, lovely day for most of us, hitting a high of 20, in scotland. Large area of High Pressure keeping things at bay. Around that area, already some cloud, we will see the north sea filling in with cloud, some of that will be heading our way. What we have seen today is mostly high level cloud and the sunshine has been hazy. Conditions earlier on, in suffolk. Temperatures not as high as they were in the highland scotland, but with clear skies and no wind, temperatures will fall quickly overnight, particularly across mainland scotland, areas of low cloud coming in, arresting that temperature. A chilly night, maybe colder than last night across southern parts, like the wind, more towards the north west that we can see temperatures below freezing. Not as cold for northern ireland, and it will soon warmed up in the sunshine across mainland scotland. Different start to the day really, all the way from north east england, east wales, starting a bit grey, may well be some mist and fog around, the odd patch of cloud elsewhere. That greyness takes a little while to lift, slowly, we should see it improving in most areas as the sunshine comes out, some stubborn areas of cloud lingering, added more than today but most of us will see sunshine. The north sea coast, notably north east england, grey and cold but with light wind in the south east, this is where we will see highest temperatures, 17, even 18 degrees, across highland scotland. As we run through the rest of the week, more and more cloud arriving, that brings with it the threat of showers and longer spells of rain. Warm air across the uk, southerly wind, the High Pressure is getting squeezed away into continental europe. Pressure continues to fall on tuesday and from the south west, we start to see some rain For The First Time. Showery rain For The First Time coming into the south west, later Northern England and southern scotland, quite heavy, showers, some sunshine in the south east. This is bbc news. Im martine croxall. The headlines at 11pm the government steps up pressure on Internet Companies over access to encrypted messages. The westminster attacker, khalid masood, is thought to have used whatsapp moments before he killed four people. The Home Secretary says firms must act. We need to make sure that organisations like whatsapp, and there are plenty of others like that, dont provide a secret place for terrorists to communicate with each other. As the investigation continues, theres been another arrest. A 30 year old man from birmingham is being questioned. Its emerged People Living close to the site of a major explosion on Merseyside Last Night reported smelling gas at least 2a hours beforehand. More than 30 people were injured, two seriously
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