Made in Fulham
It never fails to surprise us what a talented bunch you Fulham folks are. Each month Urban Village Ldn introduces you to THe Fulham face behind an idea, product or business and asks them what they love about being a local resident. This month we talk to author Clare Pooley
How long have you called Fulham home? I first lived in Fulham, in a shared house off the Fulham Palace Road, after I graduated thirty years ago! My housemates were trainee doctors, and our house was always filled with people, but nobody ever did the washing up or any cleaning. It was great fun, but horribly slummy. I then bought my own flat in Sand’s End. It was a large one-bedroom maisonette which cost me the grand sum of £80,000. I moved away from Fulham when I got married, but found myself back here again twelve years ago.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your family I live with my husband, John, and three children - Eliza (17), Charlie (15) and Matilda (12), plus two border terriers and three pet mice, in a house I like to think of as ’shabby chic’ but Savills would no doubt describe as ‘in need of modernisation.’ Incredibly, we managed to get through lockdown without killing each other or falling out irreparably.
What’s your favourite local haunt and why? I am slightly obsessed by Brompton Cemetery, which features significantly in my novel, The Authenticity Project. I walk my dogs there about three times a week, and it’s an oasis of calm in the middle of the city, filled with birds, squirrels, trees and wildflowers. Every time you go there you’ll find a new gravestone with a fascinating story behind it. I always stop at Emmeline Pankhurst’s grave to say a silent thank you. There’s also a new cafe at the north entrance which serves a top notch cappuccino.
What is your slice of Fulham heaven and why? In a world where so many high streets are filled with identical shops which are part of large chains, I have a special place in my heart for Indian Summer, a unique cornucopia which makes me smile as soon as I walk in. I often go there to buy gifts, and always come out with something for myself. Also, I have huge love for Quirky Gadgets because the owner is utterly passionate about his business, will spend hours talking your kids through his recommendations, and often slips them a free gift.
What have you missed about Fulham life during lockdown? I’ve missed the restaurants and cafés the most. As there were five of us in the house for lockdown, including two very hungry teenagers, I seemed to spend my whole life cooking and cleaning up. I felt like I was running a hotel with very ungrateful guests. It’s a total joy to be able to go to Megan’s and have someone else cook your lunch!
What local shop/service/business has helped make life easier during the pandemic? The Harwood Arms, our local gastropub, did a fabulous Sunday lunch delivery. And for my husband’s birthday at the height of Lockdown One, Randalls made us the most delicious Beef Wellington and Circus Circus sent a taxi load of helium balloons round. Flavourtown kept us cheerful with cake deliveries! It was great to see so many local businesses adapting to the circumstances so brilliantly.
If you could do one thing to improve Fulham what would it be? l would love the council to change the parking regulations so that a Fulham permit allowed you to park all over the borough, as they do in Kensington and Chelsea. The recent parking fee hike, when we already pay for permits, is outrageous.
Tell us about your career as an author I spent nearly twenty years working in the heady world of advertising where I worked hard, played hard and drank even harder. When I finally and reluctantly quit drinking, in 2015, I started a blog by way of therapy called Mummy was a Secret Drinker. That blog picked up hundreds of thousands of readers around the world, and was published in 2018 as a memoir called The Sober Diaries.
I loved writing, and I’d wanted to be an author since I was a child, so I decided to try writing fiction. I did a three month novel-writing course with Curtis Brown, during which I wrote a rough first draft of The Authenticity Project - a novel set in Fulham. It features many places you’d recognise, from Nomad bookshop to Kebab Kid.
The reaction to that book was beyond my wildest imaginings, as it went to a six-way auction in the UK and the USA, and has been translated into thirty-two languages and optioned for film and TV. I’m now editing my second novel which will be out next year.
What advice would you give to someone who'd like to become a writer? Write something, anything, every day. Writing is a like a muscle you need to exercise. I start writing at 5am, when the world is quiet and I can think more creatively, and write for three hours before the kids wake up. Try not to worry too much about whether your work is any good, just get the story down on paper. Then when you’ve finished, you can go back to the beginning and make it better. The first draft of a novel is like the pencil sketch you make before painting a landscape. Once you have the outline you can start adding the colour, depth and detail. The magic is in the editing.
