Forget Me Not is a clarion call: we all need to play a part in tackling this most existential of threats. Everyone can see wildlife in the British Isles without contributing to its destruction. With joyful irreverence, Sophie shows us we can dare to hope. Journey with her, and she may even inspire you to take action for nature and head out on your own low-carbon adventure.
Yesterday I spoke with Sophie Pavelle for a podcast about her upcoming book ‘Forget Me Not’ which will be published by Bloomsbury on the 9th of June.
Neither of us had met before, but I’d heard only good things about Sophie - very smart, GSOH, etc and so it turned out. In fact, having read a pre-publication copy of ‘Forget Me Not’ (thankyou Bloomsbury) I wasn’t surprised at all. It is very smart, funny, and beautifully written. #reallygood (Hmm, I seem to have picked up some of Sophie’s literary modernisms over the last week or so!)
This isn’t going to be a review of the book, by the way. The podcast will sort of do that when I post it (Sophie’s team has asked me to delay until nearer the launch date which is fine by me), but I thought I’d write a little about the interview as I have this Substack and a blank page I can fill with whatever I want. Which sounds horribly self-indulgent (apologies) but one or two of you may be interested in how the interview went.
To cut a long story short etc, it went really well thankfully. If I sound at all surprised, that’s not on Sophie who was a very generous interviewee. No, it’s just that I’m always hugely relieved when I talk to someone I don’t know and they don’t roll their eyes (not even once) or give me that quizzical and accusatory expression we all recognise that reaches out from the computer screen and says. “Why are you asking me THAT?”…
Relieved? Indeed, because the truth is that while I’ve recorded hundreds of interviews now (most of which have long disappeared from the internet), I still get horribly nervous before each one. I really do. It’s not a matter of ‘expecting to fail’ or anything or that I think I’ll ever have a Meg Ryan v Michael Parkinson-style utter mismatch, I just really want the interview to go well!
There’s no reason it shouldn’t but I’m almost obsessively appreciative that interviewees (or guests as I prefer to think of them) give up a slice of their (usually full) working day to discuss a campaign they’ve spent months on or a book they may have spent a year or more on. They’re heavily invested in what they’ve sat down to talk about and as an interviewer I should show them - inside the first few seconds of talking with them if I can - that I care about that as much as they do.
In other words, I feel a responsibility to the guest. A responsibility above just treating them with the courtesy and respect that everyone deserves (except for this one idiot I ‘interviewed’ some years back who was the most patronising ‘mansplaining’ tosser I’ve ever spoken with and, no, I won’t name names, but honestly there’s a reason I don’t waste time talking with spokespeople from the shooting industry). That translates into an almost desperate sense of getting the interview ‘right’.
I feel that especially strongly if I’m talking to an author. I wanted to be an author. I tried for a few weeks to be an author. Writing a book is bloody hard. At an absolute minimum a guest who has completed that particular marathon deserves an interviewer who has read their book. And thought about it properly of course. I always do that, and being nervous and caring seems the least I can do on top …especially when your guest is NOT some grizzled pro who couldn’t care less what ‘Charlie ‘Who?’ Moores’ thinks about their book as long as they get another opportunity to talk about themselves (whoops, I mean about their book).
It feels like a bit of self-puffery to say I have a ‘method’ for doing interviews. I mean, how hard could it be, eh, rremember to send out the invite, remember to turn on the recorder - I still blush at the time I had to stop a prominent politician in mid-flow and admit I’d just missed ten minutes of her insightful conversation because I was so nervous I’d forgotten to press ‘record’ - say thanks, go away and edit. But I do have a process of a sort. And part of that process is that I don’t tend to write questions. I think about what I want to say, but arrange them in bullet points - which can go several ways.
One way (which has only happened once or twice) is that my bullet points might as well have been about a different subject entirely which leads to that look I referred to above (even more embarrassing in pre-pandemic face-to-face meetings).
Another (again only once or twice) is that what I found interesting is not what the guest wants to talk about (cue metaphoric scrumpling up of paper and a racking of a brain suddenly turned to porridge for some new avenues to explore).
Yet another - and this is one reason I don’t like sending bullet points ahead of time for the interviewee to read - is that the guest answers my first question by obligingly whizzing through every single point I intended to read in a five-minute, breathless splurge then sits back, job done, and waits for the next question. Which I don’t have. Darn their dark - though admittedly helpful - heart.
The best ‘way’, though, is when the guest is generous, almost anticipates which direction you’re taking the conversation and is a willing passenger, and - and how much does an interviewer like to hear this - every so often nods and says. “Now that’s a good question” like they’ve never been asked it before as they sort of acknowledge that the slightly damp, palpitating person in front of them is doing their best…!
Sophie was of course entirely in the latter camp (or - unless I was feeling especially spiteful - I wouldn’t be writing this blog). She was interesting and interested, thoughtful, and (and I used this word in the interview itself while admitting it’s a word I don’t really like) charming. But she was - absolutely charming.
All of which was just great. An hour flew by. I didn’t once feel like I was an idiot who had no right to be interviewing a young woman at the start of what will be a very important career (‘had no right’ - we actually touched on imposter syndrome in the interview too). She was (thankfully) exactly as I guessed she might be from her writing and her book. Bright, thoughtful, and very impressive.
To borrow a phrase from Forget Me Not, Sophie Pavelle is (or is going to be) ‘a bit of a legend tbh’
Forget Me Not Finding the forgotten species of climate-change Britain by Sophie Lavelle will be available from the 9th of June 2022 from Bloomsbury.