Maggie O’Farrell

So,

For that research, I did do some kind of hands-on research for that.

And I did learn to fly a castor tool.

And I went to the Scottish Borders and I learned to fly a castor tool.

And that was literally the most fun thing I've ever done in the name of work.

I loved it.

And I did come back and I said to my husband, I really want to get a castor tool.

kestrel and it's kind of uh no i don't think also i've got lots of cats so you know it could be could be quite ugly not great and and i learned how to make bread from a tudor recipe and i planted my own elizabethan herb garden because i read that every house would have had a medicinal garden to kind of treat minor ailments and it would have been the woman of the house's responsibility to know how to use them and to cure things like colds or bruises or sprains or whatever

My world is light years, our world is light years away from the world of Agnes Shakespeare and Hamlet and Judith and Susanna.

So in order to kind of inhabit their lives, I really felt like I needed to do what they did and understand what it felt like to be them.

So that's why I did these things and I went on a course to learn how to make medicines.

And I did make my Tudor bread, which wasn't delicious, I have to say.

It didn't go down very well with my 21st century kids.

A bit dry, yeah.

Tough.

Do you know, I do.

I still make an elderberry syrup that I dose people up with if they are getting a cold, yeah.

And scotch pine, very good for chest infections if anyone's worried this winter.

You've literally turned into Agnes.

It's gorgeous.