Caitlin Moran
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You must remember this. A kiss is just a kiss. But Rosebud? Well, that's really satisfying. That lasts. I mean, a kiss, it comes, it goes, and who knows where it leads. But Rosebud, well, I hope you know, is going to lead to an interesting hour with an unusual person who has a remarkable story to tell. Today is no exception. Cue the music. Cue the music.
Every week on a Friday, I always say the same thing. I'm so excited by our very special guest. And I really am excited today. Well, I'm always excited, but I'm particularly excited because today we are talking to a writer whose work I have known for years and is one of the few writers whose work regularly makes me laugh out loud. She is a very funny person. But she's also a fascinating human being and quite a complicated person, I think. She's called Catelyn Moran. And if you read her work, you will already be thinking, oh, yeah, this is going to be a good one. If you know nothing about her, well, you're going to discover a person who... had an unusual childhood. For example, she was homeschooled and lived a fairly chaotic childhood in Wolverhampton.
But she wrote her way out of it. I mean, literally, this is somebody who wrote their way into the life that she now leads many years later. She won her first writing award when she was 13. She had her first book published when she was 16. She got a job for Melody Maker magazine when she was a teenager. She then became a columnist for the Times, I think at the age of 18. She wrote, if you know her from her books, it's How to Be a Woman, which became a huge bestseller. Now, just out, she has a fabulous new podcast called Outsiding, which she does with Adam Frost, which I recommend without reservation. And I recommend without reservation the time she's spending with us today on Rosebud. You'll find her funny and moving, revealing, and I think ultimately inspiring.
This is a special edition, Kathleen Moran on Rosebud. Cue the music.
Kathleen Moran?
Yes.
Pronounced correctly? Yes. Born Catherine Elizabeth Moran? Very much so. Changed to Kathleen when?
Oh, probably about 1989. I thought I needed something that sounded more romantic and Celtic. And also I was into numerology. There's a kind of spooky section in the local library that had things about witchcraft and palm reading. And one of them was about numerology in which every letter in your name has a numerical value. When you add them together, it tells you your future. Catherine Elizabeth Moran had a poor future, suboptimal. Catlin Moran had a glittering future. So I changed it. And is it Catlin? Yes, and it shouldn't be. So it is spelt C-A-I-T-L-I-N, which anyone else in the world should and would correctly pronounce Catlin. But I saw it in a Jilly Cooper novel. And I did not know how to pronounce it correctly.
I thought for some reason it was pronounced Catlin. And so I've had to spend the last 40 years saying, I'm so sorry it's Catlin. It shouldn't be. I'm really sorry. I've now become a problem to you. It's the biggest mortification of my life.
If it's the biggest mortification of your life, we're in for a pretty dull time together.
Oh, no. The thing is, all my other mortifications I'm pretty breezy about and have turned into copies. So that's fine.
Good.
Yes.
Okay, Catlin. Born 5th of April, 1975? Started the new tax year, yes. Wow. My first question is the same one I ask everybody. It's what is your very first memory?
So the first actual memory is boring. It's being a baby and being more drawn to black and white zigzaggy patterns than the floral, colourful, psychedelic things that were in my parents' flat. And then about 30 years later when I had my own children reading that, they'd done studies on this and there was a whole range of children's toys and educational stuff where everything was in black and white patterns because they'd found that that engaged babies' brains better than something colourful and soft, which is what we'd previously done for children. So I was like, oh yeah. Yes, I knew. I can confirm that. As a baby, I could have confirmed that for you.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–4:41
2
How did Caitlin Moran describe her unconventional childhood and homeschooling in Wolverhampton?
4:41–16:56
3
What stories did Caitlin share about her parents’ rock‑and‑roll lifestyle and its impact on family life?
16:56–1:09:45
4
How did poverty and family dynamics shape Caitlin’s drive to write and escape?
1:09:45–1:18:38