In conversation with VG Lee

A friend gave VG Lee an unwanted birthday present — a course in stand-up comedy. But now she’s discovered laughter DOES make the world go round…

Being a stand-up comedian is a very tough job. Standing in front of people is never easy, but standing in front of people who judge everything you say and expect to laugh every few seconds is much harder.

You sometimes wonder why the hell people want to become a comedian in the first place, but VG does just that with gusto.

VG (Val) was born in Birmingham to parents who weren’t interested in her but has gradually worked her way southwards and now lives and writes in Hastings on the Sussex coast.

She has forged a successful comedy and writing career and has published four novels, and a collection of short stories. In 2012, her most recent novel, ‘Always you, Edina’ was chosen as Stonewall’s Book of the Month for June. At the end of November 2014 she won the Ultimate Planet award for Established Author of the Year.

I recently caught up with Val at her home in Hastings…

AJ: Hi Val, let’s start right at the beginning, how was your childhood?

VG: I didn’t have a happy childhood, neither my mother or father wanted children, they were very disappointed in us (me and my brother). When I was five my mother sent me away for around three months to my auntie and it was probably the best time I ever had. They didn’t like children, they found them boring, they were very sexual people and were just interested in affairs.

AJ: Has that affected your personal relationships?

VG: Yes, I am totally unable to have a decent one. I wouldn’t speak for my brother but I

certainly think it made us timid in some ways actually.

AJ: Did it make you not want children yourself?

VG: I would have liked children. Years ago I was married for quite a period of time, which

again was a bad and foolish move and at that time I would have liked children, although

in retrospect now I see that I would never have got away, or not got away as easily, as I

was quite a fearful person. Over the years I’ve grown stronger.

AJ: Have you been able to have any closure with your mum and dad, did you learn to accept how they were with you?

VG: Sadly not.When people say, ‘well they couldn’t have been as bad as all that’ I’m afraid they were as bad as all that.They probably held us both in fear, me and my brother. My dad certainly until his death and my mother was a force to be reckoned with.But in later years she was addicted to anti depressants and sort of disappeared for twenty years as a person, she was there but she wasn’t there.

AJ: Through your shared experiences are you close to your brother?

VG: I love him dearly and I’d say he loves me although we’re not always on the same wavelength…(laughs)…but we are totally linked.

AJ: You say you haven’t been able to form relationships fully but have you managed to find love?

VG: I love my friends and I often mention Mary, and I would say that I love her dearly and she is so important to me but I don’t seem to have the ability for the romantic love.

AJ: Do you feel that it is something that is missing in your life?

VG: No, I don’t. I feel that what I was hoping for in life was to have dear friends because I never had any of those for quite a long while, and I have them now. The friends that I do have I’ve known a long time and they are very close to me and I can cope with them but I couldn’t cope with a proper commitment.

AJ: You came to writing quite late, what did you do before that?

VG: I was a sign writer and mural painter in London with Mary. We had a company for twenty years. We did all sorts of funny cartoons of parrots kissing, beds running about, and Mary is still a sign writer. I was always good at drawing, although Mary is far better than I am, I have the common touch I think, although I don’t draw now .We set out to have a laugh and not make money and we did both.

AJ: Did you ever have a lightbulb moment when you thought, ’I want to write’ ?

VG: Yes, when I discovered that I could do it and that was in my early forties. I suddenly realised that I may not be the best at anything but I could put my thoughts down and create people and it was very very exciting to me.

AJ: And how did that progress in to the comedy?

VG: I started writing humour and then when I took myself more seriously I got a bit up my own backside and decided I wanted to be a literary author so I stopped writing comedy and wrote very dark pieces, then people were asking why wasn’t I writing comedy. In the end I grew out of those foolish few years, and thought I must just write what I like writing which is mainly comedy but every now and then I’ll write something not so funny.

AJ: Have you always been funny, as to me you always seem such a naturally funny person?

VG: I think I have. My paternal grandmother was very funny and my brother is very funny, it was probably our way of trying to amuse our parents. I was a loner for many years and humour was how I connected with people.

On a good day I think I can do it.

AJ: You had a big birthday coming up (60th) and set yourself some challenges, what were they?

VG: Someone bought me a comedy course down here in Hastings which I went on, and although I was terrible at the course, I was actually quite good at the comedy at the very end. I set myself a challenge of sixty comedy gigs in a year , which I booked straight away for my sixtieth year.

I did over ninety, plus a two week stint at the Edinburgh Festival, and put on two stone from eating burgers late at night!

I still do it now but I choose my venues, friendly rather than hostile ones..it’s fed in to the performing with the writing too. People expect me to be funny and both have helped each other.

AJ: What are you currently working on?

VG: I’m trying to finish a novel but it won’t happen this year because of other commitments. I’m trying to finish another funny story for performance because if you’re reading comedy it’s a bit like stand up, people expect you to have something new every time which is very difficult. My column for The Lady magazine this month is whether to have wood chip on the walls or not?

AJ: How do your characters come to you?

VG: I tend to start with people around me. I have my ex neighbour Les Next Door who features in all The Lady pieces, I’ve probably got a whole novel on him.

Mary has turned up in all sorts of guises but usually as friends who are difficult and selfish, but she doesn’t mind because she does like being in things. From that evolves other

characters, which are fictional. I try to fictionalise more as I have upset people in the past when I have used them.

AJ: Having read your books, you are very observational…

VG: I am, I can see something and describe it to someone, they they’ll see it and they won’t find it half as interesting and think I’ve made it up but I do have a humorous eye on the

world. Even when I’m very low I can find humour in something.

AJ: Describe your writing environment?

VG: I can write most places really. I’ll be writing on the train today when I go in to London. I told my friend Paul last night that when I’m settled I’m going to do a morning in the library and a morning in the pub on the corner. I’m going to force myself to have two half pints of Shepherd Neame beer and it will surely feed into something .

AJ: I’d like to see the difference between the library and the pub writing…

VG: I just wanted to set myself a test really as I do like pubs.

AJ: How do you feel that lesbian fiction is viewed these days?

VG: There are a lot more writers, which I’m really pleased about. Some are very good and some I feel, perhaps, aren’t working hard enough at it, just getting books out. But I’m glad to see there are so many more coming through. I’m one of the judges for the Polari First Book prize this year and to me, the quality of the entries is first rate. It’s wonderful to see. I want lesbian fiction to be respected and not just light.

AJ: How do you feel being labeled a lesbian fiction writer?

VG: I don’t mind that at all. I think I’ve always set out to be that without realising it. I never wanted to work for the mainstream. I maybe wanted that at some point in my life but never to the point where I could look out the lesbian characters, like I know some people have done, or made them slightly obscure because my life is surrounded by all sorts of people but very much lesbians. I write what I know. It’s all about the writing.

AJ: Is there a reason you have chosen to live in Hastings?

VG: It’s a bit like Hackney-on-Sea and I loved living in Hackney but I came to visit a friend at a time when I was feeling rather stuck and stolid in London and thought ‘I could live here’. I’ve never regretted it and I’ve been much busier work wise since I moved here .

AJ: What is next for you?

VG: Mary and I want to put together a book on our twenty years of sign making and writing. There’s some wonderful pictures and we were possibly the only women in London doing it at the time. I hope to finish my novel and would like to write a memoir before I get too old. I have never written about my childhood properly, because it’s too grim, but I might put that down on paper.

AJ: And finally, how are you feeling right now?

VG: I honestly wish everyone could have a life like mine. It’s come to me late but you get up in the morning and there’s jolly things to do: writing, talking, performing, what better life can a woman want?

(first published cover story Gaia magazine)