It's lovely that Steve Wright is in my new novel
| Published date | 15 April 2024 |
| Publication title | Huddersfield Daily Examiner |
"But obviously I will never change it. It's lovely that's it's in there. It was really nice that he's in there."
It was Sara, 49, who choked back tears when she paid a moving tribute on her radio show soon after his death was announced.
"We were all really shocked. It was a real shaker. Nobody was expecting it at all," she says.
"You just want to handle it as best you can because you want to support the listeners as well.
"You've got to remain in control, while at the same time obviously showing your emotion because you are genuinely shocked and really sad. And you can still feel it in the building a little bit."
Fellow presenter Jeremy Vine also features in a cameo radio chat during a car journey in the same book. She tried comically to emulate his voice in the audio book.
"I listen to Jeremy every day and he's a good mate as well and I thought it [the accent] would be easy, but it's impossible."
It's clear her Radio 2 family mean a lot to her, as she shows in the acknowledgements.
"When I occasionally arrive at the studio, pale and subdued after a solitary morning wrestling with words, your hilarious input and funny tales never fail to put a whacking big smile on my face," she writes.
Her personality also seeps into Way Back, which centres on a working-class northern woman, Josie, who has lived a largely middle-class life in a leafy part of north London with her wealthy, charming husband, James, who spouts snobbish stereotypes about the North, which she used to find funny.
After 23 years, their marriage has come to its natural end, they both agree. Even their daughter Chloe is fine about it.
It's a thoughtful, witty family drama with complex issues, in which Josie, who is approaching middle age, attempts to come to terms with the premature death of her father, aged 38, in a car crash, and her mother Sandra's refusal to discuss it - or memories of him - with her daughter.
In the novel, Josie stumbles upon the old family farm in Lancashire where she spent her childhood and decides that to confront her future, she needs to move back.
The notion of moving back to her own roots is one that has been swirling around Sara's mind for a while, she says, admitting that some of her protagonist's thoughts mirror her own.
"I'd love to get a little place, to be...
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