Fay Weldon: the fearless glass ceiling cracker who loved being outrageous | Books

I have worked with a lot of writers on the festival circuit, most of them delightful – but I have never seen such an adoring literary audience as I did when I was on stage with Fay Weldon.

These were second-generation feminists, working mothers, divorcees, and they absolutely loved her for pouring her rage and impish sense of fun into her books – not just The Life and Loves of a She Devil but The Hearts and Lives of Men, Down Among the Women and more. She was prolific, which she always complained meant nobody took her seriously (although Praxis was shortlisted for the Booker prize).

Fay loved appearing before crowds, she loved being outrageous and cheeky and – let us not be euphemistic about this – she quite often spoke a load of absolute rubbish designed to get her into the papers. She was completely open that this was entirely a strategic move.

When I had had two books published she leaned towards me and said: “Now, look. Anyone can START a literary career. Getting it to carry on is the tricky bit!”, which was some of the most useful advice I’ve ever heard. Her own method was to say something utterly controversial and newsworthy whenever she had a book out, which generally worked like a charm.

I was once approached by a chocolate company to mention their chocolate bar in one of my novels after Fay had agreed to a product placement deal with a jewellery company for her book The Bulgari Connection. I asked her if I should do it. She thought this was an absolutely hilarious and incomprehensible question. Of course I should!

Her pronouncements could overshadow her achievements. She was one one of the early glass ceiling crackers; a legend in the 1960s advertising world, even if the slogan “Go to work on an egg”, famously attributed to her, was rather a joint effort. “Vodka gets you drunker quicker” was hers though, even though they weren’t allowed to use it. She was not, as she would put it, “the only true feminist” there was – but she was there. When teaching, if she felt she couldn’t help a student with their work she would occasionally give them a recipe, so that at least they’d have learned how to make a creme brulee.

The Life and Loves of a She Devil was huge; both the book and the extraordinary television series with Patricia Routledge, Julie T Wallace and Dennis Waterman as the prize they’re fighting over. For many of my generation it was by far the rudest thing they’d seen their mothers watch on television. But every one of our mothers did; it was a cultural phenomenon.

Fay was noisy in an era when women were expected to be quiet. She used her voice and took up space; she said what she felt, she brought energy and fun. And she was, as her book festival audiences could doubtless confirm, that very best and most attractive type of person: someone who is utterly, fearlessly and for ever true to themselves, to hell with the consequences. We will miss her.

I have worked with a lot of writers on the festival circuit, most of them delightful – but I have never seen such an adoring literary audience as I did when I was on stage with Fay Weldon.

These were second-generation feminists, working mothers, divorcees, and they absolutely loved her for pouring her rage and impish sense of fun into her books – not just The Life and Loves of a She Devil but The Hearts and Lives of Men, Down Among the Women and more. She was prolific, which she always complained meant nobody took her seriously (although Praxis was shortlisted for the Booker prize).

Fay loved appearing before crowds, she loved being outrageous and cheeky and – let us not be euphemistic about this – she quite often spoke a load of absolute rubbish designed to get her into the papers. She was completely open that this was entirely a strategic move.

When I had had two books published she leaned towards me and said: “Now, look. Anyone can START a literary career. Getting it to carry on is the tricky bit!”, which was some of the most useful advice I’ve ever heard. Her own method was to say something utterly controversial and newsworthy whenever she had a book out, which generally worked like a charm.

I was once approached by a chocolate company to mention their chocolate bar in one of my novels after Fay had agreed to a product placement deal with a jewellery company for her book The Bulgari Connection. I asked her if I should do it. She thought this was an absolutely hilarious and incomprehensible question. Of course I should!

Her pronouncements could overshadow her achievements. She was one one of the early glass ceiling crackers; a legend in the 1960s advertising world, even if the slogan “Go to work on an egg”, famously attributed to her, was rather a joint effort. “Vodka gets you drunker quicker” was hers though, even though they weren’t allowed to use it. She was not, as she would put it, “the only true feminist” there was – but she was there. When teaching, if she felt she couldn’t help a student with their work she would occasionally give them a recipe, so that at least they’d have learned how to make a creme brulee.

The Life and Loves of a She Devil was huge; both the book and the extraordinary television series with Patricia Routledge, Julie T Wallace and Dennis Waterman as the prize they’re fighting over. For many of my generation it was by far the rudest thing they’d seen their mothers watch on television. But every one of our mothers did; it was a cultural phenomenon.

Fay was noisy in an era when women were expected to be quiet. She used her voice and took up space; she said what she felt, she brought energy and fun. And she was, as her book festival audiences could doubtless confirm, that very best and most attractive type of person: someone who is utterly, fearlessly and for ever true to themselves, to hell with the consequences. We will miss her.