Hester Browne

Hester Browne Revealed

About Hester Browne

What is your birthdate?:

2/22
Favorite job:

I think the one I've got now is pretty hard to beat!
High school and/or college:

I went to St Bees School, an old private grammar school in the Lake District, and Trinity College, Cambridge, where I read English, with a bit of Latin
Name of your favorite composer or music artist?:

I love Baroque music, being a recorder player manque - Vivaldi and Scarlatti are my favourites, and also Handel. When it comes to more modern music, I'm never very far away from a Led Zeppelin album, and I love other English folk musicians, like Richard Thompson, Fairport Convention and now Teddy Thompson.
Favorite movie:

Sleeping Beauty and High Society
Favorite television show:

Mad Men! I'm in love with the clothes and the zingy conversation, and the glorious women and the men in sharp suits and the terrible, terrible shenanigans. I've also been watching Coronation Street since I was very small, and can't do without my daily dose of Judge Judy.

Revealing Questions

Q. How would you describe perfect happiness?: A. Dancing. There's something about dancing that makes me absolutely glad to be alive, whether it's sweeping around the floor in a romantic foxtrot, or being part of a surging crowd at a gig. I had a moment of true happiness earlier this year - I was at a reeling ball up in Scotland, performing The Reel of the 51st Division with about 200 other people. It was 2.30 am, the band were in full flow, and I was being spun from partner to partner without even having to think of anything but the music, and for a second the whole room was in step, lifted up by the tempo getting faster and faster... I couldn't stop smiling. It was one of those blissful moments of utter joy, when you think your feet are lifting off the floor, you're so filled with elation.
Q. What’s your greatest fear?: A. Something awful happening to any one of my family, or someone harming my dog.
Q. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?: A. In Galway, eating oysters and drinking Guinness
Q. What are your most overused words or phrases?: A. oh, fabulous!
Q. What do you regret most?: A. That I can't persuade Violet, my Basset hound, to get into my beloved green Mazda Miata.
Q. If you could acquire any talent, what would it be?: A. I'd love to be able to ride and/or speak fluent Italian- so chic
Q. What’s your greatest flaw?: A. I have absolutely no will power, and a tendency to over dramatise.
Q. What’s your best quality?: A. I can see the funny side of pretty much anything apart from tax returns
Q. If you could be any person or thing, who or what would it be?: A. I'd quite like to be my own dog - Lady Violet Browne lives the life of Riley and is terrible well bred
Q. What trait is most noticeable about you?: A. When I'm in New York, I am the most English person you will ever, ever meet.
Q. Who is your favorite fictional hero?: A. Romantic hero? I have a longterm crush on Luke the Real Man from "Rachel's Holiday" by Marian Keyes: not only is he tall, dark and Irish, he's also strong yet sensitive - swoon. I've also loved Jane Austen's Emma Woodhouse since I read 'Emma' at school. She feels like a very modern heroine, even in that nineteenth century setting - Emma worries about coasting by on charm, but doesn't do much about improving herself; she gossips and sets up her friends on dates, instead of examining her own heart; she can't resist a wisecrack, up to the moment when she humiliates poor silly Miss Bates at the picnic and feels the wrath of Knightley as well as her own guilt. The novel's nearly two hundred years old, but who hasn't let a cruel comment slip in the office kitchen, only to cringe at that 'you've gone too far!' tumbleweed - and realised, to their horror, that their work crush is listening in? And yet Emma learns, sort of, so there's hope for all of us careless wisecrackers (by which I mean me). Having said that, I'm not sure being Mrs Knightley would be quite as much fun as being Mrs Darcy, but that's a whole other discussion.
Q. What is your biggest pet peeve?: A. random apostrophes in signs, and people who talk on their phones while they're driving.
Q. What is your favorite occupation, when you’re not writing?: A. scouring eBay for vintage bits and pieces, walking, and gossiping over cocktails with my friends
Q. What’s your fantasy profession?: A. Motoring correspondent for Tatler
Q. What 3 personal qualities are most important to you?: A. Generosity, a sense of humour, and a bit of integrity
Q. If you could eat only one thing for the rest of your days, what would it be?: A. rare steak with a green salad
Q. What are your 5 favorite songs?: A. 'Since I've been loving you' by Led Zeppelin; 'Persuasion' by Richard Thompson; 'Let's Do It' by Ella Fitzgerald; 'Rule Britannia' by Thomas Arne; 'True Love', Bing Crosby & Grace Kelly

On Books and Writing

Q. Who are your favorite authors?: A. Kate Atkinson, Nancy Mitford, Sophie Kinsella, Laurie Graham, John Galsworthy, Wilkie Collins, PG Wodehouse
Q. What are your 5 favorite books of all time?: A. The Forsyte Saga: it's a wonderful love story that winds through generations like ivy, and creates a vivid sense of how much London society changes in the years leading up to the First World War. The passion between Jolyon Forsyte, his lover Irene Heron, and her husband, his cousin Soames, burns even more violently for being set against the disintegrating customs and social mores of the time; it's as much about the destructive British desire for acquisition and Empire-building as the human love story. I also love the fact that there are so many volumes of it. Rachel's Holiday: I have read this so many times, and it always makes me laugh. It's very, very funny, but also a bittersweet and honest account of drug addiction. That the reader doesn't realise just how unpleasant the heroine is until halfway through - and yet still loves her and longs for her to conquer her demons - is a mark of how well written it is. Also, I adore Luke. And his leather trousers. And his Led Zeppelin answer phone message. Behind the Scenes at the Museum: this is an extraordinary first novel about a Northern childhood and a secretive family and muddled memories, and a woman's journey to pinpoint exactly who she is. Kate Atkinson writes novels like intensely detailed collages - the individual stories seem so dense that you only see how neatly they fit together at the end. She also has a sharp ear for dialogue, and plays with language and literary style. It's hard to pick just one of her novels as a favourite: I love all of them - One Good Turn, and Human Croquet are also stories to lose yourself in on a winter's evening. Dracula by Bram Stoker. I slept with the lights on for three nights after reading this. In fact, every time I've re-read it, I've had to sleep with the lights on. It's spookier than any horror film I've ever seen, and quite brilliant. The Importance of Being Kennedy by Laurie Graham. This is a fictional account of the Kennedy family's time in London before the war, when Joe was the US Ambassador, written from the point of view of Nora, the Irish nanny to the huge brood of Kennedy children. It's poignant and funny, and ironically brings a fresh way of looking at real people who've almost become like fictional characters themselves, through decades of familiarity and myth-making. For once, it's not Jack who takes centre stage, but the women of the family who shine out from Nora's tart observations of the daily squabbles and triumphs: ambitious Rose, socialite Kathleen and poor forgotten Rosemary. Like Kate Atkinson, Laurie Graham has a real ear for dialogue, and every character she writes comes alive in your head, and lingers long after you've put the book down.
Q. Is there a book you love to reread?: A. I've read Rachel's Holiday by Marian Keyes so many times I've got two copies! And I read The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy regularly.
Q. Do you have one sentence of advice for new writers?: A. Read, read, read as much as you can, but sit down and get on with writing; there's no substitute for finding your own voice.
Q. What comment do you hear most often from your readers?: A. Who is Nelson Barber based on? And, do rotters like Martin Romney-Jones really exist? (answer: my favourite men, and yes.)
Q. How did you come to write Finishing Touches?: A. Funnily enough, the inspiration for The Finishing Touches came to me all in one day, but in rather different parts of London. I was in Islington one Saturday morning, looking for a christening gift in a tiny silverware shop in the antiques quarter, when I came across the strangest bits and pieces of Victorian silverware. I had rather an old-fashioned nanny when I was little, so I knew my way around hinged leaf tea strainers and lemon squeezers, but I'd never seen some of the oddities here. I got chatting to the friendly owner, and her adorable Westie (just like Braveheart!), and she explained that these were sardine forks, and those were asparagus tongs, and that was a special strawberry sugaring set... I suddenly had a vivid mental image of how upper crust girls, years ago, must have sat in finishing school classes learning how to wield these mysterious implements - and how bored society ladies must have been, having to make those teas stretch out to fill a whole afternoon, with ever more complicated rituals designed to catch out the uninitiated. It was a genteel game that had been played all over the Empire, but now the silver pieces were here, dusty and unrecognized, and somewhat useless. But once, they’d been absolutely essential to a lady’s social skills… I bought Isabella, my niece, some silver teaspoons – I love looking up the hallmarks on the back and wondering where they’ve been since 1935, and how they got to London from Sheffield - and then hopped on the bus back down into town. As the bus meandered down through the City streets of Clerkenwell and Holborn, towards Leicester Square, the etiquette girls stayed with me in the back of my mind, as my eye drifted past the old buildings where grey pigeons perched on iron balconies and all London’s jumbled history crammed up together. London buses are a godsend for nosy writers looking for stories. I can spend hours just going round and round town, sitting on the top deck and looking at the detailed, half-forgotten architecture you miss at street level. I must confess, I'm a nosy parker, and like peering in the windows too, especially those offices which, not so long ago, must have been rather grand central London residences owned by the sort of families whose daughters would certainly have been finished, either here or in Switzerland. So, by now, the 19 bus had diverted through Bloomsbury, which has elegant Georgian houses with wide front doors and large windows. We stopped for traffic next to some offices, and I got a good look into the floor level with my window. Although the room behind was full of grey computers and desks, I could see a gorgeous gilded ceiling rose, from which a spectacular crystal chandelier must once have hung. It was exactly the sort of grand room that used to be a ballroom and my imagination made a connection between the girls and the house - wouldn't that have been a marvellous place to learn how to pour tea and wield a pair of grape scissors, beneath gilded plaster grapes? What if one of these houses had once been a finishing school? As the bus chugged towards Oxford Street, the girls started to take shape in my mind – the rebel, the bored princess, the confused country deb. But the more I thought about it, Bloomsbury wouldn't quite have been the right place for a finishing school. It's always been an arty area of London, where many writers and bohemian artists lived, but it's never had quite the impeccable social cachet of my last stop that day - Mayfair. Mayfair is my favourite area of London. Turn the corner off bustling, black-cab-lined Piccadilly into the tall townhouses of the side streets and there's an instant hush: you half-expect Berkeley Square to fade into black and white, it's so elegant and old-fashioned. Discreet hotels serve afternoon tea next to gilded Victorian pubs serving after-work pints, and opposite Green Park, there’s an abandoned Underground station, Down Street. In my imagination, the dashing GIs and debs in fox-fur stoles are still sitting out the Blitz, throwing back martinis and cracking brave jokes as an old gramophone crackles with swing music. That's more the area that an enterprising, perhaps widowed, gentlewoman would found a finishing school, near the gentlemen's clubs of St James, and the exclusive boutiques of Bond Street. It's also the place an aristocrat might house a shady mistress, or a deposed Empress might choose to make her home in exile, high up in one of the seven-storey townhouses overlooking Hyde Park and the Serpentine. I strolled around the back streets, spotting tucked-away mews cottages and garage doors that once housed Bentleys, and before that, gleaming horses and carriages, relishing the strange fairytale atmosphere that manages to be both magical and very real-life London at the same time. Between Piccadilly and Park Lane is the sort of place you might find a baby on a doorstep or a timewarp ladies' academy. I started taking pictures of the houses on my phone and the germ of the idea started to take root...