‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin!’ Episode 1

What follows is the transcription taken from the ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin’ podcast, first aired on 29th June 2023. Listen on Spotify, Acast, or Apple Podcast.

ALIX:

For a few weeks back in June 2019, I spent some time interviewing a woman called Josie Fair for what I thought was going to be a light-hearted podcast on the theme of being birthday twins. As you all know by now, that project was shelved abruptly as real life collided with the podcast and things turned very, very dark. It’s taken many months for me to come to terms with what happened in 2019, but I’m ready now, to revisit the podcast and its aftermath. And now here, finally, is Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin! I hope you enjoy listening to it, more than I enjoyed making it.

(jingle)

Hello, and thank you for joining me. My name is Alix Summers. Some of you may know me from my previous podcast series, All Woman, some of you may not, but however you got here, thank you for taking a punt on me doing something new. Josie and I first met in a pub on the night of our 45th birthdays two weeks ago. The title of this podcast comes from Josie’s first worlds to me in the ladies loos that night. Hi! she said, I’m Your Birthday Twin! and so, there and then, an idea for a new podcast was born. And Josie, first of all, hello and thank you so much for giving me your time so generously. I cannot tell you how excited I am to start this project. So, let’s kick off with an easy question, Josie. Your name. What is it short for? If it is in fact short for anything?

JOSIE:

No. No. Just Josie. Not short for anything.

ALIX:

Named after anyone?

JOSIE:

No. Not that I know of. My mum is called Pat. Her mum was called Sue. I think she just wanted to give me a pretty name, you know. Something feminine.

ALIX:

So, Josie and I are not just birthday twins but were born in the same hospital too, and now we live less than a mile apart in the same corner of northwest London. So, before we get into your life story, let’s talk about your birth story. What did your mum tell you about the day you were born?’

(pause)

JOSIE:

Well. Nothing much really. Just that it hurt!

[Alix laughs]

ALIX:

Well, yes. That’s a given. But what did she tell you about the day itself: the weather, the midwife, the first time she saw you?’

(awkward pause)

JOSIE:

Like I say. Nothing. She never said anything. Just that it hurt so much she knew she’d never do it again.

ALIX:

And she didn’t?

JOSIE:

No, she didn’t.

ALIX:

So, no siblings?

JOSIE:

No siblings. Just me. What about you? Oh. Sorry. Am I allowed to ask you questions?

ALIX:

Yes! Absolutely! And I am one of three girls. The middle.

JOSIE:

Oh, lucky you. I’d’ve loved a sister.

ALIX:

Sisters are the best. I’m very lucky. And tell me about your mum, Pat. Is she still around?

JOSIE:

Oh, God, yes. Very much so. She lives on the same estate where I was born, runs the community centre, looks after the old people, shouts at the politicians, works with the anti-gang unit, all of that. Larger than life. Louder than life. Everyone knows her. It’s like she’s famous.

ALIX:

What about your father?

JOSIE:

Oh, he was never in the picture, my dad. My mum got pregnant by accident and then went off and had me without even telling him. I’ve never met him.

ALIX:

So, in the pub, on the night we met – the man you were dining with. That was your . . . ?

JOSIE:

That was my husband. Yes. Not my father. And no, you are not the first person to make that mistake. My husband, Walter, is a lot older than me. I’ve been with him since I was fifteen.

[pause]

ALIX:

Fifteen. And he was . . . ?

JOSIE:

Forty-two

[pause]

ALIX:

Wow. That’s . . .

JOSIE:

Yes. I know. I know how it seems. But it didn’t quite feel like it sounds at the time. It’s hard to explain. There’s power in being a teenager. I miss that power in some ways. I would like it back.

ALIX:

In what way was there power?

JOSIE:

Just in the way that you have something a lot of people want. A lot of men want. And a lot of them want it. They want it so much.

ALIX:

It? You mean youth?

JOSIE:

Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. And when you meet someone who is very clear about what they want and you know that the only thing that stands between what they want and what you have is your consent . . . Sometimes, as a very young girl, there’s a power in giving that consent. Or at least, that’s how it felt at the time. That’s how they make you feel. But really, it’s not, is it? I can see that now. I can see that maybe I was being used, that maybe I was even being groomed? But that feeling of being powerful, right at the start, when I was still in control. I miss that sometimes. I really do.

And what I’d like, more than anything, is to get it back.’

[pause]

ALIX:

And you and Walter, how did you meet?

JOSIE:

He was a contractor, doing the electricals on our estate. He was the project leader and my mum, of course, made it her business to get involved with it all, so one day, when I was about thirteen, I was sitting in my room and the doorbell rang, and I looked out and he was standing there. Had his high-vis vest on, holding his hard hat in his hand. That was the first time I saw him.

ALIX:

And what did you think?

[Josie issues a small laugh]

JOSIE:

I was thirteen. He was forty. There wasn’t much more to think really. It wasn’t until my fourteenth birthday that I could tell there was something else going on. He walked into the house when I was blowing out the candles on my birthday cake. I was there with my best friend Helen. And my mum invited him to stay for a slice of cake and he sat next to me and it was . . .[Josie exhales and makes a sound like she’s been punched in the throat] It was just there. Like an invisible monster in the room.

ALIX:

A monster?

JOSIE:

Yes. That’s what it felt like. His interest in me. It felt like a monster.

ALIX:

So, you were scared of him?

JOSIE:

Not of him. No. He was nice. I was scared of his wanting me. I couldn’t believe that nobody else could see it. Only me. It was so big and so real. But my mother didn’t see it. Helen didn’t see it. But I saw it. And I was scared of it.

ALIX:

So, it didn’t feel like power then?

JOSIE:

Well, no. And yes. It felt like both things at the same time. It was confusing. I became obsessed with the idea of him. But it was another year until anything happened. Me and Walter were sort of friends, by that point. He always stopped and had a chat with me if we crossed paths on the estate. He always waved, said something nice to me. You know. And on the day I turned fifteen Walter ran after me when I was walking to school. He’d remembered my birthday from the year before and he’d bought me a present.

ALIX:

What did he get you?

JOSIE:

A bracelet. Look. This one.

ALIX:

You’re still wearing it. Wow.

JOSIE:

Well, why wouldn’t I? We’re still together. [Josie sighs heavily] And then my friends took me to the park after school that day, to the rec, and there was this boy, he was called Troy? I think? And Helen really wanted me to, you know, kiss him. I hadn’t had a boyfriend yet and she was always trying to get me to go with a boy and I did not want to go with a boy because they were all disgusting, honestly. And he’d been drinking cider and his breath –  I can smell it, even now. The sourness of it, rancid, in my face as he came towards me, and I just got up and left and as I left I knew, I knew that I was done. Done with being that sort of teenager. I went home. ‘My mum said, “You’re back early.” I told her I wasn’t feeling well. She asked me if I’d been drinking. I told her about the cider and the boy and she told me I had good friends, that I should make more of an effort with them. I said, “I do make an effort. But then they do things I don’t want to do, and there’s not much I can do about that.” She said, “What do you want to do, Josie?” I said, “I don’t know. How am I supposed to know? What did you want to do when you were fifteen?” She stared at me like she couldn’t believe I was anything to do with her and she said, “I wanted to take over the whole world, Josie. That’s what I wanted to do.” I said something like, “Well, I’m not going to take over the whole world drinking cider in the rec, am I?” and she said, “You’re not going to do it sitting in here with me, either. On your birthday.” So I said, “Fine then. Fine. I’ll leave.” And I slammed the door and stormed through the estate, down to the cabin where Walter worked. I was just going to thank him for the bracelet, but I knew, I think, I knew what was going to happen. I felt powerful then. And he took me to the pub.

I sat in a pub with a forty- two-year-old man and I was fifteen and he poured a shot of vodka into my lemonade and he kissed me, and I remember looking down at my hands, at the pen scribbles on them from school, and looking down at my shoes, these battered old Kickers with the little leather tags that everyone wore back then, and thinking; this is it. I’m jumping. I’m going. I’m leaving this world. I’m entering another. It was almost as if I knew, even then, that there was no way back. That once I’d befriended the monster, that was it. For life.

FADE

Music/jingle

ALIX:

Tune in next week to hear more from ‘Hi! I’m Your Birthday Twin’.

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