Stuart Maconie

Stuart Maconie is a name that most might know, but not all can tell you exactly what for. Hardly surprising really as Stuart Maconie comes in many varieties, radio DJ and television presenter, writer, journalist, critic and champion of pop music popular culture. and of couse the North. I caught up with Stuart on a train to Leeds on his way to a book signing for his latest book – "In Search of Middle England, Adventures on the High Teas". Ironically enough the train was pulling out of Grantham, a town that features in the book and one that Maconie describes in his own inimatable fashion “Grantham didn’t feel like Middle England to me, not in 2008 anyway. It felt like the edge and the fag-end of something”

You have written three books in the last five years, which did you enjoy writing the most? I really liked them all but if I had to choose, I would say Pies and Prejudice. Not just because it was about the north but it was a new style of writing for me and it brings back good memories.

Both Pies and Prejudice and Adventures on the High Teas are written almost like a road trip. How did you go about writing the books? Yeah you’re right, it was almost like a road trip with a lot of afternoons and weekends spent wandering around areas and places in our country that a lot of people don’t know about.

What would you say are the differences between Northerners and folk from middle England? I don’t think there are any real differences. People are people at the end of the day and although I call the North my home, I don’t subscribe to the view that I am a northerner, I am the best.

You visit Melton Mowbray in the book. What’s your favourite type of pie? I’d have to mention one of my local favourites, from a Wigan based company Galloways. They’re more of a cult pie, a bit like the Nick Drake of pies!

What’s your favourite place in the North? It has to be the Lake District. I live quite close to there now but I’m being drawn more and more towards the Pennines. I love the bleakness of the land and the fact that it looks towards Lancashire,Yorkshire and Northumbria. Its great for walking.

Where did you holiday as a child? I’m from very much a working class background, so we never went abroad. I loved it at Butlins at the likes of Minehead and Skegness.

Have you ever revisited holiday destinations as an adult? We’d quite often have day trips to the likes of Bowness and Windermere at the Lakes and this is still enjoy doing now.

You recently won Celebrity Mastermind. How was the experience? Terrifying! I love quizzes but when you see the black chair for the first time, it churns your stomach.

Favourite Northern dish? Steak and Kidney Pudding, best eaten with gravy and a plastic tray and fork in a bus stop.

In search of Middle England, Adventures on the High Teas is now available from all good book shops.

Interview from issue 30 April/May 2010. To order this issue go to the Northern Life online store.