Author: katefoxwriter
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Order, Order, Betty Boothroyd Spoke to Serve
‘Order! Order!’ bellowed the bouffant-haired woman in the white waterfall cravat and black robe who was the first woman ever to become Speaker of the House of Commons. She had checked that it was okay to stop wearing the wig, but otherwise her outfit was the same as the one worn by the men who…
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This Run is For You- poem
Commissioned by the Great North Run for it’s 40th anniversary and featured in it’s BBC1 coverage of the race. This Run Is For You The doorstep clappers the calm, the flappers, the delivery drivers, the solitude thrivers, the sourdough makers, the banana bread bakers, those who kept their distance and those who went too far,…
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Tribute to Dinah Murray
Tribute to an exceptional person I was lucky enough to meet towards the end of her extraordinary life, Autism Studies pioneer and activist Dinah Murray: https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2021/jul/25/dinah-murray-obituary I interviewed her in her flat in Dalgety Bay, a month before she died. I asked if she thought there was going to be more recognition of the value…
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12 Days of Lockdown. 4.
Lens Anybody else get worried watching people on telly standing too close together they ask. People want an explanation of how quickly being socially distant became their new lens. We’re wired to notice what is dangerous and therefore important. I don’t have a new instant overlay for the world though, now spiky virus cells circulate…
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Twelve Days of Lockdown 2.
Remnants Nostalgic for everything, even rubbish feels like excavated evidence of the pastimes of a former civilisation remnants of us waiting or abandoned like one of those villages flooded to make a reservoir. We are being smoothed, swirled, carded, caught up despite ourselves. As if we could control what the elements shape…
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Twelve Days of Lockdown: 1.
A project in which I responded to Colin Potsig’s beautiful lockdown walk photographs with my poems (& vice versa). Stump Like a punch from behind, a tooth breaking off at its bloody root leaving you with a shocking black gap like waking up at your own snore gasping for air the upending of the world…
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Instead of a Funeral
In my show about Northern women, I talk about how important it is to remember people who might get erased from history, and about how my stepmum Rosemary always made sure to write me, as an illegitimate daughter, into the family history, although she herself was now suffering with dementia. One of the most extraordinary…
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Acclimatisation
I know “strange” times is popular, but I prefer “weird” times. I went back in the sea today. Glittery panda hat, neoprene gloves and socks, swimming costume, and swam out and back across Cullercoats Bay. I walked in slowly, lulled by my warm feet. I splashed water up onto my chin and shoulders. I hugged…
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Tips for Parents of Autistic Children (I won’t be giving)
From my small experience of meeting parents of autistic children at events, I gather that some people want tips from an “out” autistic adult. Handy takeaway hints. How do you raise an autistic child? How do you live well as an autistic adult? Part of me wants to respond “Well, it depends on your world…
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Becoming Autistic
Two vignettes: The day after my Mum died I had to call someone about a project. During that call I said I was going away to my Mum’s funeral and it emerged that she’d died the day before. The person said “But you sound so cheerful!”. I remember wondering how else I was going to…
Kate Fox. Writer, Broadcaster and Performer: Where There's Muck, There's Bras. 