“There is so much emphasis on appearance too. It doesn’t matter how bright girls are, they still feel they need to look a certain way and lots of girls just don’t feel they are good enough.”
So why did Suzanne choose the book to be specifically for girls? Aren’t all teenagers facing this same set of problems?
“I was a girl and am a woman and I see the struggles people have. I have two godsons so I know many of these things affect them too but it seems there are still such terrible double standards around girls. They can’t win whatever way they go. For example there’s name-calling if they post pouting selfies, and worse, and name-calling if they don’t. It seems in some ways we’ve gone back to the 50s.”
Suzanne is keen to emphasise the book is not about telling girls what they should and shouldn’t do though.
“I want the book to give girls information, to empower them. To think for themselves and ultimately make better decisions. It’s good to have parents, friends and family to talk to but not everyone has and I’d like to think they can turn to this book for advice in the same way.”
Suzanne strongly believes it was her parents who gave her the self-belief to pursue a career in journalism when she left school. As an only child of an Indian father she said she was never made to feel second best by being born female.
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“In too many Indian families girls just aren’t allowed to have the same freedom as boys but that was never the case with my dad and I’m very proud of him for that. They brought me up in a very open way.
“My parents met when they both worked in casinos, which was very glamorous and is quite unusual, and my mum always did her own thing and that has shaped me. “When I was at college the principal persistently tried to persuade me to go to university and people told me journalism was a very hard career to get in to but I wouldn’t be put off.
“I think sometimes adults do this to manage expectations and get people to be realistic but I hate that expression. It really does crush talent and dreams. Anyone from anywhere can achieve great things if they put their mind to it.”
It was probably obvious to her family that she was always destined for exactly the career she became so successful at. At 10 years old she remembers writing her own newspapers and selling them to her family and on long car journeys she would interview her parents too.
“It used to drive them mad,” she laughs, “but I was lucky because I knew what I wanted to do and wouldn’t be swayed.” Leaving college with her A-levels, the confident and ambitious teenager wrote off to dozens of newspapers asking for a job but got only a handful of replies in return, all saying ‘thanks but no thanks’. Only when she offered her services for free at
the local Solihull Times did she get her foot in the door which has led to a 30 year career in both newspapers and presenting TV news. She currently works freelance for both ITV News and the BBC Inside Out documentary programme in the West Midlands and has also worked for Radio 4’s You and Yours.
She strongly believes it was her belief in herself that gave her the will to succeed and this is what she hopes her book will do for other girls.
“If you want to be the best it takes an enormous amount of effort and determination. Just get out there and don’t let other people’s opinions of you drag you down. I’m afraid you have to do a Taylor Swift and ‘Shake it off’ otherwise you’ll end up underachieving or feeling low all of the time and that’s just no good at all.”
In her own life, Suzanne has been enjoying the joys of country living during the rollercoaster of lockdown. Married to award-winning photo journalist Andrew Fox, like everyone else she has been taking part in Zoom quizzes, experimenting with home baking, practicing yoga and generally loving life in the Worcestershire countryside by her Webheath home.
“We’ve been on lots of lovely long walks in the evenings and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many lambs in one season. Some days were great, others I was screaming ‘I want my life back’, the coronacoaster some people call it but we have to battle through.”
A Girl’s Guide to Being Awesome is published in paperback by Summersdale, priced £9.99.
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LOCAL PEOPL E SUZANNE VIRDE E
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