Woman of the Hour Read Free Page A

anger and frustration in front of Flo. There was a lot of anger and disappointment to process after ten years of being together and I’m sure she must have overheard our heated words from time to time.

CHAPTER TWO
    StoryWorld TV station, London Bridge
    John, the single-parent dad from Sheffield, was terrific. Fizzy connected with him at once and she got him to talk openly about the struggles he’d had since his wife left him and their three kids one afternoon. It was out of the blue, he said. There had been no warning signs and no message left. His wife had asked a neighbour to keep an eye on the kids till he got back from work and then had driven away in the family car. When John got back he’d tried to call her, getting more and more anxious when he couldn’t get through. But it was only after putting the kids to bed that he saw she had taken her clothes, her jewellery and one framed family photo. He has not heard a word from her since and he thinks she had some kind of breakdown. He has had to cope with the children’s questions and their misery at this rejection by their mother. Children so often take the blame for these things onto themselves, he said. I thought of my Flo when he said that. Did she feel she was responsible for Ben and me breaking up? Fizzy asked him what was most difficult and he replied that with his daughter, the oldest of his three, reaching thirteen he was feeling out of his depth.
    You can’t fake authenticity and we’ve been flooded with emails and tweets from viewers with all kinds of advice as well as about thirty marriage proposals! I am planning to do a follow-up story with John in a month or so and I can see him becoming part of our StoryWorld family. Even Julius was pleased at the morning meeting.
    ‘I don’t know why that item worked so well but it did,’ he said.
    Julius shuffled his running order and script into a neat pile in front of him. We were waiting for the signal that the meeting was over because no one gets up to leave until he indicates that discussion has ended.
    He said: ‘I’ve been thinking about the overall look of the show and I’ve come to a decision. From now on I want our presenters to wear pastel colours. People wake up to us every day and it’s our job to lift their spirits and to offer them a cheerful start. I don’t want to see any black or dark blue or dark green on anyone on camera. Dark colours say misery, we associate black with death. From now on StoryWorld will be yellow, it will be pink, it will be pastel. Is that clear?’
    ‘Sounds good to me,’ Fizzy said.
    Fizzy is close to Julius and I’m sure he had briefed her on this before the meeting. It was Julius who gave her that first break as our weather presenter and her rise since has been meteoric. A lot of us resent how well those two get on and we are careful around Fizzy for this reason. Some of the team even think that they are lovers. I don’t think so; it looks more like a master and protégée relationship to me. After Fizzy’s enthusiastic endorsement there was an awkward silence in the meeting room. I am the producer who deals with most of the presenters so I had to say something.
    ‘Julius, I can see your point but how am I going to get Gerry and Ledley into pastels?’
    Gerry is our astrologer and he favours a smart tailored look with a navy blazer or dark jumper. Ledley is our cook. He’s tall and slim and he goes for a relaxed anti-fashion style. He’ll come in wearing an orange shirt with dark red jeans or a printed pattern shirt with worn black jeans and boots and he gets away with it. He has even been written up in a magazine as a good example of street style. I couldn’t see Ledley agreeing to wear a pink shirt.
    ‘You can put Ledley into chef’s whites. And tell Gerry it’s the brand, the StoryWorld brand. People don’t want dark colours and misery in the morning. They want upbeat stories and light bright colours. I want this implemented straight away.’
    Bob the