Tom Burke was born in June 1981 in London. His mother Anna Calder-Marshall is best known on screen for her Cordelia, opposite Laurence Olivier’s Emmy Award-winning King Lear. His father, David Burke, is fondly remembered as Dr Watson in The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes alongside Jeremy Brett. But both were more renowned for their work in the theatre. His godfather, the late, great Alan Rickman, was also a big influence on his early life and career choice.

Burke attended the National Youth Theatre, the Young Arden Theatre in Faversham and the Box Clever Theatre Company at the Marlowe, Canterbury, before being accepted at RADA at the age of 18. After small roles in TV shows including Casanova and The Trial Of Tony Blair, he caught the eye in the BBC’s 2011 adaptation of Great Expectations and the newsroom drama The Hour the following year. Recent years have seen him take a starring role in the BBC crime drama strike and stand-out film roles in Only God Forgives, The Souvenir (parts one and two), Mank and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

Speaking to the Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, Tom Burke remembers an idyllic adolescence infatuated with films, his anger at being overlooked for roles and taking advice from Alan Rickman.

At 16, I was at a really idyllic little school. It was a Steiner school and was literally in a valley, so it was a very particular environment. We were quite sheltered and hermetic. And we didn’t know until after we left, but the other schools referred to us as the Rainbow Warriors. Partly because you could wear your own clothes, but there was also quite a hippy thing going on. I found those years quite tricky. It was like The Prisoner – everything was very bright and colourful, but I remember feeling a real want to get out of there. I was quite solitary. But talking to my friends, because we’re all still in touch, I think it’s just part of being that age. I did feel quite lonely for a time.

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I’d really fallen in love with the theatre and movies. I shared a real love of movies with my friends – we would talk in Quentin Tarantino or Trainspotting quotes for the whole lunch break. And that was supplemented with trips to the theatre. All my contemporaries at school were either into Blur or Oasis, apart from my best friend Tim who was very into Nirvana. I liked soul, which I’d come across via a freebie CD my mum had got with some Nivea products! So I was listening to The Chi-Lites.

When I went to the National Youth Theatre, I just remember feeling very loved. It wasn’t that everyone else was like me – it was a much more diverse group of people than I’d come across at school – but National Youth Theatre was like an Edenic honeymoon of a summer. And it definitely brought out something more social in me. I almost wish I’d taken that and gone to university rather than straight to drama school. Because I think that would have been quite good for me.

My impression of how one went about asking somebody out was from films. So I’d eventually work up the courage, but then do it in a very dramatic way. I’d say, ‘I need to talk to you! I have feelings for you!’ And then I’d turn on my heels and make this big exit, and leave them going ‘what!?’ And that was it done for me. I didn’t really need the cinema date. It was like I’d said it, so it was done and nothing will happen – I was very fatalistic about it. What was I thinking? I suppose in some way I thought they would run after me or the next week they’d go, where did you go? But I’d tell my younger self not to be afraid of starting conversations.

I grew up around actors and it was a really lovely thing. I remember feeling like I was part of the game – particularly when my parents [actors Anna Calder-Marshall and David Burke] spent a year in Stratford. There were an awful lot of parties, not just with the actors but the crew and costume lot. It felt like a really fun world. And my parents were going through all the things you go through unless you’re one of those people that steps out of drama school and never looks back. So I met all kinds of actors, from all different phases in their career, who all loved and supported each other. Alan Rickman [Tom Burke’s godfather] was always there. It was a lesson in getting on with it and being grateful for the work, whatever it was, knowing you’re blessed to be getting paid to do something you love.

• Daniel Mays: ‘Becoming a dad made me a better person and a better actor, it galvanised me’
• Michael Sheen: ‘I’ve essentially turned myself into a social enterprise, a not-for-profit actor’

What would surprise my younger self about my life now? At one point I didn’t think I was ever going to not have the sensation that my head was like a washing machine, with stuff going round and around and round. I remember thinking that was something I was just going to have to live with. But that’s not the case. There is a solution. And it was about talking to the right people. Not necessarily in a professional sense, sometimes you find the right friends to chip away at that with or figure out how to deal with it. In my 20s I was jumping from one kind of retreat to the next – I’d spend five or six days somewhere, or doing something fairly extreme, then get back to London and go crazy again. They were wonderful experiences, I’m glad I had them. But I needed something a little more mundane.

Mel Gibson was one of my favourite actors, so my younger self would love to know I was going to do a Mad Max film. Richard Harris and Anton Lesser are the people who made me want to act. But I also loved Mel Gibson and Eddie Murphy. I remember watching Beverly Hills Cop with my dad and him going, ‘That man has poise.’ And he fucking does! I always knew I’d love to do an action film, and if you’re doing that, you want to be doing it with someone like [Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga director] George Miller. But you think, if I’m going to have that career, I’ve got to probably do a lot of not so good action films first to get in that sphere. And as a younger actor, I was like, I’d rather be in a Strindberg play, actually. That’s going to be more interesting. So it’s been a great surprise that it’s somehow led around to this.

I grew up in a Labour home – and in my personal life and my actions as a civilian, as a voter, that still feels like a massive chunk of my identity. In terms of politics in my work, I feel great stories are more akin to a Zen koan than a political slogan. I go to the theatre or the cinema to unravel – and I don’t mean that in a glib way. I mean it in a radical way. I’m not there to educate or be educated – I have a sense of what Louise Bourgeois meant when she said reason is the opposite of truth – and I’ve always felt protective of that. There’s an assumption that an actor is going to nail their colours to the mast. And when you don’t, it inevitably arouses suspicion and ire in some. But if I felt otherwise, I’d want to find a different vocation, a different medium.

It stung when someone said I didn’t have a face for ITV. And it stung because it was the second of two parts that had been my first sense – certainly on screen – of feeling I was born to play a role, and that some of the best work I’d done was just on an audition tape somewhere. I later found out my involvement in the other job had been vetoed by the same person when they were at a different channel. I didn’t know what to do with that feeling. I was so angry. But I had to let go of any expectation I might have had about what one might call the parts in the canon, you know, for men in theatre or on screen. I just went, OK, I have to see what’s out there, and more importantly, who’s out there who is willing to stick my mug in front of a camera. If I’m honest, there’s a bit of me that is glad I’ve proved them wrong. I’ve always had a very romantic streak in me, so being a ‘leading man’ has always had an appeal.

Working with Joanna Hogg on The Souvenir was punk rock, in a way. There’s a lot of research that goes into it, but learning that you can rock up and jump into it and just start making a film was so exciting. There is a blueprint. But it is not like a normal script. There is much room to explore and it’s improvised. So making films with her is very special. But there have been so many highlights. Filming Mank – I learnt a lot from [David] Fincher. I felt slightly out of my body on that film, which was the first one I’d done in America – and I was playing Orson Welles! I remember Fincher having to show me the monitor at one point because I was moving too much and he was like, this bit has to be still. So I realised I had work to do. But I’m enjoying work more than ever. There are moments I could have taken a more obvious path to ‘build a career’. But I just tried to follow my nose as much as possible. I really wanted to feel alive, you know? What jobs are going to make me feel alive?

Alan Rickman taught me so much. Thinking about a letter to my younger self, I was thinking about the advice he would always give. He would say to everyone, ‘Remember, it’s not a race, remember it’s not a race.’ I know people who do treat acting like it’s a race and that must be exhausting. There were a couple of near misses with roles that could have made a substantial difference to my career. But I just had to let go. It was like seeing people sprinting off ahead of you, many of whom are my friends. Most actors have that experience at some point. But I don’t want it to say ‘he made 200 movies’ on my gravestone – there is so much other stuff in my life to enjoy. I wonder when people are flying high if they ever have a moment to experience other stuff.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is in cinemas now.

Big Issue is demanding an end to poverty this general election. Will you sign our open letter to party leaders?

This article is taken from the Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.

To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member.

Alexander McCall Smith was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, to British parents. He moved to Edinburgh to study law, before teaching at Queen’s University, Belfast. In 1981, McCall Smith co-founded the law school at the University of Botswana, where he also taught.

His first published book was The White Hippo in 1980, which kickstarted a career writing childrens’ books. His breakthrough writing novels came with the publication of The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, which became a hit in Scotland (he had settled in Edinburgh with his family in 1984) and, after the third book in the series, in the US. To date, McCall Smith has published 24 volumes in the series, which has sold over 20 million worldwide. He is also the author of the popular 44 Scotland Street novels and the Isabel Dalhousie series, as well as many standalone novels and non-fiction titles.

In 2007 he received a CBE for services to literature and in 2011 was honoured by the President of Botswana for services through literature to the country. In 2015 he received the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.

Speaking to the Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, Alexander McCall Smith reflects on an awkward adolescence, being in Northern Ireland during The Troubles and the growing realisation he was going to make it as a writer.

I think I was the usual 16-year-old – any time between 14 and about 18 is a really bad time if you’re a boy. You think you know everything but actually you know very little. And the world doesn’t treat you as if you know everything, so it’s a very frustrating time. The adolescent brain is very badly wired. So at 16 I took myself terrifically seriously. And no one else did. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I lived in a town called Bulawayo, which was in Zimbabwe. It was very remote, a colonial territory in colonial days. I was at a boys’ school. It was a very quiet existence. I was very interested in writing. I had always written as a child. I had an article published in the local paper when I was about 16, a piece about Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. I don’t know why I chose to write about him. 

I think I was a pretty typical teenager. I read quite a lot. And I had a strong imaginative life. I spent quite a lot of time in my own company, thinking. I had the idea that I would love to write one day but it was very underdeveloped. I read a lot of poetry, which was probably atypical. And I had a pile of old copies of
The Listener magazine. I used to go through those time and time again. I was very self-consciously intellectual. I regarded myself as knowing more than the other boys at school. 

I decided that I would study law. So I went to Edinburgh university. Then I was offered the chance to study for a PhD. And in the course of that I was offered a job at Queen’s University of Belfast. So I went off to Belfast at a very difficult time. The Troubles were in a very serious state. It was a really significant time, living through a period of great sadness in a society that was torn by terrible divisions and basically a low-grade civil war. You heard explosions, you heard gunfire. But you just lived with it. There were moments when the situation was highly intriguing, and then there were other times when it was just tragic. I shall never forget that time. I was there for about a year and a half. And then I was offered a job back at Edinburgh. 

I started to write a bit more in Belfast and when I came back to Edinburgh the next major development in my writing life came. I entered a writing competition and was lucky enough to win the children’s fiction section. I then approached an agent in London and over the next few years I wrote a number of children’s books, which started to be published. And so that’s how I started. All the while I had the day job, and I ended up as professor of medical law at Edinburgh. I had a very interesting and satisfying career and was on a lot of government committees.  

And then I wrote the first novel, The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. When that took off in a big way internationally, I felt that I was under great pressure to do all sorts of things. So I thought I’d take a leave of absence of three years unpaid to concentrate on my writing. And after a while I realised the books had become all-consuming. 

I went back to Botswana in 1981 to set up a law school in the university. And I continued to have a close connection with Botswana over the years. Then in 1996 I sat down and wrote what I thought would be a single story – how wrong I was – I’ve just finished the 25th volume of… Detective Agency (which is set in Botswana). I was asked to write a sequel then a sequel to the sequel. Then the books were imported by Columbia University Press in New York. And very big publishers, Random House, said, Oh, we want to put these out in America. And then they took off in a pretty dramatic way. 

• From the archives: Salman Rushdie’s letter to his younger self
• Martin Amis: ‘The past gets bigger but the future shrinks’

I remember the moment I knew my life was going to change. I’d gone over to New York to meet my new editor. I went into their office thinking that I’d have a cup of coffee and then be shown the door. But they had a whole restaurant booked for lunch, and they had all these PR people there. And I remember going out of their office that afternoon thinking, my goodness, something is really happening here. I went out on Park Avenue, and I looked up at the sky, in the glittering canyon of the New York streets and I realised that life was going to be different. 

I’ve written about 75 books since then and I’m very grateful for how my life has gone. I’ve lived a total writer’s dream and I’m very conscious of my great fortune. 

If my younger self met me now and I told him what I had done he’d say, ‘Oh, my goodness. Is that true?’ The teenager would look at me and say, do you mean to say that you go all over the world and do these things? Because the sort of life I had as a teenager was very simple. I think he’d be rather overwhelmed. My job enables me to travel a lot. But usually where I really want to be is at home in Edinburgh. But I do know I’ve had experiences that I would otherwise never have had.

I didn’t think about being a dad when I was younger [he has two daughters with his wife Elizabeth]. There may be an interesting difference there between men and women. I think if you asked an 18-year-old woman she might say one day she’d like to be a mother. I think the maternal instinct is a very strong one, stronger than the paternal instinct. Women are much better carers. Women are much more inclined to nurture things and be concerned about others. Women keep friendships going much better than men do. Women are more concerned about the welfare of the broader family. Men just have an instinct to provide. 

I’d tell my younger self, try to think more about other people’s feelings and what they’re thinking. Be more aware of the feelings and sensitivities of others. I would also say very specifically, go talk to people much older than yourself. And listen to what they’ve got to say. That’s something I think we all suddenly realise. I think back to people, and I wish I’d gone to sit with a tape recorder and spoken to them about their experiences. 

I remember I occasionally bumped into the famous Hamish Henderson, who was a great folklorist. I used to be on a committee with Peter Higgs, the Nobel-winning physicist of Higgs boson fame. I had a great uncle who had been a doctor in the Battle of the Somme. I didn’t talk to any of them enough. 

If I could relive one moment it would probably be a conversation with my agent, when the writing really did begin to take off. I remember one conversation with one of the agents in London when I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. And she said, sit back and enjoy it. You’re about to have a really good experience. 

But actually, the absolute best conversation was probably when I was told my first book was accepted for publication. That’s it. Because never again do you get to have that thrill. 

The Conditions of Unconditional Love (Isabel Dalhousie book 27) by Alexander McCall Smith is out on 6 June (Abacus, £18.99). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops.

Alexander McCall Smith will be at Borders Book Festival on Saturday 15 June at 3.45pm, and on Sunday 16 June at 5.15pm in a joint event with Alistair Moffat.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue or give a gift subscription. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play

Kathleen Hanna was born in Portland, Oregon, in November 1968. In the late 1980s, she moved to Olympia, Washington, to study photography at Evergreen State College. While at university, Hanna co-founded an independent feminist art gallery called Reko Muse, formed punk rock bands Amy Carter and Viva Knievel, and gave spoken word performances. 

In October 1990, Hanna formed Bikini Kill with punk zine writer, Tobi Vail, Billy Karren and Kathi Wilcox. The band quickly became notorious on the Olympia music scene, heading up the feminist riot grrl movement and releasing records on local indie label Kill Rock Stars. Their debut album, 1993’s Pussy Whipped, included riot grrl anthem Rebel Girl, which was also released as a single produced by Joan Jett. Bikini Kill split in 1997, a year after second album Reject All American, and Kathleen Hanna began working on a lo-fi electronica solo project, The Julie Ruin, which became her first solo album in 1998.

Following a move to New York City, Kathleen Hanna formed Le Tigre with Johanna Fateman and Sadie Benning. After two albums of electronic punk floorfillers, Hanna left the band in 2005 due to illness. She was later diagnosed with the debilitating Lyme disease, which she announced she was free of in 2015. She has since restarted The Julie Ruin as a full band project, released solo material, worked with director Sini Anderson on the documentary The Punk Singer, and toured with Bikini Kill.

Speaking to The Big Issue for her Letter to My Younger Self, Kathleen Hanna reflects on the causes of her self-destructive behaviour, considers the therapeutic effects of music and has some sound advice. She also states: “I basically wrote the whole book in preparation for this interview. The Big Issue is a big deal to me – so I had to prepare!”

What was I like at 16 – is slutty drug addict a good description? I was doing a lot of meth, getting pregnant and having abortions. And I’d stopped going to punk shows because I was sick of white guys spitting on me in the name of punk. When I look back, I was running away from a lot of things via drugs and alcohol. And that led me down some roads I wish I hadn’t gone down. I have addictive tendencies and was running away from a lot of violence. I was raped a bunch of times in high school – times that didn’t even make it into my book. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

If I had to say something to my younger self, I’d say, remember when you were having fun with your friend Cindy doing musical theatre? So why are you doing meth now? Why are you always two inches away from getting arrested? I wouldn’t say be a better student. But I think I’d say you need to get help.

There weren’t a lot of trustworthy adults in my life. I had two school counsellors who sexually harassed me. So I’m not going to go to them and be like, oh, this guy raped me at a party or I’m having problems in my home life. I started to see the world through this perspective, that the world was dangerous and there was no safety and no one I could go to for help. And it makes sense, when you’re in that situation, to use drugs and alcohol as an escape. 

Music was the positive form of escape I found. I knew from a very young age that I wanted to be an artist. I would imitate people off the TV for my parents to make them laugh. And I was always singing or dancing in the basement. I just didn’t have the encouragement to see that as something I could do. 

Billie Jean King was a big hero of mine. I went to school when girls weren’t allowed to do physical activity at recess. We did square dancing or jump rope while boys would run track or play baseball until Billie Jean King helped pass this law called Title IX. It was the first time I connected the dots – this famous person standing up against what we then called chauvinism, the first time I saw one person could have a huge effect in the world. 

I have a lot of empathy for my younger self. And writing my memoir I was able to see patterns, like how I started drinking heavily the night after my dad said to me, “I wish you were dead.” The next morning, I filled my Thermos with rum and coke and drank it on the way to school. I could cry for that girl. My younger self went through so much and she still graduated from high school, got into college. She still went to school the next day and did that play and showed up for her friends.

For the first few Bikini Kill records I was taking words from poems I wrote in high school. So I would tell my younger self to always keep a journal. Write it down. I would not have had any resilience or made it through if I wasn’t journalling. When I finally got in a band, I used that writing to heal myself, to say, even when you were living under shitty circumstances, you were still writing poetry. On songs like Double Dare Ya – daring myself to stand up for myself and a lot of early Bikini Kill songs I was singing to my younger self, trying to write the song that was missing for me in high school. And there were a lot of missing songs.

• Joan Jett: ‘How dare you tell me what I can and can’t do?’
• 7 lessons from inspirational women: Wisdom from the new Letter To My Younger Self book

I was always looking for an adult to stand up and say, hey, you matter. You are not a nothing. Having been one of three girls at punk shows, who were all treated like shit, I really was singing to me and my two wasted friends with fake IDs telling them, come to the front. You guys belong here. You’re welcome here. I wanted the music I wrote to welcome the younger me into all these rooms I’d felt excluded from. 

Being on stage allowed me to scream my frustrations. I was volunteering at a domestic violence, rape relief place in Olympia and singing allowed me to physically embody the stress and the pain I was witnessing. I’d experienced some things but I was also just a witness. It is important in crisis work to keep yourself out of it, to stay focused on the survivor. So I wrote songs about it then got on stage. Afterwards, women would tell me their stories – and I was prepared because I had been doing rape crisis calls. It was a circular thing. 

My younger self would have liked the lyrics to Rebel Girl, especially. Because she had some complex feelings about sexuality that she wasn’t able to express. I had a huge crush on one of my close friends in high school. And it wasn’t even an option to tell her. I don’t think school is a safe space for LGBT+ people right now. It definitely wasn’t in the 1980s. 

I wanted there to be more girls and women in the scene. Because making music directed at a certain audience then singing it to straight white men feels stupid. And I wanted people to hang out with. We had to create that audience, but I don’t like having to do that. I don’t enjoy having to work 10 times harder. I was writing songs to fill up this hole in the universe. Once I wrote those, I could write about other stuff. Feminist anti-racist artists don’t have to be pigeonholed – it’s really important that people tackling societal issues are also able to write a love song when they want. We’re not just these brave people kicking down doors. I don’t think of myself as brave, anyway. I think of myself as kind of obnoxious. Cute obnoxious, but obnoxious, you know? And I like that about myself, that I’m over the top and I’m a lot.  

Sometimes I yelled at the wrong people and was a bad ally. I made all kinds of mistakes. If you’ve been traumatised, you can be rageful and angry. You’re living in a bubble of self-pity and not realising, hey, a genocide is going on right now. Hey, I live in an extremely racist culture that I profit from being white. These are things I need to face and my trauma can’t be an excuse. I can take away all this time I’m spending avoiding my trauma and use it towards doing good things in the world, becoming a smarter person and a better community member.

If you come from toxicity and dysfunction and alcoholism in your family, the dysfunctional alcoholic you meet at a party is going to feel like your soulmate. So I went through a lot of fucking around with my ‘soul mates’ who made me feel like I was home, but also made me feel terrible about myself. But who you desire as a partner can totally change with time. I remember when I finally became attracted to good people who brought out the best in me and weren’t competing, trying to pull me down or threatened. I had a few relationships with people like that before I found my forever person. It was like, wait a minute, I’m actually super butterflies-in-stomach over this person who’s generous and kind and awesome, not the total nightmare asshole?  

When I was in my late 20s, my husband’s bandmate had a child and I spent a lot of time with her. I could think of nothing better than to hang out with this beautiful, funny, artistic, wonderful child and I had this realisation. Could I imagine saying she looked slutty or all these things men said to me as a young girl? It made me mourn my own childhood, because it shouldn’t have been like that. I was not as cute, smart or funny as her, but I was probably pretty adorable. And even if I wasn’t, I was a child and didn’t deserve that.  

I made the best move of my life by picking people who are fun, who I love, to be in bands with. You’re going to spend a lot of time with them, so I’d rather have somebody with a sense of humour than someone who plays guitar like Eric Clapton. Because Eric Clapton is a dick. Plus I don’t like his guitar playing. I’d also tell my younger self to find someone in your community who enjoys doing sound. Call them your tour manager. You will enjoy your shows 1,000 times more. 

I’ve survived an extreme amount of bullying – and there’s no HR in punk rock. You can’t call somebody to say you’re being harassed while doing your job. And if you’re dealing with that kind of shit, you might not hear the honest critique. ‘Why are your audiences always so white?’ ‘Why is your kind of feminism not intersectional and based mainly on your own white middle-class experiences?’ And these are valid criticisms I needed to educate myself on and become better. Because the valid criticism is a fucking gift. It’s someone caring about what you do enough to tell you the goddamn truth. 

Big Issue is demanding an end to poverty this general election. Will you sign our open letter to party leaders?

What would surprise young Kathleen the most? Probably that I have a kid. I didn’t want to bring a child into my family and didn’t feel safe enough to do that until my early 40s. Also, I have a good relationship with my mom now. She lives down the street from me and at points in my life, I would be like, there’s no way in hell that’s gonna happen, you’re gonna be mad at her forever! But my kid has a wonderful grandma and grandpa who hang out with him. My younger self wouldn’t expect to be happy. Or alive. 

Kathleen Hanna’s memoir Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk is out now (HarperCollins, £20). You can buy it from The Big Issue shop on Bookshop.org, which helps to support The Big Issue and independent bookshops. Bikini Kill are on tour from 12 June

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.

To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member.

Liz Carr was born in Bebington, Merseyside, in April 1972. She was disabled from age seven, owing to arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, and has used a wheelchair since she was 14. She studied law at the University of Nottingham, where she became involved in politics, disabled rights and activism. After graduating she volunteered in a law centre and became a campaigner for civil rights for disabled people in the UK and internationally. 

In 2000 she co-founded the comedy group, Nasty Girls. In 2003, Liz studied performing arts with Graeae Theatre Company and London Met University and performed in productions of Mother Courage, The Vagina Monologues and The Exception and the Rule among others. 

In 2005 she joined the comedy group Abnormally Funny People, she was a finalist in the Funny Women competition 2006 and in 2007 she was runner-up in the Hackney Empire New Act competition. She has taken six shows to Edinburgh Fringe, two shows to Melbourne Comedy Festival, toured all over the world with her comedy, her cabaret and with her one woman show, It Hasn’t Happened Yet. On screen, Liz is best known for her role as forensic examiner Clarissa Mullery in the long running BBC drama, Silent Witness. 

Speaking to The Big Issue for her Letter to My Younger Self, Liz Carr looks back on facing prejudices, comedy inspirations and finding love.

From my appearance most people will think I was born disabled, but I wasn’t [Carr was disabled from age seven, owing to arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, and has used a wheelchair since she was 14]. So I understand what becoming disabled means. Although I was only seven, I went from being one kind of person – popular, fit, conventionally attractive – to another. Suddenly I was not popular any more. Kids were scared of me and I was excluded from so many things because they weren’t accessible. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I was led to believe that unless I could walk and do everything for myself, I didn’t have a chance in life. I was quite ill as a teen, so I only went part time to school. Every holiday I went to Wexham Park Hospital. And most evenings and weekends were doing physio. It was miserable, because I was told repeatedly that I couldn’t be any of the things I want to be. 

I grew into the person I wanted to be, but I certainly wasn’t her at 16. My good music choices were from my older brother. Left to my own devices, I’d listen to a lot of Phil Collins and (I’m embarrassed to say this) Hooked on Classics. But comedy was really important to me. I’d never watched something that made me cry laughing until An Audience with Billy Connolly. It was the funniest thing I’d ever seen. We booked tickets to see him at Liverpool Empire and I remember the language. My dad would swear, but never the F word – I say it all the time. So this left us a bit shellshocked. 

I wanted nice clothes but couldn’t get them because I’m little. The drugs I took meant I didn’t grow past the age of seven. I remember going to Dolcis in the Pyramids in Birkenhead with my mum. Classy! Shoes were important to me, but the manager said: “You don’t walk, so you don’t need shoes.” Even as a business model, that’s bad. But people think they can say these things to us and they won’t hurt. Yet clearly, 40 years later, I’m still carrying that around. These days I wear incredible heels and shoes. I’m stubborn like that. 

I’d like to befriend the younger me. During lockdown, my mum would ring most nights. She was sorting the house, doing that Swedish death cleaning thing. She’d go through old diaries and call with the most harrowing bits. It would be, “What did you have for your tea? Did you know you wanted to die when you were 12?” Now, I knew I was miserable but to say I’d rather be dead? It hurts me to hear that my younger self didn’t see a future. I would love to tell her you’ll fall in love, have mates, travel the world and do a job people can only dream of. She wouldn’t have believed any of it. 

I’ve never not known that I’m loved. Whatever I’ve done, my parents supported me. But I need help to go to the loo, get dressed, make a meal, and knew I had to get away from home otherwise my parents would have to look after me forever. I got a place at Nottingham to study law. At uni they provided volunteers to support us, so this was the first time people other than my mum had to assist me – I was 18 and had to find the language to tell someone how to give me a hand in the shower or dress me. It was hard to learn, really embarrassing. I also had to mingle with other disabled people for the first time. I realised how much we had in common and loved it. To feel OK in that world was the hugest relief. 

I was told all the time that I wouldn’t live to be old, and I believed it. I thought I was going to die as a teenager. I thought I was going to die as a 20-year-old. Then I thought I would die by 30. So I’d love to tell my younger self that she won’t die young – because I’ve wasted a lot of my life worrying needlessly. And there’s a lot of things we do need to worry about. 

There is a way of viewing disability that takes it away from being this individual problem and says it’s the barriers in society that are the issue. I went on a course in a care home in Ross-on-Wye, and within three hours my life changed forever. I met a woman called Sue. She had everything I wanted: lived on her own, had a partner, worked, was funny. Sue took me under her wing. Before the course I’d think, I can’t get on the bus because I can’t walk and that’s my problem. They said, what if the buses were all accessible? And it was like a celestial moment. My life’s lightbulb moment. I don’t have to do everything on my own to be dignified and have a good life. It’s called the social model of disability. Once you take the guilt off you, it’s the world around you that has to change. That’s where activism started for me. 

Non-violent direct action is a privilege to be part of. I started to run the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN) in Nottingham and we had some big protests. Our most successful was around public transport – there’s something about being in the middle of the road that’s exciting. We’d say: “I’m sorry you’re inconvenienced for 20 minutes until the police come, but we can’t get on this bus any day.” It’s a powerful visual representation.   

• Then Barbara Met Alan – a revolutionary love story
• Britain is a scary place for disabled people, says Paralympian Hannah Cockroft – and she’s right

Drama at school was inaccessible and I didn’t think I could act because I didn’t see disabled actors on TV. So the idea I would be stopped in the street most days because people will have seen me on Silent Witness or The OA, which is what happened today, felt completely impossible. Doing The Normal Heart at the National Theatre meant so much to me on so many levels. My character was based on a disabled woman called Linda Laubenstein, a doctor who did so much to help gay men during the Aids crisis in the 1980s. I can’t imagine the barriers she must have overcome. I can’t imagine there will ever be a better role. It came at a tough time. Covid was hard and still is. Yet, in the rehearsal room, I felt like I belonged. I didn’t feel like an imposter. Winning an Olivier Award made it even more special. 

I could have had more affairs of the heart – and more sex – if I’d believed in me more. We often do things later, disabled people. Leaving home, working, relationships. I didn’t lose my virginity until my late 20s. I remember feeling that I’m a pretty good person, so I couldn’t understand. But I also did get it. We’re not seen as viable partners. So the advice to young me would be try everything. Take risks. Be open to everything. At the time, I just wanted a boyfriend because that’s what you did. I didn’t have a sense that I would be a lesbian or bisexual. But then Jo was there – she’s a recruiter lesbian, anyway – and we fell in love.

If I could relive one day, it’s going to be a cliché, but it would be my wedding day. We had a Day of the Dead-inspired wedding. When they said ‘you may kiss the brides’, a mariachi band appeared; we had frozen margaritas. Having a big wedding really mattered to us both, for different reasons. We wanted to celebrate with the living and the dead – we thought, we’re going to get fewer presents from the dead, but they’re gonna cost less, food-wise! No, but Sue, who changed my life completely, I only knew for seven years before she died. Jo’s dad had died when she was eight. If you are part of the crip community, you lose a lot of friends. I proposed through an advent calendar on Christmas Eve 2009, and my dad started writing his speech on Boxing Day. It was beautiful. 

There’s no way I expected to get married. Admitting this makes me queasy, but I remember thinking if I ever married someone, it would have to be a doctor because they’d know how to look after me. And that’s so fucked up. It shows how medicalised and how sick you see yourself when you’re disabled. All those shitty, negative low expectations have to be overcome. But I like proving people wrong. And maybe I don’t know how to live without a fight.

Liz Carr’s documentary Better Off Dead airs on BBC One and iPlayer, 14 May at 9pm.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.

To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member.

Liz Carr has been a vocal opponent of assisted dying for more than a decade. With signs that the tide could be turning on the subject, the actor and activist has reflected on how she came to terms with the life-changing disability she developed at the age of seven.

“From my appearance most people will think I was born disabled, but I wasn’t, so I understand what becoming disabled means,” she says in this week’s Big Issue, out now. Carr was disabled from age seven, owing to arthrogryposis multiplex congenita, and has used a wheelchair since she was 14.

The subject of Big Issue’s reader-favourite feature Letter to My Younger Self, Liz Carr shares how her mother recently found a “harrowing” diary entry which detailed how her younger self “wanted to die” when she was 12.

“During lockdown, my mum would ring most nights… She’d go through old diaries and call with the most harrowing bits. It would be, ‘What did you have for your tea? Did you know you wanted to die when you were 12?’ Now, I knew I was miserable but to say I’d rather be dead? It hurts me to hear that my younger self didn’t see a future.

“I would love to tell her you’ll fall in love, have mates, travel the world and do a job people can only dream of. She wouldn’t have believed any of it.”

Carr has created a documentary for the BBC, Better Off Dead?, which explores how changing legislation could affect vulnerable or disabled people.

“I was told all the time that I wouldn’t live to be old, and I believed it,” she says. “I thought I was going to die as a teenager. I thought I was going to die as a 20-year-old. Then I thought I would die by 30. So I’d love to tell my younger self that she won’t die young – because I’ve wasted a lot of my life worrying needlessly. And there’s a lot of things we do need to worry about.”

“I went on a course in a care home in Ross-on-Wye, and within three hours my life changed forever. I met a woman called Sue. She had everything I wanted: lived on her own, had a partner, worked, was funny. Sue took me under her wing.

“Before the course I’d think, I can’t get on the bus because I can’t walk and that’s my problem. They said, what if the buses were all accessible? And it was like a celestial moment. My life’s lightbulb moment. I don’t have to do everything on my own to be dignified and have a good life… That’s where activism started for me.”

To read Liz Carr’s full Letter to My Younger Self, buy this week’s Big Issue. You can find your local vendor here.

Bruce Dickinson was born in August 1958 in Worksop, Nottinghamshire. After fronting a series of bands in Sheffield and London, he became the singer of new wave of heavy metal band Samson in 1979, releasing three albums before leaving in 1981 to join Iron Maiden. His first album with Maiden was their third, 1982’s The Number Of The Beast, which became the band’s first UK number one. Over the following decade Maiden released a further five worldwide hit albums while establishing themselves as one of the biggest live draws in the world.

Dickinson quit Maiden in 1993 and released a string of well-received solo albums before rejoining the band in 1999 and embarking on their biggest tours to date while releasing a string of huge albums.

Away from music, Bruce Dickinson holds an airline transport pilot’s licence and flew Boeing 757s for the airline Astraeus, returned a group of British RAF pilots from Afghanistan in 2008, and 200 British citizens from Lebanon during the Israel/Hezbollah conflict in 2006, among other notable flights. He’s written two novels – The Adventures of Lord Iffy Boatrace and The Missionary Position – along with his memoirs, 2017’s What Does This Button Do? He has also competed internationally at fencing and launched a series of beers.

Speaking to The Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, Bruce Dickinson reflected on his schooldays, his time squatting in London and dealing with success.

By 16 I had been packed off to a boarding school and was fairly badly bullied because I didn’t really fit in. I was this kid from Worksop. My parents worked their fingers to the bone doing two or three jobs so they could send their kids to a place that would mean I didn’t have to work as hard as them. I never figured that one out. The only way I would have respect for myself is if I worked hard at something. But kids there were very entitled. The class system was embedded from the moment you walked in – there was a pecking order, you knew your place. But I refused to know my place and had a big mouth. So it was unwittingly character building. Although I’m not sure bullying ever does anything, really, except damage people. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I was rebellious, but not in conventional ways. Most people rebelled by smoking cigarettes. I was trying to blow things up. So I used to make weed killer and fertiliser bombs to try and blow up the cricket pitch. It was quite hazardous. At the same time, I reached the exalted rank of under officer in the cadets, which meant I had the keys to the school armoury. And back in the day, we actually had automatic weapons, World War 2 rifles, blank ammunition, two-inch mortars and smoke grenades. I would take a truckload of them into the woods so we could have a war on a Wednesday afternoon. 

This was the 1970s, so everything was a bit Life on Mars, you know? People were casually racist, things were settled by a thump in the mouth, grown-up men would get out of a car, whack somebody, then drive away. People drove drunk all the time without seatbelts. My dad told me seatbelts were dangerous and that he drove better after a few drinks, because he was more relaxed – which was how he totalled four cars! Every cliché you can think of was true. 

There was nothing to do. The youth club was dire. TV was just death by Bruce Forsyth. As I got into my teenage years, it was obvious that you could go to gigs or what was then called the disco. And the disco was just lots of young men throwing up outside, thinking they were going to ‘pull birds’ and lose their virginity. It was truly horrible. So my escape was into music. 

One gift boarding school did give me was music. Deep Purple were big for me. And we had an art teacher who was probably quite advanced in his smoking habits – he put on gigs at the school. We had Arthur Brown when I was 15, which blew my mind, Van der Graaf Generator did two gigs because the singer had gone to our school, and Magma, a crazy French jazz rock band that are still going turned up. We also had metal bands – including one called Wild Turkey, who were awesome. 

I decided to be the John Bonham of the bongos – but then realised I could sing! I tried acting and had loved it, but it was more like acting up. At least I knew I loved performing. So I stole some bongos from the music room to try to be a drummer. It didn’t work out, but in the process, I discovered I could sing. And singing and running around on stage felt like theatre. So that set me on my way – I kept the theatrical part, the prog bit, a bit from Arthur Brown, a bit of the Deep Purple vibe and then there was Sabbath and it all came together. 

Most of the plans I had about my future were a smokescreen – telling my parents stuff to keep them off my back. I just couldn’t wait to get out of boarding school. I couldn’t wait to get out of home. So I got myself into Queen Mary College in Mile End to study modern history. I said, it’d be useful if I join the army, but I was thinking, if I’m going to be a singer, I’ve got to be in London. I spent my grant buying a PA for the band I was in. They tried to kick me out for not doing any work – which was true – but I got the same degree as everybody else in the end because I crammed in the library for the last six months, mainly out of guilt because I’d taken all this money from the government and bought stuff for my band. 

I found a squat on the Isle of Dogs. There was polythene on the windows, they were all big pot smokers, so they’d all sit around smoking bongs then go back to their bedrooms and I used to roll myself up in a sheet and sleep on the couch. Luxury! It was one of these 1930s apartment blocks, and in a terrible state. Years later, after I’d joined Iron Maiden we did a song called 2 Minutes to Midnight. The video director said, we’re going to have these mercenaries holed up in a really disgusting flat. He showed me the picture of it, and I said, I used to live there!

• Who exactly is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame even for?
• Tobias Forge explains the surprise influence of Eurovision on metal band Ghost

My younger self would have not believed any of this. And an airline pilot as well? Don’t be ridiculous. I was just trying to get my singing chops together, so the thought of a career was not really on the radar. But when Iron Maiden recorded Number of the Beast, we knew we were making something amazing. But we still couldn’t believe the avalanche that followed. And then we made a succession of great records in a short period, all of which stand the test of time. It was all the things I wanted to do with my voice and the songwriting. We didn’t plan it that way, but it all worked. 

What would most excite my teenage self would be standing in front of thousands of people and having them all cheer. But what excites me now is that, in spite of all the potential for turning into an absolute wanker, I’ve only partially turned into an absolute wanker. And somehow, I think, I’ve managed to be quite helpful for people in their lives, whether through music or other stuff. And that does mean a lot. 

Iron Maiden fans are on another level. And it’s a whole life term. I don’t support a football team but I look with astonishment at how supporters react. And I don’t think there’s a word for the level of commitment and devotion people have to a football club. And people have that same level of devotion to Iron Maiden. Part of me says, wow, that’s amazing. The artistic half of me worries that maybe we don’t challenge ourselves artistically because we have this devoted following and they’re happy with the way we are. One reason for doing solo records is to push the envelope of what you can do emotionally and get out of the tram line. The tram lines are great. They’re quite broad, but they do exist. 

I don’t know whether I’m qualified to advise my younger self about love. Because I’ve just got married for the third time. All I can do is just talk about my relationship right now because it’s the calmest I’ve ever had. And it’s great. We have fun, we laugh, but we’re not manic. We can be in the same room and not feel the need to go ‘are you all right?’ We are happy just breathing the same air. And getting married hasn’t changed that.

If I could relive one day, I’d go back to the day we played in Sarajevo during the war.  The difference that show made to people’s lives was beyond anything I could ever hope to achieve. They were down to three days’ supply of food, water and diesel, the siege had lasted longer than Stalingrad, people were living in houses that barely existed and had burnt the last of their furniture for firewood. And in the middle of it, we drove through a firefight in a truck driven by a second-year student from Edinburgh. We didn’t mention the war once. You don’t need some rock star turning up saying war is a bad thing. They’re in it, dude. Just play your music. It might just make people happy – and that’s the most useful thing you can do.

Bruce Dickinson’s new solo album, The Mandrake Project, is out now, along with a comic book series of the same name. He tours the UK this month

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.

To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member.

Sananda Maitreya was born in Manhatthan, New York, in March 1962. He grew up in Orlando, Florida, where he formed the band Modernaires in High School. He trained as a boxer and won the Golden Gloves lightweight championship in 1980. He served in the US army for three years, the last of which was spent in Germany, where he joined The Touch as lead singer.

After moving to London, his debut album performing as Terence Trent D’Arby, Introducing The Hardline… was a massive success, selling over 12 million copies worldwide and giving him the hit singles If You Let Me Stay, Wishing Well (a US No 1), Dance Little Sister and Sign Your Name. The following albums, Neither Fish Nor Flesh, Symphony Or Damn and Vibrator won fans worldwide, including the UK where he had a further five Top 20 singles.

In 1995, he adopted the name Sananada Maitreya and has since released eight albums and four live albums on his own independent record label Treehouse Publishing. In 1999, he fronted INXS for a one-off performance, celebrating the opening of Stadium Australia, Sydney. He lives in Milan with his wife, Italian television host and architect Francesca Francone, and their two sons.

Speaking to The Big Issue for his Letter to my Younger Self, Sananda Maitreya reflects on early inspirations, his rebirth and learning from his children.

I would adore my 16-year-old self. I would tell them that you are a visionary. You have an incredible idea of who you are. Be patient because your time will come [Maitreya rose to fame in 1987, performing as Terence Trent D’Arby]. Every insult, everything you’re going through, will transform into your own unique form of expression. You will inherit a chip on your shoulder that you will learn to use as fuel. I did not have a happy childhood. It was very dramatic and confusing. So see this as the preliminary process you go through to become a greater artist than you might have been if everyone was blowing smoke up your ass.

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

You can be traumatised to the point where you are separated from the identification that you carried before. To the point where you have no fixed identity that you feel safe enough to embrace [he created his new identity in 1996]. The idea that we remain the same person, from the time we come out of the womb, to the time we go back into the womb of the Earth, is absolutely ludicrous.

There was a period of roughly two years where if you called me by my former name, it might take me a couple of seconds to register that you were in fact addressing me. I was to understand through a series of dreams that I must change my identity completely. It would be the most difficult thing that I’ve ever undertaken, but it was the only way forward whilst maintaining possession of who I knew I was. If you want to leave your footprint in the sands of Babylon, that’s the price you’re going to have to be willing to pay.

Corporations tell you that you might have created the identity, but they own it. It’s not in their best interest to let you keep expanding your view of it, especially since controlling the assets and property is basically what those corporations exist to do. Between my first and second projects my label changed from CBS to Sony. I was naive enough to care about more than just selling as many records as possible.

I always felt like my previous life was me fulfilling my mother’s dream. And Sananda Maitreya’s life is finally me fulfilling my father’s vision of the life he wanted. He wanted to be a guitar player in a rock band, so I will say to him, I’ll take care of it, but I’m sorry that I judged you on what little biased information they left me about you. My father was a married man – a two-timing, trouble-scheming rapscallion. But that’s my dad. And if he hadn’t done that, we are not having this conversation. Sometime in 1987/88, he called my mother and said, “I want to meet him.” Out of a sense of misplaced loyalty to the people that raised me, I refused. The biggest mistake. It was a posture; it was a pose. And to this day, I regret it.

At 18, I’m back at my parents’ home in Florida from basic army training. In the middle of the night I have this dream. I’m standing on a street corner in New York City and through this haze, I see this guy dressed in a white t-shirt, jeans and a cap. As he comes closer and his smile gets bigger, I realise, Oh my god, that’s John Lennon. He sticks out his hand and as I try to shake it, he walks straight through me. I wake up a few hours later and my mother says, “Did you hear the news? John Lennon was killed.” Shortly after he died, I guess his spirit was free to do whatever he wanted. I chose to interpret it in the most positive light possible, because we’re talking about my first heroes. Hearing The Beatles as a two-year-old was my first conscious moment in this life.

• ‘The Beatles were right to preach love. But it’s not all we need’
• Kool & the Gang’s Robert Bell on music, politics and the secret to a happy marriage

Prince answered any questions I had as to whether I was more rock than soul, more gospel than pop, more jazz than country. He showed me the answer is, fuck it, just be who you are, because who you are is unique. No more segregating ourselves to make them comfortable. To make it easier for them to not have to think about what we are. He embraced me as a little brother. We even had a close telepathic relationship, able to communicate without having to speak to one another. Very often I would call him knowing he was needing me to call. I even knew when to avoid him if he was calling to bitch about something that I didn’t want to have to deal with.

I was also very close to Miles [Davis]. After I got my first taste of crucifixion from my second project [Neither Fish nor Flesh, 1989], I asked him if he’d had a chance to hear it and he turned on me. I was startled, but in retrospect, he was absolutely right. He said, “Listen, don’t ever ask me what I think of your work. You tell me what you think of it. As long as you’re sure about what you did, that’s all that matters. If they don’t get it now, they will catch up to it. Fuck my opinion. What do you think of it?”

You won’t meet the woman who will change the course of your life until you’re 33 years old. In the meantime, line them up. I never had as many as I could have had because I learned that there’s a price for overindulgence at the expense of your gift. There were contemporaries who left too many great songs in women’s beds. I would say, you’re gonna walk away from a lot of fun in fear that you’re going to lose balance. Don’t walk away. Just be smart, be cautious. Just go for it. As the Buddha has said: Jump, you won’t fall.

Your children are as much your teachers as you are theirs. In our zeal to be seen as adults, we lose contact with so much of what is vital within us, and your children gravitate you back towards those places. And in having them, you’re able to retroactively heal a lot of your own childhood. I didn’t know my biological father. I hadn’t seen him since I was two years old and he died in 1993. But at that point I was given to understand that my firstborn son would be him – the guy who was my dad, which would give us a chance to finally be together and finish our conversation in a much more amenable environment. Knowing that my son represented the fulfilment of a promise was a huge step forward in my own psychological process.

We are some angry bitches right now. We just are. And our various governments understand that until you actually have something to offer people, the only way to keep control is to keep them angry. Because angry people don’t think rationally, we don’t think straight, we jump more quickly into self-pity. We start pointing fingers at everyone but ourselves without realising that the person you have been encouraged to point the finger at doesn’t have shit, either. Because the greater fear is that we wake up and realise that we are not each other’s problem.

I was invited to participate in the John Lennon Tribute Concert in Liverpool in 1990. I was in a car on my way there with the legendary Al Green because we had back-to-back sound checks. And like the naive urchin that I was, I look at this great, great man and I say, “reverend Al, why are you always so happy?” And he looked at me and said, “I’m always happy because every morning, I wake up, and I make the decision to be happy.” I was like, the reverend has spoken! You’re telling me that happiness is a conscious choice? I’ve been thinking it’s a lottery! That blew me away. No less an authority than the reverend Al Green confirmed that you don’t have to suffer. You can just choose happiness.

Sananda Maitreya’s new album, The Pegasus Project: Pegasus & The Swan, is out on 11 May. He will play Love Supreme on 6 July and is touring Europe in June.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.

To support our work buy a copy! If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member.

Olly Murs was born in Wiltham, Essex, in May 1989. His early calling appeared to be football – he played semi-professionally for Wiltham Town in the Isthmian Division One North, but after breaking into the first team, was forced to retire from football in 2008 after suffering a knee injury.

In 2009, Murs auditioned for the sixth series of The X Factor and eventually finished as runner-up to Joe McElderry. He released his debut single, Please Don’t Let Me Go, in August 2010, which went straight to No 1. His self-titled debut album made it to No. 2 when released in November 2010 and went twice Platinum in the UK. His next four albums all hit the top spot, with 2011’s In Case You Didn’t Know and the following year’s Right Place Right Time both selling over one million copies in the UK alone. He’s also reached No 1 in the UK singles chart with Heart Skips a Beat (with Rizzle Kicks), Dance with Me Tonight and Troublemaker (featuring Flo Rida).

He’s enjoyed a parallel career as a TV presenter, fronting The X Factor and its spin-off show, The Xtra Factor, the ITV talent show Starstruck and one-off specials A Night in with Olly Murs and Happy Hour with Olly Murs.

His work for charity includes participating in the BT Charity Trek, regular appearances in Soccer Aid and Sports Relief events and the 2021 Climb For Caroline, to raise funds for Samaritans in the name of friend and colleague Caroline Flack.

Speaking to The Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, Olly Murs recalls an early love of pop, opens up about the realities of fame and tells his younger self to see the world.

At 16, I was going through what most lads are going through at that age: puberty, becoming a man. I was very sociable and cheeky. I loved chatting to girls. I wanted to be a football player. I was training every day and had aspirations of going professional. I just wasn’t good enough in the end. Music came later when I started going to the pub, got drunk and did karaoke. I loved performing and when you’re 16, you’re starting to look at what you’re wearing, you want to be seen, you want to be recognised. You want people to know who you are. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I was obsessed with boybands. I loved Westlife, Blue; NSYNC were flying, Backstreet Boys were popping hits. I started really finding myself with music. And at the time, pop was at its peak. I remember watching an interview with Britney Spears on This Morning before I went to school. She was basically saying that she loved English men and that she was coming to the UK to find her new boyfriend. I was thinking: Well she’s the same age as me, I’ve got a chance. That’s kind of where I was at. 

That whole era was really exciting. The songs were vibrant and cheeky and fun. Now the industry is so different. Maybe pop music will come back eventually. It’s kind of dead at the moment. I was a huge Spice Girls fan, which worried my dad for a few years, I think. We speak about it now and I say, “But I just really fancied all of them.” I had all their stickers. I had all their books. I had Victoria Beckham’s photo in my wallet. Next to David Beckham’s, because I loved David Beckham as well. He was my idol. I had my hair blond and short, I tried to be him. At that time, most kids growing up wanted to be famous, to be in a band or be a footballer. 

My life at 25, it went WHUMP. I would say to my 16-year-old self, hey, being famous is cool, have your wits about you, make sure you have the right people around you, trust your instincts, trust yourself and you’ll be OK. 

This would’ve been the kind of conversation I had with my mates at 16: Wouldn’t it be amazing to go into a nightclub being famous and all the girls wanting you? And you know, when it happened eventually, it wasn’t what I expected. I would say to my 16-year-old self, one day you are going to be famous and what you’re visualising now, I suppose in a way it is like that, but you really see how people can change. 

When I did The X Factor I came back to Essex to do a gig. I’d been in this club probably three months before. There were a couple of girls I had been speaking to that I tried to, you know, you’d see them and think, oh, I’d love to go on a date with her. I’d ask them and they’d go, you’re not my cup of tea. That night, I walked in, one of them was front row. She was screaming, looking at me and giving me all this. About two songs in I said, “Do you know what’s really amazing about doing this gig tonight? I can see how shallow some people are now that I’m famous, whereas before you didn’t care.” 

I would say to my 16-year-old self when you get to the point in 2010 when your life changes and you get that record deal, don’t stay in your hotel room every night. Get out and see the world. When I was travelling and touring, I spent a lot of time sitting in my hotel room bored. You can’t go out and just get drunk with your mates because the next day could be Olly Murs gets smashed with his mates in a nightclub. I went away to some amazing places. I toured across America with One Direction and I wish I saw more. I was in a shell. I felt lonely. I should have gone out and seen the world.

Being famous, don’t get me wrong, there’s perks. But in the early days I found dating really hard because it was about figuring out who actually wants to get to know me over the girls that were just wanting to be seen with me. Suddenly, there’s all these gorgeous Victoria’s Secret-vibe models around you and you’re like, nah man, this doesn’t feel right. This wasn’t happening to me when I was a recruitment consultant. I was lucky I came into it a bit older. I knew who I was. I was more clued up than some of the young lads or women that come into it at 17 or 18 where you haven’t really lived yet. 

• Zayn Malik: ‘I wanted to forge my own path, write my own story and see the world’
• The Woman in Me review – Britney Spears finally sets the record straight

When it comes to love I’d say to my younger self, just trust the process. Trust the journey you go on Olly. I’d been in a few relationships before I went on The X Factor and they were learning experiences. It made me realise what I wanted in a relationship. I lost my virginity quite late on, 19-20. I didn’t rush into anything. I kept my cool. They say when you know, you know. I always thought that was so cliched. But as soon as I met Amelia, I knew. When I looked at Amelia I thought, I could see you raising a child with me, I could see being old with you [Olly and Amelia married last July and welcomed their first child in April, after this interview took place]. 

Anyone in this profession has suffered from some mental health issues. Everyone I’ve met – everyone – has suffered with depression or anxiety or worry. Talking to other people is the most important thing. At some point in my life, I had to go and see a therapist. For someone who’s looked at as a bit of a geezer I’m not afraid to admit that. Sometimes you just need another voice from the outside that isn’t family, that aren’t your friends, to get to the nitty gritty of who you are and understand why you’re feeling like this. 

I would love to chat to Caroline again. [Olly and Caroline Flack co-presented a series of The X Factor. She died by suicide in 2020]. She was a huge part of my life and career. Special person, special friend. We had an interesting relationship, but it was great. And it’s mad because people say they visit you in your dreams. Caz does that quite frequently actually. It’s lovely when people that pass away do that. My mate said to me once years ago that his mum visited him in his dream. I found it a bit odd when he said it. He said: “It felt really real, and I don’t know what to make of it, whether it’s just a subconscious thing, whatever.” Since Caroline passed, I’ve had those moments. It’s the most surreal moment but it’s lovely when them days happen. I’d love to see Caz again and chat to her. That’d be lovely. 

If I could, I would love to relive the day of my X Factor audition again. I would love to relive that whole experience again, top to bottom. I reminisce quite a lot about it actually. It was such an iconic time, so special. TV isn’t as big as it was back then and I was on the biggest TV show in this country, watched by millions every week. If I could bottle that emotion, that feeling when I came off stage after the audition… that moment changed everything. And then Michael Jackson died that same day. High to a low.

My 16-year-old head would explode if they knew I was supporting Take That on tour. They came back in 2006 with Patience. I had that album, Beautiful World, and then Circus, and I played them to death. I’ve told Gary [Barlow] a million times, and the boys every time I’ve seen them, how much those albums meant to me. They helped me through some periods in my life. So to be on tour with them, my 16-year-old self would be like WHAT?! No freaking way! That would just blow my mind. 

Olly Murs is currently supporting Take That at their This Life on Tour stadium and arena shows.

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue today or give a gift subscription to a friend or family member. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play

Olly Murs, 39, has just become a father for the first time. The arrival of his daughter Madison last week was met with much celebration – including from, surprisingly, his MP Priti Patel.

“Sending my best wishes and congratulations to Witham’s most famous resident @ollymurs and his wife on the joyous birth of their baby daughter,” she tweeted; “I am sure she won’t be a ‘troublemaker’ like her dad!”

A nice wink and nudge to his 2009 No 1 (ever in touch, Priti), but how much of a ‘troublemaker’ was young Olly? Murs speaks to Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self in this week’s issue, out today (22 April) – a reader favourite column that has previously featured the likes of Shania Twain, Mo Farah and Sir Tom Jones.

Olly reflects on his life journey, from being catapulted to fame on The X Factor, to presenting it alongside close friend Caroline Flack, whose death by suicide had a huge impact on him.

“I would love to talk to Caroline again,” Olly tells the Big Issue. “She was a huge part of my life and career. Special person, special friend. We had an interesting relationship, but it was great.

“It’s mad because people say they visit you in your dreams. Caz does that quite frequently actually. It’s lovely when people that pass away do that.

“Since Caroline passed, I’ve made those moments. It’s the most surreal moment but it’s lovely when them days happen. I’d love to see Caz again and chat to her.”

Observing that life in the spotlight takes its toll on celebrities’ mental health, Olly Murs admits to having therapy to cope with his own issues. “Anyone in this profession has suffered from some mental health issues. Everyone I’ve met – everyone – has suffered with depression or anxiety or worry. Talking to other people is the most important thing.

“At some point in my life, I had to go and see a therapist. For someone who’s looked at as a bit of a geezer I’m not afraid to admit that. Sometimes you just need another voice from the outside that isn’t family, that aren’t your friends, to get to the nitty gritty of who you are and understand why you’re feeling like this.”

Olly reflects on how people’s attitude towards him changed after his success on the sixth series of The X Factor, on which he was runner-up in 2009.

“When I did The X Factor I came back to Essex to do a gig. I’d been in this club probably three months before. There were a couple of girls I had been speaking to that I tried to, you know, you’d see them and think, ‘Oh, I’d love to go on a date with her.’ I’d ask them and they’d go, ‘You’re not my cup of tea.’

“That night, I walked in, one of them was front row. She was screaming, looking at me and giving me all this. About two songs in I said, ‘Do you know what’s really amazing about doing this gig tonight? I can see how shallow some people are now that I’m famous, whereas before you didn’t care.’”

“When it comes to love I’d say to my younger self, just trust the process,” he reflects. “Trust the journey you go on Olly.

“I’d been in a few relationships before I went on The X Factor and they were learning experiences. It made me realise what I wanted in a relationship. I lost my virginity quite late on, 19-20. I didn’t rush into anything. I kept my cool.”

Read Olly Murs’ full Letter to My Younger Self in this week’s Big Issue, out now. Find your local vendor to buy a copy, or subscribe online, at bigissue.com.

Labi Siffre was born in June 1945 in Hammersmith, England. He formed his first band at 16 and began playing jazz guitar in groups around Soho in the late 60s. He released his self-titled debut album in 1970 and followed it up with classic albums including The Singer And The Song, Crying Laughing Loving Lying and For The Children. Hit singles in the 70s included It Must Be Love (later a hit for Madness), Crying Laughing Loving Lying and Watch Me.

A sabbatical from music ended in 1984, when Labi Siffre was inspired by a documentary about apartheid in South Africa to write Something Inside So Strong, a song that would reach No 4 in the UK chart on its 1987 release and go on to become an anti-apartheid anthem.

His music received a new lease of life in the 90s and 00s thanks to it being sampled by hip-hop artists, most notably when Eminem and Dr Dre used an instrumental element of Siffre’s 1975 track I Got The… as the hook for the 1999 global hit My Name Is.

Speaking to The Big Issue for his Letter to My Younger Self, Labi Siffre reflects on a youthful obsession with music, singleminded approach to life and what has been important to him.

At 16, I was trying to be Jimmy Reed. I’m the penultimate son of five boys and my brother Kole, who was five years older than me, was probably the largest influence on my life as a musician. He had an amazing record collection and still has excellent taste. So I grew up listening to the best of blues and modern jazz – Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Monk, Miles, Mingus, Howlin’ Wolf, John Lee Hooker, straight through to Ellington, Bird, Wes Montgomery, Oscar Peterson, Erroll Garner, Ella, the divine Sarah Vaughan, Mel Tormé, Little Richard, Fats Domino. That was the musical life that I grew up with, so I was very fortunate. 

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

I’ve always been a serious person. At 14 I wrote my manifesto of what I was going to do with the rest of my life. It started with me thinking most people would do anything rather than evidence-based, critical thinking. Then I thought surviving is so tough for many millions, billions of people that perhaps they don’t have time for deep philosophical thought. I came to the conclusion that there was a group of people who took it upon themselves to think – as a duty, as a vocation – and those people would be philosophers and artists. I decided that I would be an artist-philosopher or a philosopher-artist. Somewhat to my surprise, it seems I stuck to my guns.  

I was six the first time I saw a postcard in a window that said, “Room to let: No Blacks, no Irish, no dogs.” That was the first time I was trolled. I was brought up by the society I lived in. I was brought up to have very little self-esteem. I was brought up in a society that told me that as a man, I was supposed to be homophobic, racist, misogynistic and ableist. Because everywhere that I looked, that’s what I was being told was the right thing to be. 

I gradually realised that everything I was being told about myself by the society and the country and the world I lived in, was a lie as a homosexual, Black atheist artist. So I decided that my roots had to start with me and I have progressed believing that ever since. I’ve never had time for people who base their lives on what their ancestors did. Especially when what their ancestors did was nothing to be proud of.  

Your support changes lives. Find out how you can help us help more people by signing up for a subscription

I decided very early on in my life that I would search for and find somebody, make them fall in love with me and we would live together happily ever after. I had decided that by the time I was 10 or 11 years of age. And I pursued that very seriously indeed. I doubt that there are even a handful of heterosexuals in the world who have considered this fact: while these things vary, only 6 or 7% of the population are homosexual and so it’s very much more difficult to find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. You really have to take it rather more seriously. 

I was very fortunate. In July 1964, I met Peter, who would have been my late husband had he lived long enough for marriage equality, so we were civil partners. Then in 1997, I met my husband Ruud. The three of us lived together for 16 years until Peter died in 2013 (we were together for 48 years). Ruud died in 2016. We were together for 19 years. 

I have had far more difficulties in my life due to being a homosexual than being Black. And I conclude that your sexuality is who and what you are. And your colour is what other people say you are. If you are Black, you have to put up with the ignorance and arrogance of people who aren’t Black. If you are a homosexual, you must put up with the ignorance and arrogance of white people, blue people, green people, adult people, children who have been taught very early – just about every group of people. 

I’d tell my 16-year-old self, if you want to grow up to be me, I shouldn’t give you any advice at all. But if I was to give advice – certainly from a musical point of view – I could say honestly, that had I known I was going to be as good as I was, I wouldn’t have given up so often. So possibly my advice would be, just keep doing what you’re doing. 

Fame and fortune were not in my plan. Not for any high moralistic artistic reasons, it just merely never occurred to me. I wanted to be a musician. That was it. I wanted to be able to earn enough money so that I could be a musician all the time, rather than having to take day jobs. When I became a ‘public figure’, it took a very short time, a matter of a few months, for me to realise I was never going to be comfortable with that attention, but it was part of the job. 

I know we’re supposed to pretend that we’re all glamorous. Well, I’m not. I am very work oriented. I’ve come to realise that my job satisfaction mainly comes from the making. As far as songwriting is concerned – as with writing novels, or whatever – it’s making something seemingly out of the shadow of nothing. If you manage to do it, you get a great deal of satisfaction that you’ve done a good job. And then of course, you’ve got to do the next one. 

• Emmylou Harris: ‘The only thing I knew how to do was sing, I had no choice’
• Lloyd Cole: ‘My younger self would probably be appalled I’m still performing with grey hair’

My real life was at home. That was the thing that was overwhelmingly the most important part of my life. The rest of it you could call it a fascination or obsession or an inability to get away from music and learning about it. During the early part of my career, probably by the second album, I was asking myself, why exactly am I doing this? Because I knew that I was not part of the mainstream. I started by saying, I’m trying to write good songs. And then I quickly thought, hang on a minute, that’s not a good enough explanation. And I came to the conclusion that I was attempting to write songs that are useful. 

I don’t pat myself on the back. I find that very difficult. In fact, I spent the past few years telling myself to be more forgiving of myself. I would doubt that there is anyone more critical of me than I am. So I wouldn’t have been especially self-congratulatory when the songs I’ve written have made an impact and been useful to people. I wouldn’t have thought about it like that. I would have just got on with writing. 

For 14 years, I was Peter’s 24/7 carer and I mean 24/7. During that period I probably spent, in total hours, less than two weeks working on music. And when I started to be able to function again, which is only a short while ago, I was very, very pleased to find that I’m still eager to learn. That’s one of the things about a career in music, or arts. It is constant learning.  

My new material is me now, not me then. I’m still me and I know more now. At the moment, I’m doing the part of the job that is getting as much of me into the work as I can. I have no intention of trying to be somebody else. And once I’ve gone through that process, that’s when I go into the studio with other people who might do something I’ve done better, or have an idea that I haven’t had. The most important thing first of all though, is to get as much of me into the work as possible. 

If I could go back to any time, that’s obvious. It’d be to when Peter and Ruud were alive. I’d say “I love you” and they’d say “I love you”. It would be very straightforward. And I would refuse to leave. 

Labi Siffre’s catalogue is currently being reissued on half-speed mastered 180g vinyl by Demon Music Group. The latest in the series, 1973’s For the Children, will be released on 26 April. 

This article is taken from The Big Issue magazine, which exists to give homeless, long-term unemployed and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy!

If you cannot reach your local vendor, you can still click HERE to subscribe to The Big Issue or give a gift subscription. You can also purchase one-off issues from The Big Issue Shop or The Big Issue app, available now from the App Store or Google Play