[Lifestle] Annie Mac looks back: ‘I was wild, feral and very comfortable in a tree’

[[~OMAR~]]

 

Born in Dublin in 1978, Annie Macmanus rose to fame in the noughties as a radio DJ specialising in electronic music. Her two-decade career has included 17 years at BBC Radio 1, including taking over its flagship evening show, as well being one of the biggest live DJs in Europe and programming festivals. In 2021, Macmanus switched gear: publishing a bestselling novel, Mother Mother, and launching a podcast, Changes. Her new novel, The Mess We’re In, is out now. She lives in London with her husband, the DJ Toddla T, and their two children.

 

This image is very emblematic of me as a kid. I am nine and in Marlay Park in south Dublin, where I grew up. I was wild, feral and very comfortable in a tree. Although I am high up, I look so comfy – so comfy that I’ve slipped my feet out of my shoes. My expression and body language is saying: “This is nothing!”

 

I am the youngest of a large family, so by the time I came along, the fussing of parenting had melted away and the general attitude was: “You’re left to your own devices. You’re alive and clean-ish. Grand.” At this point, I would have been spending my school-free days down the green – a little patch of grass about 50 yards from the housing estate where I grew up. I would play football all day with the boys, then I would climb trees. As it started to get dark, my mum would call me in for dinner, and if it was Saturday, my weekly bath. I was really active and had such lovely friends. It was a very good time.

Because of the little girl that I was, I resisted the idea of puberty and I didn’t want to know anything about becoming a teenager. My mum was very kind and never wanted to pressure or embarrass me, but I remember her coming home one day and presenting me with a book [about puberty]. I didn’t want to read it – in fact, I ran out of the room. I knew what it meant, what it symbolised, and I couldn’t deal with it.

 

Of course, the hormones hit me eventually. My social group used to call periods The Confidence. I remember in assembly nudging my friend and saying: “I’ve got The Confidence!” It was a big deal. The move from primary to secondary school is a seismic one and that wild, feral side started to diminish.

 

I remember ringing my dad from the desk at Radio 1 and saying: ‘I got a permanent job!’

While the carefreeness of my young childhood had drifted, I handled the shift as well as I could. I was really lucky in that I never felt oversexualised during those teenage years. Nobody ever pushed me into looking feminine. Naturally, I eventually did what most girls do: I wore short skirts and kissed boys. I still went through a period of hating my body and being confused about it, however. I had gone from this unselfconscious kid to becoming obsessed with my size, from the age of 15 onwards. I grew up in the 90s and that whole decade of heroin chic, Kate Moss and trousers hanging off your hip bones really got to me. It was impossible not to feel affected by the media and how skeletal bodies were deemed desirable. My body wasn’t like that, nor was anyone’s I knew. But it didn’t stop me thinking something was wrong with me.

 

I had a huge awakening in my mid-teens. I was always surrounded by noise – I had two brothers and a sister, and at any given time in our house people would be playing the piano, guitar, the mandolin, the bouzouki, the bodhrán, the accordion or the saxophone. But discovering music for myself was really identity-shaping. The first was a Guns N’ Roses double cassette of Use Your Illusion, which made me feel as if I’d arrived. Then came Massive Attack’s Blue Lines, all the Blur albums, Portishead’s Dummy and Goldie’s Timeless. Dublin was small and these albums were like doors opening to different worlds.

 

[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/may/13/annie-mac-looks-back-i-was-wild-feral-and-very-comfortable-in-a-tree]