WH : Toyah, 42 and writing your life story. It's a bit soon isn't it? 

Toyah : I know, I do hope I've got another 40 years actually. But I'm glad I did it because I'd have forgotten if I was to write it at 80. I wouldn't have had the memories and the time was right. It's extraordinary, when you're asked to do something, apart from the flattery, if the time isn't right the 
energy doesn't flow. I was asked a year ago to write this and I sat down and couldn't stop writing for a year. Memories came back to me that I'd never even thought about, memories of my mother putting my nappy on me. 

WH : I can't believe you remember having your nappy changed! 

Toyah : I remember it so clearly because of the size of the safety pin, and how I could control my mother by controlling my bowels, or not controlling them, as soon as that flannel nappy went on. 

WH : The impression I got was that you have packed an enormous amount into those 42 years. Your songs from the punk period, what do you think when you hear them now? 

Toyah : It's totally another person, it's another time, another culture. I was playing some music to a friend the other day and I don't often do this, and he said 'gosh!, it's very dramatic, isn't it?', and it was back then. The punk era and going into the New Romantic movement  it was very melo-dramatic, high drama, high expression, almost Brechtian, taken from that kind of German culture of extremism. It's another person because I just wouldn't do that now. 

WH : The anger that was there in the punk movement, though I personally think you were one of the more polite punks at the time - you didn't seem quite as threatening as some of the others - In the book you say you are an angry person, you'd be lost without it. 

Toyah : Oh anger is so important, as long as the anger doesn't control you. I just don't think you can be creative without anger. Pacifity and happiness are probably the worst things a creative person can have. Conflict is bliss, I hate to say it, it does keep you awake at night, but it does earn you an income. 

WH : The way you describe your childhood, it sounds like you had a lot to be angry about. 

Toyah : I wasn't aware of my disability until I started school. I've got one leg longer than the other so as a child I had quite a bad limp, and I had a twisted spine as well. But it wasn't until I got to school that I realised I had a lisp. Children are quick to point that out, they create a pecking order and I went straight to the bottom of that pecking order. 

WH : Was it a miserable time? 

Toyah : Psychologically, it was a very difficult time. I had a lot to work out, they say the building blocks of your life really happen from the day you're born till you're about five, then there was a lot to make me angry in that period. But if it hadn't have happened I wouldn't be who I am today, so I'm very grateful for all that bullying  because it just made me tough. 
 

Toyah : Yes, they didn't let me go out much at night and  I think this is a warning to all parents. How far do you take that protection?, if you stop a child being confident and independent. That happened with me a lot, a man tried to abduct my sister and they just would not let me out of their sight after that happened. It's understandable but I was till being kept in at the age of 14. People have to spread their wings, they have to make mistakes, they have to learn by those mistakes. You can't do that in your bedroom. 

WH : You did have huge battles with your mum. She gave up a successful career to have a family. Do you think she must have been kicking the walls with frustration sometimes? 

Toyah : Totally, but I say in the book, I sipped her frustration while I was in the womb. My mother was a wonderful mother, she's the one who taught me how to walk, she was the one that was trained to give me the physiotherapy to straighten my own spine. So twice a day we would go through this routine. She was a disciplinarian figure in my life right from I can remember, so it was natural she was the first person I should rebel against. I regret that our relationship was very often violent, very uncivil, very cruel and unkind. 

WH : What's it like now? 

Toyah : It's good! It's good now. We learn to compromise with each other. We're still opposites, we're completely polarized, but at the same time I would go to war to protect my parents. I feel such love and loyalty towards them, that incompatibility has nothing to do with that, the bond is beyond that. I feel very strongly towards my mum, she sacrificed everything to give me the freedom I have today. 

WH : You also talk about the pressure on you to conform to the ideal body. But I remember you playing Trafford Tanzi onstage and you were very small, very muscular and strong. That was such a joy to see another body shape for women. 

Toyah : At the time of Trafford Tanzi I felt great because that show was like doing a four hour workout every day. I felt fantastic doing that show. I am a muscular person by nature and I still tend to starve myself. There's a difference between anorexic starvation and not over-eating. If you overeat you're encouraging the body to age quicker and you're just not supposed to overeat. I've had to learn over the years to only eat enough to stop feeling hungry. 

WH : So it's denial? 
 
 
 

WH : Well, women! 

Toyah : Well women especially, yes. 

WH : You talk about the unlikely friendship you struck up with Katherine Hepburn. 

Toyah : I had a brilliant agent who managed to persuade the casting director that I had to be seen for this film, and Katherine said she fell in love with me as soon as I walked into the room. She loved my eyes, she said they were full of fire. She explained to me while we were filming that she was ridiculed so badly for being different at the beginning of her career. People said she looked and sounded like a man, she was masculine, she had no grace. Yet, ironically, that is what we remember and love her for. She had a terrible time with the critics. Someone asked me 'What's the best thing Katherine could be remembered for?' I'd say because she proved her critics wrong. Stunning woman, a true feminist in every way. 

WH : You've taken some tough decisions in your life, including being sterilized while still in your 20's. Is that a decision you've ever had any regrets about? 

Toyah : No. The morning I woke up from the operation I was in tears. I felt I'd interfered with my femininity, but since then, no. You don't have a child just because you're a woman, you have a child because you have a calling. I did not want to be put in the position of terminating a birth when I felt so strongly that, actually psychologically, being pregnant would damage me. It was something I'd really, really thought about and I perhaps suffered for six weeks after but since then it's been a liberation. 

WH : And 42, middle aged - you call yourself - what does the future hold? 

Toyah : Am I middle aged though? If we are going to live to 100, I'm approaching middle age! 

WH : Well we look forward to hearing about, as you say, the next 40 years. Toyah, thank you very much.