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Nicola Wilding

Nicola Wilding

Writer and TV producer, author of the debut memoir "These Wild English: A Family, a Class, a Country on Fire."

Aug 19, 2026

0:42
For those who don't understand me, for those who don't know, just explain a little bit about yourself and why you had the chispa, the spark to write this particular book.
0:53
OK, so I'm a TV producer and I come from a northern working class family.
0:59
And back in 2013, my mum went on her first EDL match.
1:05
And she took herself over London Bridge singing, I mingle until I die.
1:09
Around about the same time, my little brother ended up in prison for armed robbery.
1:14
And I was, I think, making a documentary about the Queen, thinking to myself, how on earth did we get here as a family? How did my mum, who is this strong, independent woman, brought up four kids pretty much alone, spent 40 years as a carer, how did she end up marching alongside what people would call term far-right extremists chanting no more refugees.
1:39
So I wrote this book to try to answer that question.
3:28
So you go from, you know, and your family history goes from that, you know, the effect that politics has and how certain families become, or all families become sort of skewed, if you like, Nicola.
3:09
Locate us in time and space and what the family set up is.
3:13
Okay, so my Nana and Grandad worked a farm called Ashill Farm and it was in the Eden Valley, which is in Cumbria.
3:20
And it's enclosed by the Pennines on the east and the Lake District fells on the west and we've got the Orton Hills to the south.
3:26
So it was very much a rural valley and it had been agricultural for hundreds and hundreds of years.
3:34
And so my family farmed a farm in the middle of that valley called Ash Hill.
3:38
And my granddad was a labourer, so he wasn't a tenant farmer.
3:43
The farm was owned by a big house family.
8:32
So when your mum buys her own house off the council, and it's a turning point for so many people, but really significantly in your story.

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