Claire Tomalin – historically – writes about other people. Mary Wollstonecraft, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen. And to great success. In 2002, Tomalin won the Whitbread Prize for Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self. Now, Tomalin has turned the pen towards herself with the release of a memoir, A Life of My Own. As Seán Rocks on Arena put it when she joined him to discuss the book, she has “become her own subject”.

What made her want to make that leap? It was all down to a friend, Tomalin told Seán.

“A friend reminded me that she suggested I should do this a few years ago…I suppose I began to think I had a story to tell. Everyone has a story to tell. Every life can be told. And I had a lot of material.”

It’s certainly accurate that Tomalin does not lack material. Now 84, she’s lived through a World War, watched her parents divorce and suffered the loss of her first husband, journalist Nicholas Tomalin, who was killed in the Golan Heights while reporting on a story. Despite her husband’s “bad behaviour” and the instability of their marriage, Nicholas’ death came as a shock.

“It was appalling, as you can imagine…I had to tell his parents. I had to tell the children. It was a very difficult time. But also, when I’d come to terms with it, I felt ‘Well now, I’m in charge of everything’…and in that feeling, I didn't mourn. I rejoiced.”

As well as challenging experiences, Tomalin has pursued a successful literary career. Her conversation with Sean detailed an exceptional life, with a common theme of defying expectations. She recounts how she disagreed with a professor about the merit of Charles Dickens. She told Seán how writing the book caused her to look back at the society in which she was raised through the lens of feminism.

“I know other women who came down from University not engaged to be married and their fathers said to them “Oh, so you’ve failed’. And somebody said to my mother when I went up to Cambridge, ‘Oh, now she’ll have a chance to find a husband’. Well, I wasn’t looking for a husband at all.“

Tomalin’s appearance on Arena is a snapshot into a fascinating life. One anecdote Tomalin shared sums up the path she has carved for herself and the humour with which she has done so.

“I remember going into hospital…with a copy of The New Statesman…and the Doctor saying to me [surprised], ‘Oh, you read The New Statesman?’. And I said, “I write The New Statesman, thank you very much!”

Listen back to the full interview with Claire Tomalin on Arena here.