Fay Weldon: a defiant writer who was thoroughly wised-up

‘I have an easy disposition and a gregarious nature,” explained Fay Weldon in response to a question about how to navigate life in the public eye from Hilary Mantel, with whom she was in conversation at Bath Spa University in 2014. , and there is something wonderful about seeing the pair, originals both, laughing in their academic gowns, so unalike in many respects but both so intently focused on their work, and on their keen apprehension