Scary stuff.
Emilie Pine’s book ‘Notes to Self’ is a hell of a read, as she details her life in a series of personal essays which explore various subjects, such as her childhood, addiction in her family, feminism and sexual violence.
The book recently won the An Post Book of the Year 2018 as her brutally honest reflection on her life to date stuck a chord with readers.
Emilie spoke about her upbringing on Ireland Unfiltered this week with Dion Fanning and told a meaningful story about what made her go back to school in her teens.
The story involves Emilie appearing on a TV Show on behalf of her school, which she tells below.
Emilie: It was bizarre when I think back on it. The TV show called my school to ask did they have any students who could appear on this morning chat show under the title ‘Teen Rebel’. My school suggested me, and I was like ‘OK’, so I got the day off school, legitimately for once, to go. I appeared wearing a t-shirt with my ex-boyfriend’s name and “IS A TOSSER” written in capital letters.
And again, it just shows the balance of it. It was on ITV, I think, and my parents both videotaped it and both proudly kind of said, “Oooh Emilie was on TV, as a rebel!”. This bizarre thing that if they had known what the reality was behind that, they would have been very alarmed.
But on that same programme there was a woman on and she was – this is where the tone completely changes – because her son had died. Of a drug overdose. So it’s not funny. You just stop laughing. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I started going back to school was because two of my friends died.
You can listen to the show in full below.
Ireland Unfiltered, brought to you in partnership with Carlsberg Unfiltered, will be available everywhere you get your podcasts and on YouTube every Tuesday.
