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Interview [published September 2009]
Belinda Webb: Justified Anger
Ben Granger interviews Belinda Webb
BG: Many people first read A Clockwork Orange when
they’re very young, and fall in love with it. When did
you first read it, and what was your reaction?
BW: Actually I came to it fairly late, I read it just a
few years ago, I was in my 20s. I didn’t want to read
it before, I thought it was a boy’s book – a book about
boys who were violent for no reason, which had nothing
to say to me. Talk about judging a book by its
cover! When I did finally read it, from the first page,
the language just amazed me.
BG: The book seems to take a fairly even inspiration
from both Orange and Manchester itself. Which inspired
you more?
BW: Moss Side is the stronger influence. Moss Side,
Hulme and Chorlton-on-Medlock, these areas around
Oxford Road, not far from where we’re sitting. Poor
areas right next to a massive student population. Populations
which may as well come from different worlds.
BG: The lively contempt Alex shows for the ‘Blytons’
[her slang word for the respectably and middle-class]
was presumably inspired by this.
BW: Yes, that and the novels of Enid Blyton herself.
BUY Belinda Webb books online from and
Growing up reading books like Mallory Towers, about
all these girls playing hockey in boarding school … in
a way it just served to remind me this is the kind of
education I would never have, it made you feel worse
in a way. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy them, but the
contrast was so massive.
BG: Your Alex is violent, but not nearly as violent as
the Alex of Burgess, which makes for a very different
dynamic to the book which inspired it.
BW: Yes, her violence is much more just about expressing
anger, justified anger. The Alex of Clockwork
Orange is much more sadistic. That suited Burgess
who was posing questions about the nature of choice,
about choosing between two evils. My Alex comes
more from my own experience. The choices she makes
I see as positive.
BG: How much of you is there in Apple’s Alex?
BW: Well, I was a bit of a nightmare to be honest, but at
the same time I was the oldest girl in a family of seven
trying to keep it together. Like her, I was angry rather
than rebellious, rebelling implies you’ve got something
constructive to rebel against. I didn’t go around beating
535
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