Award-winning Anglo-French author Joanne Harris has written more than 20 novels published worldwide, writes Peter Robertson.
Her latest, Vianne, is a prequel to bestseller Chocolat which became a hit film starring Juliette Binoche.
Cambridge University graduate Joanne was a teacher for 15 years.
Now 61, Joanne lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and manager Kevin – they have a son Fred, 32, who works in London’s West End as a lighting technician.
What did your parents teach you about money?
I was born in a terrace house in a village near Barnsley over a corner shop. It was my paternal grandparents’ place because my parents were still students and my French mother Jeannette couldn’t then speak English. It’s my grandfather Edwin’s advice I remember best, ‘a pound of your own is better than a pound of anybody else’s’.
Treat: Joanne Harris’s novel Chocolat was in the top ten for many weeks and became a hit film
What was your first pay packet?
French was my first language and from the age of 12 I used to give private French lessons for about £5 – much less than an adult qualified teacher would have charged. My first tuition was to the son of a local Chinese family and then it was with other children in the neighbourhood. That kept going until after I was a professional teacher. I’m still fluent in French and just took my Mum, 86, back to her hometown Vitre for the first time in 12 years.
Have you ever struggled to make ends meet?
The time we were most pinched was when I was teacher training and Kevin was a manager at McDonald’s, so we had only one income. Our first house was an inexpensive terrace house just outside Barnsley with a long mortgage and no heating.
We didn’t struggle but we weren’t swimming in money either. We just did without things if we couldn’t afford them.
Have you ever been paid silly money?
The most money I’ve ever been offered for a single event was £10,000 for a speech about my books to about 1,000 people in the US 20 years ago. They flew me first class and I came straight back afterwards. I know some authors get paid a lot more for one-offs, but I am not among them.
Heartwarming: Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp in a scene from Chocolat
What’s been the best year of your financial life?
The year the Chocolat film came out – 2000. The book was in the top ten for many weeks, as was another book of mine.
I had sold the book rights to 50-odd countries, so there were contracts coming in at pretty much the same time. You’re paid an option fee for a movie – mine was a bit more than £5,000, not as large as it would have been if I was then a well-known author.
You get a flat fee afterwards, which is a small percentage of the overall budget of the movie.
I didn’t make a fortune from the film, but it was enough for me to afford not to go back to teaching for a certain amount of time.
Juliette came to my house, we cooked together, and she slept in my kid’s bed. We’re still in contact.
Are you a spender or saver?
I’m definitely a saver. In the back of my head I still have my grandfather’s voice saying, ‘do you really need this?’ I do save because in this business you can’t rely on the next pay packet.
After leaving Cambridge, I was a trainee accountant but failed the exams and left as I have dyscalculia and don’t process numbers. I put a firm of financial advisers in charge of my savings and investments and I leave it to them.
What’s the most expensive thing you bought for fun?
I’m not one for splashing out but I do like to buy artwork from time to time. The most expensive item I bought – and I don’t recall how much it cost – was a yellow diamond from Graff in London, about 20 years ago. It’s a pendant, a little yellow cube of sunlight and I wear it all the time.
Paying the bills: Joanne didn’t make a fortune from the film, but it was enough for her to afford not to go back to teaching for a time
What has been your biggest money mistake?
Not making it work for me for a while. Now I have people who invest my money but initially I was the kind of person who wanted to keep money metaphorically under the bed. So for some years I kept stuff pretty much in cash in an account.
I was slow in recognising investment possibilities. It took me a while to understand A) I needed help to do that, and B) it was the sort of thing I should be doing in the first place. I’ve never bought anything on credit.
What’s the best money decision you’ve made?
Apart from to put my financial decisions into someone else’s hands, an excellent investment has been a shed in which I’ve written a large proportion of my books, so it earns its keep pretty much every day.
Do you have a pension?
I have a private pension set up when I established my company maybe 20 years ago. My agent and accountant advised me to set up as a limited company. As a writer you get irregular chunks and sometimes nothing for a couple of years, so it makes sense to be able to spread this out evenly over the years to avoid a massive tax impact on some years.
Do you own any property?
We bought a flat in King’s Cross in the name of the company. We have a house near Huddersfield, in our own name, which we moved to from Barnsley 25 years ago. It was built in about 1830, it has five bedrooms though we only use three as bedrooms and it’s in five acres of mostly woodland.
If you were Chancellor, what would you do?
I would tax Amazon and Google and the big corporations not paying their share and would take utilities into public ownership.
At No 11 Downing Street once, I told Gordon Brown how much I loved the polished floor. He said: ‘There used to be a carpet here and it wore out, and I looked into how much it would cost to replace and couldn’t afford it.’ I thought: ‘That’s the sort of Chancellor I want!’
What is your No.1 financial priority?
I would like to not stint on pleasures while providing for my family and keep doing what I’m doing. I don’t see myself wanting to retire as I’m doing what I love.
- VIANNE by Joanne Harris is published in hardback by Orion