Annie Mac looks back: ‘I was wild, feral and very comfortable in a tree’

Born in Dublin in 1978, Annie Macmanus rose to fame in the noughties as a radio DJ specialising in electronic music. Her two-decade career has included 17 years at BBC Radio 1, including taking over its flagship evening show, as well being one of the biggest live DJs in Europe and programming festivals. In 2021, Macmanus switched gear: publishing a bestselling novel, Mother Mother, and launching a podcast, Changes. Her new novel, The Mess We’re In, is out now. She lives in London with her husband, the DJ Toddla T, and their two children.

This image is very emblematic of me as a kid. I am nine and in Marlay Park in south Dublin, where I grew up. I was wild, feral and very comfortable in a tree. Although I am high up, I look so comfy – so comfy that I’ve slipped my feet out of my shoes. My expression and body language is saying: “This is nothing!”

I am the youngest of a large family, so by the time I came along, the fussing of parenting had melted away and the general attitude was: “You’re left to your own devices. You’re alive and clean-ish. Grand.” At this point, I would have been spending my school-free days down the green – a little patch of grass about 50 yards from the housing estate where I grew up. I would play football all day with the boys, then I would climb trees. As it started to get dark, my mum would call me in for dinner, and if it was Saturday, my weekly bath. I was really active and had such lovely friends. It was a very good time.

Because of the little girl that I was, I resisted the idea of puberty and I didn’t want to know anything about becoming a teenager. My mum was very kind and never wanted to pressure or embarrass me, but I remember her coming home one day and presenting me with a book [about puberty]. I didn’t want to read it – in fact, I ran out of the room. I knew what it meant, what it symbolised, and I couldn’t deal with it.

Of course, the hormones hit me eventually. My social group used to call periods The Confidence. I remember in assembly nudging my friend and saying: “I’ve got The Confidence!” It was a big deal. The move from primary to secondary school is a seismic one and that wild, feral side started to diminish.

While the carefreeness of my young childhood had drifted, I handled the shift as well as I could. I was really lucky in that I never felt oversexualised during those teenage years. Nobody ever pushed me into looking feminine. Naturally, I eventually did what most girls do: I wore short skirts and kissed boys. I still went through a period of hating my body and being confused about it, however. I had gone from this unselfconscious kid to becoming obsessed with my size, from the age of 15 onwards. I grew up in the 90s and that whole decade of heroin chic, Kate Moss and trousers hanging off your hip bones really got to me. It was impossible not to feel affected by the media and how skeletal bodies were deemed desirable. My body wasn’t like that, nor was anyone’s I knew. But it didn’t stop me thinking something was wrong with me.

I had a huge awakening in my mid-teens. I was always surrounded by noise – I had two brothers and a sister, and at any given time in our house people would be playing the piano, guitar, the mandolin, the bouzouki, the bodhrán, the accordion or the saxophone. But discovering music for myself was really identity-shaping. The first was a Guns N’ Roses double cassette of Use Your Illusion, which made me feel as if I’d arrived. Then came Massive Attack’s Blue Lines, all the Blur albums, Portishead’s Dummy and Goldie’s Timeless. Dublin was small and these albums were like doors opening to different worlds.

In 2001, I left Farnborough where I was doing a postgrad in radio and moved in with my brother Davey and the rock band he was in [the Crocketts, and later the Crimea]. Before then, my life was edging closer to the precipice of the adventure of adulthood, but moving to London was jumping into the pool. We lived in an old dilapidated house in Forest Gate in east London. It was quite the time. He and the band used to be away for long periods while I was hustling hard and working three different jobs. They would come home from the tour and the hall and corridor would be freshly painted lilac, because I just needed something to do between work. I was so ambitious and hungry for new experiences while also living so unhealthily and being completely skint. It was a real oversensory period that felt thrilling, exciting and uncomfortable, with big highs but doors slammed in my face, too.

Two years later, I got my first job at the BBC. I remember ringing my Dad from the desk at Radio 1 and saying: “I got a permanent job!” He’s always been so supportive of whatever I’ve wanted, but like a lot of parents he was keen on me being secure, so getting a job at this big British institution reassured him that I would be sorted.

Two years after my first job as an assistant, I got my own show. I worked really hard and was keen to please. I suppose that’s from being the youngest in the family: my unofficial role at home growing up was to be the one who makes everyone laugh; to make sure the whole room was happy.

It was in my mid-30s when I decided to reassess my life and left Radio 1 [in 2021]. I was overwhelmed by my career and motherhood. I’d lost myself to this drive to achieve and push myself forward. It had consumed me to a point where it was detrimental to my mental health. Throughout my life, success had meant more ticket sales, more listeners – a graph with the line going up, up, up, up. These days, success is feeling secure in myself. Being connected to people. Being there for the ones you love.

I’ve also had to learn when to say no – to the point where I’ve probably gone too far and should probably say yes to a few more things! Socialising is particularly important now, as being a novelist can be isolating. In many ways, so is DJing, but I have still found adjusting to being a writer difficult. With radio, you collaborate with a team, you build a show every day and there’s a direct connection with the listeners – which is in contrast to rattling around on your own in the house all day. So much so that I’m thinking of joining a choir.

The best thing about getting older is that I feel more in tune with my body, now more than ever. When I was nine, my relationship with it was: does it function and does it get me up this tree? After that, I went through years and years of losing my confidence. But now I am in awe of my body and its ability. The fact that I am able to climb a tree at 44 is huge and I have a whole new sense of awareness of how fragile it is, how lucky I am.