Name: Susannah Waters
Profession: Novelist and artistic director of Paddock Productions. For ten years I was an opera singer. (Susannah’s latest novel Cold Comfort is currently on sale in bookshops and we will be featuring her company’s outdoor theatre production Elsie Piddock Skips in Her Sleep next week).
Are you local: if not how long have you been here? I’ve lived here for ten years: before that I lived in London for ten years. I spent my childhood in America, though I was born here.
Best thing about Lewes? Spontaneity. Meeting people on the street. I’ve never lived in a place where I’ve made so many connections from meeting people on the street.
Worst thing about Lewes? People speeding down Paddock Road where I live and where my children play. They have to drive on the pavement to get through but they use it as a rat run and come screeching past. Also if you put your head above the parapet here, people will take a pot shot. It’s not so easy to be inconspicuous. And I don’t like that ‘disgusted of Lewes’ attitude some people have about anything new.
Favourite pub? The Lewes Arms. It’s near - my children are of an age I can’t go to the pub much.
What’s your poison? Cold cider.
Waitrose or Tesco (or neither)? I aspire to neither but go to both.
What do you think about traffic wardens? I choreographed a dance about them! I feel sorry for them. It must be an awful job. You shouldn’t get mad at the foot soldiers, you should get mad at the generals.
Which Bonfire Society do you go to? I don’t belong to one. Bonfire night is fun, but I’m a Quaker and I find it all a little bit worrying.