Writer Pam Ayres has come a long way since she stood petrified before an audience of thousands at Margate Winter Gardens in the 1970s. She spoke to Helen Geraghty ahead of an appearance at the Folkestone Book Festival.

When did you first realise you could make a living out of writing poems?

I suppose it was during the time of the folk clubs in the 1970s. There was a great deal of interest in folk music and folk clubs. I was working around folk clubs when Billy Connolly was doing the same thing in Scotland and Jasper Carrott was doing the same thing in the Midlands.

It was a good breeding ground. I was working as a secretary, slogging away earning £30 a week and then in the folk clubs I was charging 12 quid for a 20-minute spot. I thought ‘if I do three shows it equates to a week of toil’. It was like a pair of scales that tipped. It was a lovely realisation.

People sent up folk clubs at that time – they had a strange image. But I thought they were lovely.

What do you remember about your earliest successful poems?

The poem Battery Hen was the first of the group that people got to know widely. And I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth. Sling Another Chair Leg (on the Fire, Mother) was about the recession, everyone was hard-up. It was like it is now. It was about austerity. Actually I’ve gone on to Twitter and one of the tweets I had was from the actor Hugh Bonneville and he said one of happiest memories was seeing his father cry with laughter at that one. It was about people making do.

What have you learned about being on stage since the days of you being ‘spotted’ on Opportunity Knocks?

It was from one extreme to the other in those days! I’d been happily working round folk clubs with 20 minutes of material then I was on Opportunity Knocks and then there was a terrific change. I was signed up to a London agent and was being farmed out to big seaside venues. One of the first was Margate Winter Gardens. There was an audience of thousands. It was terrifying. I had to have support acts because I couldn’t do enough material. I did try to do new material, writing out of fear rather than pressure. Nowadays, I’ve got masses of material. Today being on stage is lovely and relaxed and good fun. But in those days it was mortifying.

Tell me about your latest book, the Necessary Aptitude?

In my earlier jobs, a lot of people told me I didn’t have ‘the necessary aptitude’. It’s the story of my childhood from birth to 30 in a rural Berkshire village. I was the youngest of six children. We were respectable but hard-up and I wanted to write about it in exquisite detail. I seem to recall it in crystal clear detail and I don’t kid myself that I’ll always have that ability.

I recall how awful it was in terms of sanitation, tuberculosis, kids in callipers and built-up shoes. During national service, when all the sons were going off to the Army, Navy and Air Force, it was the first topic of conversation: ‘How is your boy?’ I wanted to try and describe it as accurately as possible.

And is there a new book of poems out next year?

There is and I’ve written most of it already. It was 1996 that my last book of poems came out. I use the things around me that I see and hear and feel. Small things really. One of them is called We Never Did It Much but Now We Do It Every Night. It’s about snoring. You can see the audience sticking their elbows into one another because they recognise themselves.

Your accent. A blessing or a curse?

You can become a stereotype. Someone said to me they liked to read poems in my accent. I thought: ‘I know what you are going to do, you are going to shut one eye, talk out the corner of your mouth and talk like Long John Silver’.

An Evening with Pam Ayres comes to the Quarterhouse, Folkestone for the Folkestone Book Festival on Friday, November 9, at 8pm. Tickets £19.50, concessions £17.50. There will be poems, stories and old favourites. The Folkestone Book Festival continues until Saturday, November 10. Visitwww.folkestonebookfest.com. The Necessary Aptitude: A Memoir by Pam Ayres is published by Ebury Press in paperback at £7.99. Hardback is £20.