Adam Kay tells of life ‘transformed’ by two babies | Desert Island Discs

Adam Kay, the author of This is Going to Hurt, the bestselling “secret diary” of a junior doctor, is now the father of two babies, he has revealed.

Kay, who was portrayed by Ben Whishaw in the Bafta-winning BBC1 adaptation of his comic memoir, said life with his husband, TV producer James Farrell, has been “absolutely transformed for the better” by the arrival through surrogacy of their two children.

“We have a very boring life, or we did until six months ago,” he tells the presenter Lauren Laverne on Sunday’s Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4. “Now, and this isn’t something that I’ve spoken about before, there is no calm whatsoever, because we’ve got two very young babies – Ruby, who’s six months, and Ziggy, who’s two months.”

In a candid discussion of his unhappy student years, an eating disorder and his sexuality, Kay also talks about his disappointment at not being there for the birth of his daughter last winter. A “difficult pregnancy” ended in a phone call from America announcing her imminent birth, but Kay was unable to fly out in time to be there. “So many of my thoughts are about how to be a good father, how to get it right and how to be there, and I’ve started off very, very, very badly by missing it,” he says.

Married to Farrell since 2018, Kay goes on to discuss his views on parenthood, reflecting on his sorrow when he and his former wife lost their baby.

“I don’t need to explain the way that having kids changes your life, but it’s absolutely transformed it for the better and also ruined it,” he says. “I’m obviously going to mess it up. But I think if I can somehow not project on to them, if I can let them describe their own routes through life – and if they’re as happy as they can be, as healthy as they can be, then hopefully they will forgive me for all the other mistakes I make on the way.”

Kay’s memoir sold more than three million copies, and he is now a full-time writer. He talks again about the catastrophic incident in surgery that made him walk away from the job. He argues that if his book has deterred some young people from going into medicine, this may be a positive outcome.

“I’ve had, since the book came out, various angry messages from parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles saying, ‘my son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandchild, used to want to be a doctor. Then they read your book. What do you say to that?’

“And the answer, I’m afraid, is – good. Because if that book is going to put you off medicine, then medicine is really going to put you off medicine.”

But he adds: “I hope I haven’t put people off seeing their doctors. I hope I’ve made people think differently about their doctors, and the stuff that those people are going through.”