Dawn O'Porter opens up about the trauma of losing her mum aged just seven years old as she reveals she used comedy to mask her pain

LISTEN: 'Life Doesn't Come with a Handbook, but Friends Help': Dawn O'Porter on the Power of Female Friendship. Listen to The Life of Bryony wherever you get your podcasts Dawn O'Porter has opened up about her childhood after losing her mum aged seven as she reveals she used comedy to mask her pain.

The author and director, 45, grew up in Guernsey before leaving to go to study acting at Liverpool Performing Arts.

Speaking on The Mail's The Life Of Bryony podcast, she revealed that she moved in with her grandma after the death of her mum, and later her aunt and uncle.

'There was a lot of trauma for me because obviously my mum had died,' Dawn said.

'But at the same time, I was a happy kid. I was, the school jester trying to, like, make everyone laugh, probably to mask my pain, but I was still funny.'

Speaking about losing her mother, she said: 'I lived with my, my mum died just before I turned seven and I lived with my grandparents until I was 10. And then I moved in with my aunt and uncle who became my parents. My dad is wonderful and lives up in Scotland, but we didn't live with him.

'And so it was, it was extraordinary, but also not awful. My aunt and uncle had this lovely house.

'There was a lot of trauma for me because obviously my mum had died. But at the same time, I was a happy kid. I was, the school jester trying to, like, make everyone laugh, probably to mask my pain, but I was still funny.

'I did terribly in school, failed everything, was an absolute disaster, but I remember laughing so much, and I remember having really good teenage years.

'I dealt with it but there was no therapy back in the 80s on Guernsey.

'It's, it's not something that I feel like ruined my life. It gave me extraordinary motivation. It gave me a lot of drive.

'I think when something like that happens to you as a child, you have been given feelings and things to deal with that you shouldn't ever have had adults get.

'And so it puts a lot of a lot of emotion of feeling into your body that you get to grow up with, which is in the end, quite a nice thing. Obviously, I wish it never f****ng happened.

'I look at my life now, and I don't think it's a coincidence that I write for a living, and I put it all onto the page, it all comes out constantly.'

During the interview, Dawn reminisced about growing up in Guernsey.

She said: 'Towards the end of my twenties I remember having five quid going, well, do I feed me or do I feed the cat?

'I discovered there was a local coffee shop that sold a granola bar for £2.60 and that granola bar was really massive and would really fill me up. So when I was really broke, I just lived on granola bars.

'But I think back then, especially in Guernsey, getting blackout drunk was very aspirational. Well, that was the goal. We would drink, we would drink to get as pissed as possible.

'And it makes me shudder now. I go back to Guernsey, I'm like Oh, if those streets could talk. What people remember that I don't remember.'

Dawn has had a successful writing and television career.

She first appeared on the BBC documentary Super Slim Me where she attempted to slim down to a size zero using drastic regimes.

She has also appeared on various Channel 4 shows including How to Look Good Naked and Extreme Wife.

In May 2013, she released her first novel, Paper Aeroplanes, the fictional tale of an intense female friendship loosely inspired by her own childhood in Guernsey and has since releseased many others.

Dawn has been married to actor Chris O'Dowd, 45, since 2012, tying the knot in an intimate ceremony after first meeting at her 30th birthday party in 2009 .

In September she revealed they had recently decided to return to the UK with their two sons after living stateside for 16 years.

At the time Dawn admitted the gun culture in America is 'terrifying' and that she began to find living their with young children 'really unsettling'.

Ever feel like life is a bit...too much? Bestselling author and journalist Bryony Gordon is here to ditch the shame and dive headfirst into life's messier bits. Search for The Life of Bryony wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes released every Monday and Friday.