Before I Sing You This Song (Paperback)

Sunderland, 1978. Elsie Bishop has something to say. If only the world is ready to listen.

By day, Elsie works in Chalkie’s fruit and veg shop, surrounded by tatties, gossip and the everyday dramas of working-class life. By night, she dreams of doing something women like her simply aren't supposed to do: standing on a stage and making people laugh.

Inspired by legendary North East comedian Bobby Thompson and armed with a sharp tongue, an eye for the ridiculous and more determination than confidence, Elsie sets out to find her own voice in the fiercely male world of the working men's club circuit.

But in 1978, a woman's place is still very much supposed to be somewhere other than behind a microphone.

Funny, poignant and bursting with the language and spirit of the North East, Before I Sing You This Song is a story of class, gender, ambition and one ordinary woman's determination to become something extraordinary.

Set against the unmistakable backdrop of Sunderland in the late 1970s, Justine Sless's warm and wonderfully observed novel celebrates the women whose stories were so often swept under the rug — and the courage it takes to stand up and be heard.

Justine was born in Sunderland and lived there till she was 19, she now lives in Melbourne Australia.Justine began her working life at 15 in Chalkie's fruit shop in Grangetown. When she emigrated to Australia she worked for ten years as a chef. Sless went on to work in community engagement and social impact, creating opportunities for local communities to connect through markets, volunteer, employment, education programs and arts festivals.In 2007 Sless started doing stand-up comedy and has gone on to perform many solo shows in Australia, UK and Europe. Sless teaches comedy in schools, workplaces and libraries and is also a comedy mentor and creative writing tutor. Sless is the Australian producer of Funny Women and the Australian Ambassador for CRAIC Comedy on Prescription.Justine has been a writer for a long time, starting off with penning some awful poems as a teenager. She went on to write seriously in 2016 and in 2025 it became clear that she had lived with dyslexia her whole life, making sense of so much failure and shame associated with writing. Sless can tell a great story but can't edit it to save her life! Much to Justine's astonishment she gained a masters by research in creative writing.The seed for writing Before I Sing You This Song was ten years ago when she watched the documentary the Little Waster about Sunderland comedian Bobby Thompson. This solidified her belief, that you can take the girl out of Sunderland but you can't take Sunderland out of the girl. Before I Sing You This Song is the story of Elsie Bishop who wants stand-up comedy in the era of Bobby Thompson.After many submissions and rejections advising Justine that the novel is just 'too Northern, ' Sless is beyond delighted to come back to Sunderland to launch Before I Sing You This Song with the support and guidance of Crear Publishing.Justine is also author of Mistress of Mirth's COMEDY Tour, Measured Silk and Other Stories and a recipe book she created with her daughter called Fress with Sless.