'I was as poor as it's possible to be... Now I am able to give': In this rare and intimate interview, JK Rowling reveals her most ambitious plot yet



She transformed the lives of a generation with her magical Harry Potter books, but now the author is working on liberating a million children from care homes

'I remember 20 years ago not eating so my daughter would eat. I remember nights when there was literally no money,' said JK Rowling

J K Rowling is close to tears. She is remembering a mentally handicapped boy she met, torn from his family and dumped in a cold, frightening state institution.

‘All I could think was… we have to get him out of there, and others like him. It was more a prison than a home,’ she says, sitting in her agent’s office in London.



‘I’m an emotional person. I struggle with that a lot in this kind of situation. There was one little baby, a girl, and I was standing at this cot and I just thought, “I will take her.”

'It was utterly irrational but that is your human response. There was no earthly way I could take this baby home but that is your most powerful reaction. You think as a mother, “I will save this baby, this one baby.’’’



The world’s most famous author – and mother of three children – will in a fortnight’s time take centre stage at Warner Bros in Hertfordshire, home of the Harry Potter Studio Tour, to repeat this rallying cry. She’ll aim her considerable firepower at trying to end the horrors she has witnessed as she relaunches her charity, Lumos.



Nine years ago she saw newspaper photos of children caged in beds in Romania and swore to end such suffering.



For the past few years, Rowling has been making secret visits to see her charity’s work in Moldova, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Romania. What she has witnessed has turned her into a committed campaigner.

‘We must bring about lasting change so such atrocities no longer take place. The ex-communist mindset – that the State should take children and put them in a dustbin – must be made a thing of the past,’ she says.

‘The fact a million children go missing in Europe every year has to be shouted from the rooftops.’

'I always had an interest in the excluded - and certainly children with special needs - because I taught them for a while,' said JK Rowling, who started children's charity Lumos

One thing is certain: Joanna Rowling is not idle. Her voice carries global clout. Even a whisper from her about Harry Potter is immediately a social media sensation.



This year she published a crime thriller, The Cuckoo’s Calling, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith; another novel, The Casual Vacancy, came last year, and she is working on volumes two and three of her Galbraith books, making Cormoran Strike one of the world’s most famous private detectives. A Harry Potter theme park opens in Japan shortly and there are endless commitments.



She juggles raising three children with her husband, Neil, who keeps his and her feet on the ground by working as a GP.



At 47, she exudes confidence, charisma and focus. Her reach with her books is global and she wants her charity to have similar impact.



The UN estimates there are eight million children in care institutions, a million in central and Eastern Europe.



She would like every one to find homes with their own or with foster families.



And while the world has focused on her books (450 million sold so far), she has donated millions of pounds to establish Lumos, quietly going about liberating thousands of children from prison-like so-called orphanages and returning them to families.



The inspiration for her charity is directly traceable to Harry Potter, a child deprived of parents, love and hope, who fights to survive bullying and isolation.

‘Harry has been left in a very hostile environment, so there are clear parallels,’ she explains.



‘He is a boy removed from his family by bereavement. Most children we are dealing with are not orphans, but are there because of their parents’ poverty or personal situations.’



As every Muggle (non-wizard, for non-Harry Potter readers) knows, ‘lumos’ is the glow at the end of a wand, first described in Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets. Harry, then, has his part to play –



‘We have named the charity after the life-giving spell in Harry Potter, and I am comfortable with that.’



LIBERATED: Moldovan children Eugenia, Anatole and Cate. JK Rowling has donated millions of pounds to establish Lumos, quietly going about liberating thousands of children from prison-like so-called orphanages

But her determination to confront the terrible treatment of children worldwide is inspired by her own – very real – life story.

‘I always had an interest in the excluded – and certainly children with special needs – because I taught them for a while,’ she tells me.



‘It was the start of my interest in children who need help from those more able. My situation has given me a lot of fuel for my passion in this area.’

Although reluctant to talk about herself, she explains: ‘I was as poor as it’s possible to be in this country. I was a single parent. The key phrase is “in this country”, because we have a welfare state.



‘In Britain we don’t say, “You can’t afford that child and I am taking your child away from you.” That is what people in some Eastern European countries are told.



'I’m not criticising these mothers who let children go. They thought, “She or he either starves staying with me or is fed in an institution.”



‘What a choice. What wouldn’t you do to keep your children?’



Rowling recognises the gnawing pain and dispirited nature of poverty.



‘How can I not feel empathy – I was there, but in a very different society. And thank God I had a healthy baby. What if my child had been so ill I couldn’t work or shop. What would have happened?’



She has visited single-room homes in Moldova and across central and Eastern Europe where the family is on the breadline. So, what does she feel in common, having been so poor and now being so rich?



‘I know. It’s hard to talk about without feeling you are looking for pity, and I’m not. Everyone knows how fortunate I’ve been; I’m one of the luckiest people in the world.’



She reveals what makes her feel such empathy with the least fortunate.

The inspiration for her charity is directly traceable to Harry Potter, a child deprived of parents, love and hope, who fights to survive bullying and isolation

‘I remember 20 years ago not eating so my daughter would eat. I remember nights when there was literally no money. I would have done anything to work and I took as much work as I could.



'Changes have since been made to the benefits system but at that time you could only earn up to £15 extra a week, which I was doing. I had £68 to live on a week and I made another £15 on top.



‘I am now able to give. I don’t know that I’ve always done it in the best way.

'I have given a large amount to different causes and sometimes that has made me feel better. But the suffering of children so affected me that I wanted to set up my own charity.



'Now we are being recommended, referred and welcomed into care systems to help effect change.



'I was never arrogant enough to think I had all the answers. The solution was to get brilliant people on board.’



Rowling is aware of life being split into ‘before’ and ‘after’ she hit the literary jackpot.

‘I remember it vividly because of the initial £2,500 advance: big money to me. There’d been nights when I had one Rich Tea biscuit and that was dinner. £2,500 seemed a fortune.



'It happened very suddenly and it was marvellous on one level. I had security. I could buy a house. I could look at my daughter and think, “Wow, I can buy you some stuff!” It was phenomenal but was also disorientating.



‘The big moment was a large advance from America in 1997. We stopped renting and I could buy a house.



'Next it was not just advances, it was royalties coming in and then you need advice on not blowing it.

'I was terrified of pressing the wrong button and losing everything and having to look my daughter in the face and say, “We briefly had a house and now through a stupid error…”



'I don’t know what I thought I was going to do but my terror was making a ridiculous mistake and it all disappearing.’



She needn’t have worried – her writing at a café table in Edinburgh was to make her rich beyond her wildest dreams.

'Harry has been left in a very hostile environment, so there are clear parallels (with Lumos). He is a boy removed from his family by bereavement,' said JK Rowling

‘Then begging letters started to arrive. Charities wrote in. Suddenly you think, “I can give and I can do something for them.” Things you never considered come into your life: giving money to the right people, to do the right thing. And you understand what money can do, particularly when you are trying to use it to effect change.’



Rowling has never been a huge spender. Holidays are her main indulgence.

‘I have itchy feet and love travelling, but back then I was too terrified of spending too much on anything.’



Her attitude to money is best illustrated by a conversation she had with Oprah Winfrey, America’s richest woman. ‘

She said, “Have you accepted now that you will always be rich?” I said, “No, have you?” She said, “Yes, I know I will always be rich now.” I said, “I don’t know that.” Funnily enough it bears no relation to what is in your bank account, it is purely emotional.



‘There are times when I still worry about money. If you have been very, very poor and in sole charge of a child, this gives you a huge connection to families who are pressured to give up children.

'If you are very, very poor and pregnant there is nothing in the world more vulnerable-making and anxiety-inducing: you are prepared to starve yourself. To think of money running out with your child not being able to eat is terrifying.’

Family is her first priority.



‘The main reason I go to London is for Lumos business. With other things I stay in Edinburgh and people come to me because I want to be with my kids.

'It’s difficult for them to understand a situation where they could be taken from their family. We’ve had conversations in which they can’t conceive how they might have gone to a strange, uncomfortable place away from home. “Would I have seen you?” they ask. “No” is too frightening for them to contemplate.’

It has been an extraordinary journey, propelling her into the limelight in a way she never could have imagined. She was a potent witness at the Leveson Inquiry and acknowledges significant changes have already taken place in the press, for the better.

‘I am not anti-press and I am not anti-journalist but I was in a pretty vulnerable situation. I was a single parent and had a tsunami of press attention at a time when I was feeling quite vulnerable.



‘I became intensely protective of my family life and most people get why. Certain things aren’t up for grabs. One has to take a fairly hard line on that.



‘My children deserve a childhood free from intrusion because they didn’t choose me as a mother and they didn’t choose the situation.



'My family are aware they are very lucky with a nice house and nice holidays but there is a down side and they’ve experienced that. I’m different: there is interest in me and I’m OK with that.



‘But I draw a very thick dark line around my family. My husband is a doctor and wants to live his normal life and he has a right to do so.’

JK Rowling's attitude to money is best illustrated by a conversation she had with Oprah Winfrey, America's richest woman. When asked if she accepted that she will always be rich, she replied, 'No'

Has there been any improvement in the behaviour of the press?

‘Hugely. If Harry Potter happened now, I think I’d have a very different experience. But in 1997 it was like the Wild West. I have felt a change and it has been really welcome. There was a physical sense of being watched and followed.



'That has stopped. I am a lot more boring now. I have been happily married for 12 years so I am less interesting. It has largely disappeared, those mysterious phone calls trying to get information out of you. It went on routinely and has fallen away and thank God for that.’



The desire to do good is a key motivator.

‘I’m attracted to vulnerable people,’ she says.



It extends to her new hero, Cormoran Strike, down on his luck and living in his office after splitting from his wife, and trying to save his career – never complaining that he lost a leg fighting for his country.



‘I am very attracted to resurrection stories, aren’t I? It’s what I do over and over. The Casual Vacancy was an attempted resurrection. There was a near resurrection of Krystal [a damaged teenage character in the novel]. She should have made it and didn’t.’



The Casual Vacancy was seen by some as an attack on the middle classes. Rowling argues that’s not the case.

‘I’m not anti-middle class in the slightest,’ she says. ‘Look at me! I am very pro people putting time and money and effort into trying to improve the world.



'And the middle classes do that very, very well. I would be the last person to deny that, being middle-class myself.’



As to clues to the real JK Rowling, you could do worse than read The Cuckoo’s Calling and look at Robin, Strike’s efficient, dishy PA... who emerges as the heroine of the piece.



‘I loved Robin,’ she says.



Is there a lot of Rowling in the smart, super-competent and very independent operator?

‘I would like to think so but there are also big differences. Robin is so helpful and organised and tidy… and I am none of those things! Well, I am helpful but I am not organised or tidy. I can’t say anything more because you are taking me into future book territory.’



In countries like Moldova, the poorest nation in Europe, Lumos has cut the number of children living in institutions by 63 per cent and helped close a third of the ‘workhouse’ institutions

A pretty clear indication that ‘Robert Galbraith’ is to continue her thriller-writing career. Incidentally, how did she choose that pseudonym?

‘I have always loved the surname Galbraith. And I chose Robert because Robert Kennedy was my hero.’



In a fortnight, Rowling will co-host an event to raise money and awareness for Lumos and its mission.



It has been mostly under the radar until now, while she has quietly built a professional organisation, stretching across Europe.



She has brought in experts on child psychology, care workers, health professionals, and forged links at national and local level among politicians across the Continent – aiming to bring about lasting change by altering laws, practices, opinions and prejudices.



She has had to reverse the thinking of entire nations on how to deal with children in so-called orphanages.



The next step is for Lumos to see how it can help kids in Britain. Her charity is seven years old and like Harry Potter, it’s growing up.

Its success has been dramatic. It has helped 7,000 children. In countries like Moldova, the poorest nation in Europe, it has cut the number of children living in institutions by 63 per cent and helped close a third of the ‘workhouse’ institutions.



It’s now a major force in child poverty in the charity world, and she is moving it to a new level.



Lumos is today seen by the World Health Organisation and UN as a model to bring about change for children taken from their families.



Rowling knows she is engaged in a political and philosophical battle as much as money raising.

‘It’s undeniably political. You can’t get round that. When communist countries say the State is the most effective care provider I absolutely disagree.



'Not because I think capitalism is better. Simply because every healthcare professional or psychologist agrees the healthiest and best setting for a child is to be raised with a family.’



But it is a political mission that remains deeply personal.

‘I’m attracted to situations where people are powerless, people who don’t have a voice. Something about that touches me more than anything.



'And when I first saw the pictures of that little boy in a cage bed in the Czech Republic in 2004 (I know because I was pregnant with my third child) I couldn’t think of a more powerless human being than a little boy with learning difficulties trapped away from his mum and dad and with no family knowing what was going on.



‘All the research shows that when you remove a child from its home the key lost relationship is normally the mother. And when you separate from a mother the odds of that child disappearing off the radar rise exponentially.



'They are ten times more likely to kill themselves, hundreds of times more likely to enter into prostitution and in a very real danger of being trafficked.’



Rowling recounts seeing slides of children’s brains which stopped developing due to lack of stimulus, locked up in workhouse conditions. She recalls a boy she met in the Czech Republic.



‘He was placed in an institution because of poverty at a very young age… then amazingly in his teens he was reunited with his mother. And then she suddenly died, just two months after.



'This boy was telling me all this through an interpreter who then asked how did this make him feel. I just thought, “Don’t ask him that!” I was in bits. He answered simply, “No one who hasn’t been through that can possibly know how it felt.”



'He was just 16 and it was heartbreaking to get his mother back and then to lose her.



‘Another time, with a small group of three or four children, a little girl ran across and sat on my lap and didn’t want to let go of me. I had smiled at her and that was it. She had very short cropped hair, I am not sure whether due to illness or hygiene, but she was the cutest little thing.



‘What really pierced me, knowing about trafficking and children going missing from these institutions, is how incredibly easy it is when a child is that starved of affection to be taken into a very bad situation.



‘That was terribly painful. I didn’t want to say goodbye, she didn’t want say goodbye.



'The one incident that absolutely killed me was a little girl with physical disabilities who had been put into the institution and used to ask for her mother.



'The nurse would leave the home at night and go outside and ring the girl and pretend to be her mother. Utterly heartbreaking.’



Joanne Rowling is sweetly embarrassed she has given so much of her own money to her charity: it is many millions of pounds.



She is acutely aware that it may look like the indulgence of an extremely rich woman. But there is no doubt that it stems from an urgency within her, a desire to bring about change far beyond the redemptive message of her Harry Potter books.



In her 20s, she worked for Amnesty International and Christian Aid. Maybe there is a bit of her DNA which is wired to fight injustice.



‘I have this quotation by EB White on the wall in the room where I write,’ says Rowling.



‘It says, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”’



Find out more and help the campaign by donating at wearelumos.org/donate