Having been on this planet for nearly 65 years, I want to capture in words a few morsels of a rip-roaring roller-coaster ride of a life before short-term memory loss or some other excuse stops me. Writing a book had crossed my mind briefly at the turn of the millennium. In the preceding few years my parents had grown old and died in front of my eyes. I’d become an orphan and my priorities had changed. As my mother had approached the end of her life, it became far more important for me to speak to her every day than it was to be in a hit television series. Then in 2000 I became a grandmother. I moved out of the city and back to the coast and decided finally to give up on men. I retired to the seaside and got a dog.
But the book didn’t happen and I just gave up men for a while, because then I met Bernie. Perhaps I’d thought the ride was going to slow down, but it had too much momentum and happiness can arrive at any age.
During the Noughties I did some of my best theatre: A Busy Day, Elizabeth Rex and Master Class, all with Jonathan Church directing. I toured the UK with Simon Williams in his Nobody’s Perfect, and Sir Peter Hall’s name was on the Hay Fever poster but I don’t think he even came to see it. I worked on four films and parts in two filmed series, and did Bad Girls, Coronation Street, Strictly Come Dancing and Celebrity Big Brother, to name just a few of the umpteen things I did for television. Not a very convincing retirement. I’m a grafter and I don’t stop and probably never will. As for my poor dog, I got another one to keep her company.
I fell in love with the theatre and acting as a teenager and, nearly half a century later, the love affair continues. I still find the whole process of putting on a production fascinating. Michael Winner once said to me, ‘My dear, nobody needs the film industry except the film industry.’ I don’t think that’s true. Theatre, films, music and all the arts are capable of nourishing the soul and opening the heart. Mankind needs that food. I need that food and I feel very blessed that I’ve been allowed to join in and play.
Everything I’ve done has been of its time. It’s been a magical ride that only happened because I was born when I was. The war was over. It was the perfect time to be born – when it was safe to be a child. There was an innocence and a sense of freedom. I’m a product of that age.
I could have been the poster child for the 1950s, and the 1960s pointed me towards where I am today. In the 1970s I co-starred alongside a pair of screen legends, and then got blacklisted from Hollywood. The big characters I played on screen in the 1980s were totally of their time – Connie’s hot-wired living and Sable Colby’s shoulder pads. In the 1990s the buck stopped with me and my life changed emphasis, but without slowing down.
On the first night my parents moved into their marital home my mother cooked a chicken. She hadn’t cooked one before and she left the giblets in. The next morning she was amazed because the servants hadn’t cleared it all away. It took until it happened for her to realize that she didn’t have servants. Just as I was a product of my time, she was a product of hers, but liberal and progressive rather than staid and oppressed. She made me believe I could do whatever I put my mind to, and supported me throughout.
I’ve tried to do the same for my children, being ever aware of the difficulties they faced having a mother with a public profile. I also had to struggle with the responsibilities of being a single parent. It’s directed the professional choices I’ve made. I know I’ve done less good work than I could have done. I discovered that if I was playing really big roles, I wasn’t able to be a good mum. I don’t mean high camp Sable Colby. That was just lipstick thick; involving fabulous bitchy lines and Oscar Wilde delivery, but it wasn’t emotionally draining. It was far more difficult to combine motherhood with deep and complex characters. So for the most part I didn’t play them, until after the millennium.
After I was separated from my husband, John McEnery, at the end of the 1970s, I had a choice to make. I knew I only had energy for children and work, or I could go for children, a new husband and a little bit of work here and there. I would have lost my independence. I’d put my faith in that set-up once before and it hadn’t worked. So I chose to make my life without a man; determinedly independent – foolishly independent, even.
As a child my favourite Ladybird Book had been The Sly Fox and the Little Red Hen. Throughout my life its positive line in women’s independence has inspired me: ‘“Then I’ll do it myself,” said the Little Red Hen.’ I grew up with second-wave feminism. I cherish my independence. I’m of my time.
But I’m not a serious person. I’m a lightweight. I’m a jackdaw who picks up shiny stones. I’m a spiritual bungee jumper. And I’ve got into some sticky scrapes that have meant I’ve had to develop a practical set of tools to get myself off the floor whenever I’ve been down. Earlier in my life there was an element of ‘seeking’, but mainly because I had to find answers to help me solve my problems. Without the answers, and the toolkit I was able to develop with them, I would have sunk.
There have been a few moments when I’ve felt truly touched by God. I’ve seen the fabric of the universe and it’s beautiful. More than anything, those moments set me on a spiritual search of greater depth. They made me realize that time is an irrelevance. I’ve no idea how long those moments lasted, whether minutes or seconds, but each sent ripples across the whole of my life, as if those moments have never ceased.
I’m a collector of joyful moments. The ticka-ticka ticka-ticka of a child’s roller skates on paving stones is as good a mantra as any to lift the soul.