No Holding Back

by Amanda Holden

  Debbie and I would then let ourselves in after school using a key hidden under a brick in the front garden (great security!). It was our job to peel the potatoes and lay the table for supper but we’d race each other to sit on the heating vent by the TV – first one in got the hot spot! – and watch Grange Hill. Debbie got chilblains from winning too often and I told her it was God’s punishment. (My great-grandmother used to get them and soak her feet in her own pee. Luckily Debbie never resorted to that . . . ) Mum always came home to make the tea and as soon as we heard her ancient Vauxhall Viva (an upgrade from the bicycle) chugging down the street we’d run around like crazy doing all the things we were meant to have done already.

  I was a good girl until the age of about fifteen, when I developed opinions and started to exercise some control in my own life. Suddenly, overnight it seemed, the closeness between my mum and I disappeared. It was difficult and unsettling for both of us and, like a lot of mothers and teenagers, we spent too much time arguing. Her favourite threat was, ‘I’ve got my spies, Amanda,’ implying that somebody was watching me. It worked, and I felt constantly self-conscious and paranoid. The first time I said the word ‘bloody’ in public, my face went bright red because I was afraid one of her spies might have been listening. But as time went on I decided that the only spy she could possibly have would be poor Debbie, which my mum never denied, and which made me resent my sister and only increased the adolescent gap between us. Instead of sharing secrets like textbook sisters should, I hid things from her – sneaking a miniskirt or a better pair of shoes to school to change into or borrowing outfits and make-up from my friends, and never inviting her along with me. (I found out years later that she’d done exactly the same thing! If only we’d been better friends . . . )

  I was such a well-behaved student at Swanmore Secondary School I was made a prefect, along with all five of my friends. The only time I got into trouble at school was when my friend Claire Butler brought in a birthday cake laced with whisky which we shared between six of us, washed down with some beer. The following day we were in class when our teacher Mrs Shotlander announced that a ‘little bird’ had told her that some of her pupils had been drinking. We looked guiltily at each other but hoped nothing more would come of it – I think we probably thought, ‘They’ll think it’s Jamie Flook.’ (He was a bit naughty – wonder what he’s doing now!) Also, Fig was super smart and headed for Oxford and you couldn’t rock the boat if you were in that stream. But as it turned out, there was no such luck for me. Mrs Shortlander called out my name and despatched me to the strict Welsh headmistress whose only previous contact with me had been to stop me in the corridor and tell me off for rolling my waistband over to hitch my skirt up, wearing electric blue eyeliner, or those luminous socks.

  This time I didn’t get off so lightly. She took my prefect badge away, added that she’d never wanted me to be one in the first place because I was too ‘feisty and outspoken’ and then made me stay behind and clear out the school bins. I went home that night absolutely terrified, but eventually told my mum the whole story. ‘There were six of us, but I was the only one picked on!’ Mum was so cross she went to the school to complain that I’d been singled out – I was reinstated, I got my prefect badge back and my mum was a hero!

  Mostly, though, my relationship with Mum was far from harmonious and we seemed to be constantly at loggerheads. I used to write little ditties about tits, bums, willies and the ‘F’ word in the back of notebooks and on bits of paper for a laugh. One day she found some of these, as she termed them, ‘rude poems’ in my wardrobe and confronted me. I was mortified.

  ‘Wait until your dad gets home!’ she warned.

  I was terrified all day. (I don’t even know why, because Dad had never once hit us or even raised his voice. He always took Mum’s side but he didn’t play us off against each other – anything for a quiet life!)

  When he got in from work he came up to my room with a kind of weary resignation and had a perfectly reasonable chat with me.

  ‘I can’t really tell you off as this kind of thing is all part of growing up,’ he said, ‘but your mum’s upset and you’re still only a girl so best not look at that kind of thing in the house, eh?’

  Although I always acted the leader, inside I was really self-conscious. I was desperate to be older and feel more worldly-wise. Although I was really into boys, I was a good girl, and at sixteen I was the only one of my friends who hadn’t yet lost her virginity. Eventually, I decided I needed to do something about it. I was ‘going out’ with an older boy, Derek, nicknamed Snowy, who I thought looked like Billy Idol – at least, he had sticky-up, peroxide blonde hair. I was a massive Billy Idol fan at the time and used to get ready to ‘Mony Mony’ and ‘White Wedding’. Snowy lodged with the village spinster, Maggie Crawford (who also took part in amateur dramatics with me – we used to call her Miss Jones from Rising Damp because she spoke with an affected posh accent and looked just like her). Up to that point, our relationship was all very innocent, but I trusted him and felt comfortable with him, so after giving it a lot of thought, I plucked up the courage and wrote him a letter pretty much saying, ‘You’re the one, shall we?’ I think I even suggested a date and a time – I was so naïve! Anyway, just as awkwardly, he agreed that yes, he thought it was time too.

  I can’t remember much about it apart from the embarrassment of him having to buy some condoms and it all being a bit fumbling and quick, and me being incredibly nervous. It was hardly romantic, though, and it didn’t exactly make me feel instantly sophisticated and grown up, so as soon as I could get away, I legged it straight to The Crown in Bishop’s Waltham to meet the girls. (We went there because we looked older than we were and, in typical village pub style, they served us.)

  They were all already there when I arrived, and I could hardly wait to tell them, so before we’d even ordered a drink we all crammed into the loo together so I could reveal my momentous ‘secret’. Once in there, though, shyness got the better of me and I almost couldn’t get the words out. They surrounded me, urging me to tell them, and finally, breathlessly, I told them what had happened – that I’d finally lost my virginity. They were all suitably impressed and eventually, after much hugging and squealing and congratulation, we came out giggling excitedly. It didn’t last long, though – there was no way I was going to have sex again, so I had to chuck Snowy not long afterwards and he was really upset – he said he felt used. Up to this point I hadn’t thought of it from his point of view, and it was a bit of a shock – I had no idea he might actually have had feelings for me!

  The kind of snap decisions I was making at that time were largely shaped by the fact that my parents had finally achieved their lifelong dream of owning a guesthouse. They’d saved and saved and bought a nine-bedroom Edwardian property in Bournemouth which they named Chase Lodge: ‘Yes, that’s right – as in chase me!’ Mum used to tell people when taking a booking. But when they first announced that we were moving, I was heartbroken and threw huge, dramatic strops to my parents. Debbie felt the same way but was allowed to stay for six months with Dad’s mother, Nanny Win, in Bishop’s Waltham, to finish her GCSEs. At the time this made me envious of her, but now I just think of my poor sister being split up from the rest of the family.

  By then, I knew I badly wanted to be an actress and the only experience I had was am dram in our local theatre. It had become my life, and with us moving it all suddenly seemed out of reach again. As we left the bungalow behind, it felt like my world was ending.

  Chase Lodge was mortgaged to the hilt and my parents had taken a big risk in buying it, but Dad was a talented handyman and he and Mum did it all up themselves. To begin with Dad commuted because he couldn’t give up his day job. Then he found work as a van driver for the Bournemouth Echo to bring in a regular wage while Mum ran the business. They were a great team. Mum is a brilliant cook and catered for the guests (she even gave up serving tinned tomatoes with breakfast and served posh grilled ones instead). My
job was to strip the beds and put the sheets in the wash and then Dad helped out too when he got in from work.

  Mum researched local universities and discovered that Bournemouth and Poole had one of the best A level Drama and English courses going. There was a space available as someone had dropped out, but it was tough to get into. I was auditioned by Terry Clarke, a gruff, opinionated bear of a man who was to have a big influence on the next two years of my life. After a very embarrassing interview at which my mother insisted I ‘do my Marilyn Monroe impression’, I miraculously got in. I was a proper drama student at last!

  But that was the only upside of the move. I went from having the biggest room in our bungalow to sharing a much smaller bedroom with my sister when she came down to Bournemouth at weekends. And I missed my friends. Our new house felt chilly and jaded compared to our last cosy home. When we first moved, it always seemed to rain in Bournemouth and being by the sea made the whole place feel even more depressing in the grey and wet. I hated it.

  The weirdest transition of all for me, however, was having strangers in our house, which was even harder to get used to as a self-conscious teenager – I was going through enough change at that time anyway! I never got used to having to sit down to breakfast each morning with people I’d never met.

  At no time was this better highlighted than Christmas. Christmas is a favourite time of year for me, and Mum and Dad always helped to make it special for Debbie and me – but that first Christmas in Bournemouth with my parents and their guests was different, to say the least. My friends and I were lured along as Christmas entertainment. Me and Nan were in Mrs Christmas costumes that we’d been pressganged into wearing, even though my sister had somehow got out of it and was wearing normal clothes. (Nan must have been in her seventies at the time – she still had a cracking pair of legs though!) As we handed round Christmas crackers to complete strangers I felt that we’d lost all sense of family. It was fun – ish. But behind my cheery façade, I was filled with a huge sense of sadness. Looking back, that guesthouse killed our family and though, eventually, we’d never been so financially well off, the fun and the sense of family that we’d had when we were young and had no money had been lost for ever. There had been massive changes in my life – something I was going to have to get used to.

  Before then, though, I was about to fall head over heels in love . . .

  Chapter 5

  Taken for Granted

  In the space of a few months my life turned upside down. As well as coping with the strange new situation at home, I was studying for my A levels, trying to make new friends and having to adapt to a completely new environment. Back in Bishop’s Waltham, I was Amanda Holden who wanted to be an actress, but here I was only one of a thousand talented people at university, many of whom wanted the same thing as me.

  Worst of all, my mum and I weren’t getting along. Looking back, it’s maybe no surprise – I was growing up, and out of her control, and she was setting up a new business. Dad and my sister were still based in Bishop’s Waltham, finishing off work and school, and I wasn’t adapting well to sharing a building with strangers and no longer having my own privacy. It was me and Mum against the world, and we clashed frequently and horribly. Eventually things got so bad that one weekend, after an almighty row, I left.

  It didn’t take long for the enormity of what I’d done to hit me. I was just seventeen and was in a relatively new place. It was scary, but I felt like I had no other choice – the way things were, I certainly couldn’t go back to Mum. Instead, I went round to the house of my new best friend at college, Dionne. She used to sing and do Lena Zavaroni impressions, and we had become inseparable from the first day. Her family kindly invited me to move in with them in their small council house – I was always being adopted by other people’s families! – but I soon realised it wasn’t going to be a long-term solution. Being with someone else’s family rather than mine just reminded me of what I’d left behind. I needed to find a place of my own.

  Dionne said that if I found a place she’d be my flatmate, so I got a job at a place called The Candy Bar in Westbourne at weekends to make some extra cash and charmed a local landlord into taking us in. Unfortunately, it turned out being independent wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. My new ‘home’ was a mangy old bedsit full of dark furniture with a shared bathroom and kitchen – it was horrible. An old nun lived there too, so we’d try and eat during the day, huddled together on the bed eating our sandwiches so we didn’t have to bump into her in the kitchen. I was doing my college course and working every night after college and at weekends, to support myself. I was trying to throw myself into college life and do everything everyone else was, but not managing to have as much fun because I had to work to earn money. Most of all, I missed my family. After about six months, when Dionne and I had a row, I ran home.

  When I was there, back in that familiar environment and with my family, the previous months took their toll. I began to cry and I couldn’t stop. I realised I wasn’t coping as well as I thought. I was heartbroken and exhausted by everything that had happened in such a short time. I’d left home, started a new course, taken on jobs in the evening and at weekends and it had emotionally and physically drained me. I was tired of playing it tough. My mum took me back in and I stayed for a couple of weeks so we could sort out our differences. Whilst I was there I turned eighteen and for my birthday Mum bought me a china plate from a special offer in a Sunday magazine. It featured a painting of a young woman with shoulder-length hair carrying two suitcases, standing on the platform of a railway station. The title of the plate was ‘An Actress Awaits’.

  Mum told me, ‘That’ll be you one day, Amanda.’

  I loved that plate and hung it on the wall of my bedroom. I used to stare at it and imagine myself waiting at a railway station about to travel to the West End or to take part in repertory theatre in a city. I so desperately wanted to be the girl on that plate. (There were moments I wondered if I ever would, of course – lots of them!)

  A fortnight or so later, Dionne came to tell me she’d found a fantastic new-build house for us and our friends Alethea and Claire on a posh new estate on the Bournemouth Road near the Chase Manhattan Bank. That place was amazing: beautifully decorated and fully furnished with en suite bathrooms. With things resolved between Mum and me, I felt like this time I could move out for all the right reasons, with my family physically and emotionally close.

  In our new house, we worked very hard and played very hard. We were notorious for our wild parties (though, ever the hostess, I would always lay out a buffet just like my mum. I would make quiche! I was known for my quiche). At the same time, though, we kept our little house beautifully – when my parents first came to visit they couldn’t believe how clean and tidy everything was, with fresh washing hanging on the line and the fridge filled with food. No student squalor for us! I was all grown up at last, on my way with the career I had dreamed of, and I felt fabulous.

  Within a few weeks of college I had met SD and started going out with him. I was very fond of him and we were very happy together for a full year, but his family saw me as something more permanent in his life and even at seventeen I knew it wasn’t for me. Poor SD. I was totally freaked out when one evening his lovely mum got her wedding dress out and gave it to me to try on, saying, ‘It fits you perfectly!’ It was beautiful, but I got a sinking feeling deep in my gut and could feel the pressure of her expectations. I knew that SD wasn’t The One, so I had to cut and run. On our first anniversary I chucked him in a letter. I couldn’t say the words, ‘It’s over.’ I just didn’t have the guts. (Plus, I think there was something about putting my sentiments in black and white that appealed to my inner Jane Austen.)

  It was then that GB came into my world and my life tipped topsy-turvy all over again. GB was a couple of years older than me and in the year above mine at college. He wasn’t what you’d call traditionally handsome – he had auburn hair and a mole (he looked a bit like Michael Ball when he
first started out) – but he was so funny, very bright, a brilliant writer and great at impressions. He’s what my friend Jason calls ‘a honey’.

  My original plan had been to fix him up with Dionne, so I grabbed him in the corridor at college one day and pushed him into the girls’ toilets to tell him to ask her out. Once he was pinned up against the wall, though, I looked into his eyes and thought, ‘Oh no! What am I doing? I always liked you!’ I’ve never been good at playing the waiting game or playing hard to get. I just don’t like wasting time. To this day, I’ve never been asked out – I’ve always done it myself! I am a huge flirt but I can still count on both hands (and one foot) the number of people I have slept with. (I would have been hopeless in another era. No Mr Darcy fannying around for me – if I’d been Elizabeth Bennet I would have chased him on my horse and just told him how I felt!) So, I asked GB out. A bit later, I found out he hadn’t wanted to go out with Dionne at all because he had a thing for me too. We had our first kiss walking out down the university drive, on one of the speed ramps. (Nice!)

  The first week we started going out, we spent the whole time in bed, like Bournemouth’s answer to John and Yoko. GB was my first true love – I’d never been in love before and I fell hard. My feelings were proper and massive.

  He was very thoughtful and would cycle all the way from where he lived with his dad in Boscombe to put roses through my letterbox. (I’d wake up to find them half-dead on my doormat, but I guess it’s the thought that counts!) At college he’d break into my locker and leave me a bowl of cereal and a little jug of milk for my breakfast; he wrote me poems and introduced me to experimental music like David Sylvian and Virginia Astley – the kind of stuff I wouldn’t have discovered on my own. (And to be honest have never listened to since!) GB used to wear Kouros, which was very fashionable back then, and if I ever get a whiff of it now I think of him – sadly Chris’s dad wears it so these days I smell it more often than not. I also adored GB’s mother, who was older than my mum and seemed very worldly-wise. I called her ‘Muesli’ – I don’t know why! She was separated from GB’s dad and lived in a large Edwardian house in Roundhay, just outside Leeds. Visiting her with GB involved a nine-hour coach ride to Leeds but it was always well worth it. She ran a children’s nursery in part of her house, so there were always children there, which was sweet. She’d have olive tapenade on toast and fennel tea, which I thought was terribly posh, and she knew all about opera and theatre and ballet. In fact, she had excellent taste and I still think of her when I’m looking for interior design inspiration. She was the first grown-up outside my family who seemed to really love me for who I was.