WE MOVED HOUSE around this time as well, to a huge house round the corner in Muswell Avenue. It had five bedrooms and a huge playroom up at the top of the house in which there was a full-sized billiard table already. It even had a swimming pool. It was way out of our price range but we had to have it.
Nunzio was a perfectionist which is fine to a point, but we just didn’t have the money to do up the house to the standard he required. I realise now that the other issue about making the house nice was that it was all about keeping Nunzio sweet. If he was happy he would be good to me, it was as simple as that. So furnishing it to his exacting standards was just another way of keeping the peace. Everything had to be the best. For example, we had no wardrobes in our bedroom and no chest of drawers for shirts and the like. It used to drive me mad to have to pick my way across the floor all the time to get dressed. But Nunzio insisted he only wanted the best for his house. He had found a Georgian chest of drawers which was going to cost about £3,000. We didn’t have that kind of money to spend on drawers. Finally, I could take no more and went and found one for £1,500, which was a bargain. He was thrilled and carefully packed and folded away all his sweaters and underwear into it, leaving no space for my clothing. My clothes stayed on the floor for another year!
We spent the next two years pouring money into the house and doing it up. It was magnificent when it was finished and a testament to Nunzio’s vision and good taste. For all his faults, Nunzio did have style. He knew exactly what he wanted that house to be – a palazzo in north London! The boy from the poor part of Torre del Greco was now living in a palace. It had blood-red walls and thick, enormous braided curtains. The fireplace in the lounge had been painted by the same artist who worked on Prince Charles’s house at Highgrove. The kitchen, which took for ever to do up, was all wood floors and turquoise rugs and tiles, and led out to a pool area. We heated the pool so it was like a bath for the boys. It was like being in a hot country without the sun!
That bloody swimming pool was the bane of my life, and when he was about eighteen months old, it nearly took Robbie’s life. We had always tried to keep the outside doors locked because of the dangers of the water but somehow that day he broke free. Nunzio was talking to me in the kitchen when suddenly he looked out of the window, shouted and ran outside and dived into the pool fully dressed. The image that is emblazoned on my memory is of Robbie’s little body hanging in the water, his legs straight down and his mop of black hair. It still makes me feel sick to think about it. We laid him on the patio and, thank God, he coughed up a load of water and started breathing. We had caught him in time. He seemed none the worse for wear except he did not utter a sound for a full twenty-four hours. He must have been in shock.
After that incident, we were very wary of all children near the water and my dear dad paid for a fence to be put round it with a locked gate. Every summer I played swimming-pool attendant, handing out towels and guarding the gate. But the boys loved it so much and they learned to swim very quickly. At first they just swam under water all the time but then they learnt to swim, like the rest of us, on top of the water.
We had a big party when the house was all finished, and I remember going upstairs, looking out of the window into the garden and thinking, ‘Wow, this is all mine!’ It was heady stuff after so many years of graft. I guess we must have looked like we had everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LIFE MIRRORS ART
IN 1988, just after Robbie was born, I teamed up with Jan Etherington and Gavin Petrie, a husband-and-wife writer couple. They had just won a BBC Radio prize for comedy and part of the prize was to make a pilot radio episode of the script that won. They called me and we had lunch together and they said some lovely things to me about my talent as a comedy actress. Finally, after all those years of tits and arse, I was going to get the chance to prove my point that women can be funny, attractive and intelligent! They had written a series called Second Thoughts that was vaguely autobiographical, about a couple, Faith and Bill, reaching middle age who embark on a relationship, with all the problems of ex-wives and other people’s children. When we started at the Maida Vale studios in 1988 on the radio, little would we imagine that it was to be the start of ten years together.
As I had new-born Robbie, I was a bit like a travelling circus, with Valentina and the buggy and all foodstuffs necessary for a long day recording. I also supplied the actors with croissants and coffee. James Bolam was cast to play my other half and it was a wonderful choice. We worked together well over the next few years, though sometimes I had to wonder: I’m sure James won’t mind me saying this, but sometimes he could be a bit grumpy! So I had two grumpy men in my life! I left one at home and spent the day, at work, with another. I know which grump I preferred to be with, though. At least Jimmy’s grumpiness produced wonderful comedy moments.
Belinda Lang – another wonderful comedy actress – played Jimmy’s ex-wife, and Julia Sawalha played my daughter, long before she went on to find worldwide fame as Saff in Absolutely Fabulous. At one point, she was my lodger, and it sometimes felt like we were in another comedy series! I love her to bits. The radio series was a huge hit, and then we got the news that London Weekend Television wanted to make it. It was a real chance to get back up there again!
One of my heroines has always been Lucille Ball. She was a great American comedienne, whose style of comedy appeals to me because it involved a bit of slapstick. Physical comedy and women is, again, not the usual way female humour is perceived, but Jan and Gavin wrote some classic comedy slapstick moments for me. The series was a great success and we made seven more. It was a great team and when Jimmy decided he had done enough, the writers and I stayed together and created a spin-off called Faith in the Future. This was to be the life and times of Faith as a single woman, who suddenly finds herself living with her grown-up daughter, played once again by Julia. We had such fun and our director, Sylvie Boden, has become a lifelong friend. The whole team was tremendous and we won the Best Comedy Award in 1998. It was, however, my usual bad luck that London Weekend Television underwent a hostile takeover around this time and was absorbed by Granada, and our show was one of the casualties.
During one season of Second Thoughts, in 1993, I was caught by Michael Aspel and the big red book. I had often said to Nunzio if ever they ask you whether I’d like to be on This Is Your Life, to please say yes. He always said he would refuse because: ‘I don’t want to sit on the television while they introduce all your fucks!’ I tried to explain it was not quite like that, but to no avail. Thank God my mum got to hear about it and helped organise the guest list.
It was the last programme ever to be made at Thames Television Studios at Teddington. I had been to several sessions of This Is Your Life for other people over the years, some when it was still Eamonn Andrews, the original host, and a few with Michael Aspel. What the audience see in terms of surprise guests who appear on the screen is nothing to the party afterwards, where the studio is full of everyone who has ever been in your life. It was fantastic. What a night we had. It didn’t finish until 6 a.m.
We didn’t start filming it until after midnight because they surprised me while I was recording an episode of Second Thoughts. We had been told we had to do a retake and Jimmy was going to come in and start the scene again with the line, ‘I just went to the pub to get a bottle of wine.’
I had my back to him on the sofa so I couldn’t see him. The director shouted ‘Action!’ and in came Jimmy. I heard him say: ‘I just went to the pub and you would never believe who I met.’ I didn’t really take in what he was saying because I thought he had gone wrong and was about to have a wobbly. I swung round nervously to see Jimmy standing there with Michael Aspel. The audience in the studio were all applauding and cheering. I thought it was Jimmy’s This Is Your Life and I was thinking, ‘Oh, dear, he won’t like this,’ because he’s a very private man, but then suddenly Michael was talking to me and handing me the big red book. It was so wonderful.
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bsp; I was driven from the studios at Waterloo to Teddington studios. All the way down in the car, I swigged champagne and mentally ran through everyone I could remember in my life. I didn’t want to let the side down and not know who anyone was: it was always so awful on that programme when they introduced someone and it was obvious that the star didn’t have a clue who it was! I had to be kept isolated because the producers do not want anyone to spoil the surprise or talk to you about anything. But in my case, they had to let me phone my mum because she was going to be unable to appear as she was very ill with pneumonia. Poor dear Mum, she was so upset – she would have loved so much to have held court! My dad spoke in his rather reserved way and also my sister, Jean, who was brilliant and gave a lovely account of the family.
They have a policy with This Is Your Life that you are allowed a couple of guests from overseas. Budget permitting, obviously. When I was waiting in the room to start the show I was thinking of two dear friends I hoped might fly over. Wally Michaels from Canada and Bryn Lloyd from California. No such luck. What Nunzio had done was use the flights available to bring over his mates from Italy for a freebie. As usual it was all about him.
When I came on and sat down next to him in the studio, I could feel the waves of tension emanating from him. This was going to be a nightmare. If anyone came on that I had slept with what was I going to do? I just crossed my fingers and prayed that Mum, Dad and Nik Grace all knew what he was like, and had arranged things accordingly. Michael Aspel told me years after the event that he had never seen a man so like a coiled spring. He said people were phoning in asking why Lynda Bellingham’s husband never smiled. I was so nervous and so aware of everything I said. But we got through it OK and I had a fabulous time.
The next day we had a house full of Nunzio’s family and friends. One of these was a man called Vittorio, a very flamboyant old queen. He was always good fun and he wanted me to take him out to lunch and show him the sights. Nunzio had to work so I agreed. We met up with Jack Tinker and we had a right old time of it. We got home late in the afternoon, a little the worse for wear. Nunzio was all smiles in front of Vittorio but after they had left, he laid into me, calling me selfish and insensitive. How could I go out like that while he had to work? But I was only doing it to please him. It was the last thing I needed to do after a late night and all the excitement. It made me so angry that he’d even managed to ruin that moment for me.
One job I managed to slip in around this busy time was The Vision, starring Dirk Bogarde and Lee Remick. I was playing a TV presenter who had to interview Mr Bogarde. While we were waiting for the crew to set up the shot I tried to make conversation with Dirk, and got short shrift. Then lots of children, who were in the scene, started coming up to me and asking me for my autograph. It was so weird because they were queuing for me and ignoring the real star. Dirk Bogarde watched this for a bit and then he said, ‘Should I know you? You’re obviously well known to all these people.’
‘No, not really,’ I stammered. ‘It’s because I do the Oxo commercials, that’s all.’
There was a long pause and then he said, ‘Really? I didn’t know gravy was so popular.’
Another big star I worked with during these years was Sir Paul Scofield. What a charmer. I got the role of Mrs Lupin in Martin Chuzzlewit, a big glossy classic series. Once more I got all excited because I thought it might lead to greater things, and once more I was disappointed. Mind you, seeing what I looked like in one of those lovely period mob caps and no make-up, it’s hardly surprising Hollywood wasn’t knocking on my door. Julia Sawalha was in it as well, so it was lovely to be working with her again. We used to compete for Sir Paul’s attention by taking him sweets. He said he loved different sweets so we kept taking him bagsful every day. He was so gorgeous and twinkled at you throughout a scene.
I also did a play during these five years. It was The Sisters Rosensweig by Wendy Wasserstein. We opened at Greenwich and then went into the Old Vic. It starred Janet Suzman, Maureen Lipman and me, and was directed by Michael Blakemore.
When we opened at the Old Vic, Maureen used to get cross because Janet would arrive after the half in the evenings. The half is the half an hour before curtain-up and an actor is supposed contractually to be in the theatre thirty-five minutes beforehand. Janet never was and it really irked Maureen. I was playing the youngest sister and my role crossed over into real life as I hovered between the two keeping the peace. It felt like Janet and Maureen were competing for who had the best guest in their dressing room. One night, Janet was entertaining Jonathan Kent, the artistic director of the Almeida theatre, while Maureen had Tony and Cherie Blair (before he was Prime Minister, though). Larry Lamb was our leading man and he very diplomatically kept everyone happy. Michael Codron was the producer, a very distinguished man, who must have had a constant headache keeping things sweet.
I enjoyed a special moment with Princess Diana during this time. There was a lunch given at St James’s Palace for fifty famous mums and I was so proud to be included with the likes of Linda McCartney and Shirley Conran. I asked Nunzio to help me find a suitable outfit because I knew he had great taste, and I wanted to make him part of my special day. We trawled the shops and finally found a beautiful Yves St Laurent suit.
On the day, I did look good, though I say so myself. We were all introduced to Diana and then a bit later she came and asked me where my suit was from. I explained how Nunzio had helped me choose it and her response was that all Italians have such good taste. I felt like saying if only they were kinder to their wives!
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘IF YOU CANNOT GET RID OF THE FAMILY SKELETON, YOU MAY AS WELL MAKE IT DANCE’
(GEORGE BERNARD SHAW)
WHEN BOTH MY children were born I went through the same feelings and insecurities. All those questions about inherited illnesses. Was there a history of heart disease in my birth family? High blood pressure? Since having Michael I had thought a good deal about my background, not just about the physical stuff either; more about my mental state, to be honest. All I heard from my husband now was that I was a slut and a drunk.
I couldn’t understand how I had let myself get so low. I had no self-respect or self-worth. All through my childhood I had wanted to please people. First my parents, then my teachers and friends at school. My career was spent trying to be things I was not. When would it end? When would I be able to be myself? Whoever that was.
After having Robbie, I decided the one thing I could do was to find out the truth about my mother. If she had dumped me, better I know for sure. If she could give up her baby, there must have been a good reason. I wanted to know why.
While I was filming All Creatures Great and Small and we were up in Birmingham, I was waiting in line at the hotel one morning to check out. In front of me was a stewardess from Air Canada, who was giving her address as Montreal, Canada. Before I could stop myself I was telling her that I was born in Canada. She was very polite and responded accordingly, but then I found myself asking if she knew any way I could trace my birth mother over there. She explained that it was very difficult in Canada because they had privacy laws, but she did know of a charity called the Missing Children’s Network, that traced missing children, and they would probably be able to give me all sorts of information about how to trace people.
When I got back to London I decided to have a go. I opened a bottle of wine, got a pad and pencil and set to. I spoke to a lovely woman at the Missing Children’s Network called Susan Armstrong. She explained that they did not trace parents as such; instead, they found children who turned up on the streets of Montreal. But she asked me to give her all the information I had because their organisation had several useful contacts. I had quite a lot, actually, because I had my birth certificate, including my mother’s name, Marjorie Hughes, the name of the hospital where I was born, and the registration papers. Susan told me they had a contact in the files office at the hospital that might be able to get a sneaky look. We chatted a bit longer and she asked
me what I did and I told her. Then she asked if she might have seen anything on TV that I had been in. I mentioned All Creatures Great and Small and she went bananas: ‘Oh my God, you’re Helen Herriot! That is so exciting, I can’t wait to tell my associate! We love that programme.’ I tried to explain that it was really important that we were discreet for several reasons, not least the reputation of my birth mother. She calmed down and said, of course, she would be very discreet and she would ring me back.
She rang me back almost immediately and said the girl in the records office had got caught trying to snoop, so that was the end of that! I suggested to Susan that maybe there would be records of my grandfather, as he was a doctor (this was my father’s idea, the doctor in Montreal had mentioned it to him). Of course, Susan said, leave it with me. Within the week she had everything. There had been a report in the local newspaper in Calgary when he died, and an obituary. He had died in 1959. Susan said it was only a matter of putting all the pieces together and we would have everything we needed.
I decided I had better talk to my parents before I proceeded any further. Nunzio was all for me going ahead. I don’t think his actions were entirely honourable, though: I think he wanted to drive a wedge between me and my family and keep them at bay. Ever since I had left him briefly that time, and Mum had suggested we should part, he had been very cold towards them. The idea I might have a mother conveniently far away in Canada appealed to him.
I drove down to my parents one Sunday. It was always so lovely to see them and very rare now. It wasn’t that Nunzio stopped me seeing them but he just made it so difficult. If I wanted to take the boys he would make a big deal about how Sundays were the only day he could see them. This was rubbish as he was home every afternoon from the restaurant but usually he just fell asleep. Then if we did drive down he would be ringing my parents’ phone all the time, asking what time we were coming back. It was just such a hassle all the time.
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