Working with Patsy Byrne and a Whoopee Cushion

Patsy Bryne starring in 'Thinkabout Science'

We have just received the very sad news that the actress Patsy Byrne has died, aged 80. I have been looking through my photograph album, remembering what fun we had on location. 

Sophie Neville on location with John Satlhouse, Patsy Bryne and Samantha Hammond

Patsy Byrne starred as Nan in a ten-part BBC comedy drama called 'Thinkabout Science'. I directed five episodes, one of which was all about wind. Always a good sport and up for anything, Patsy valiantly took part in a scene which involved a whoopee cushion - the kind that makes a farting noise when you sit on it.

Patsy Bryne with her Whopee cushion

Things did not go as we expected. When Patsy sat on the whoopee cushion it burst. Burst with a loud BANG! As soon as I said, 'Cut!' Patsy threw back her head and roared with laughter. Luckly we manged to capture this scene on the first take with two cameras, because we didn't have another whoopee cushion. I had to add the rude sound afterwards in the sound studio.

When I knew Patsy, she was already famous for playing Nursie in Blackadder and bought comedy with her at every step. Beyond the laughter, I will remember her for being quick witted and kind, a real trooper and a great member of the team.

And she loved wearing purple.

Mum as a Model

Modelling or working as a model, sounds synonymous with glitz and glamour. My mother doesn't care if this is not, exactly, the case.

It has ever been thus. No one can constrain her. She flew to the Netherlands to appear in this advertisement:

Mum loves being in front of the camera and loves being paid for it.Here she is appearing as a cross person in the magazine Take a Break:

This was a commercial for Estrella Crisps. She looks dangerous.

At one time she kept popping up as a psalmist on a TV advert. Did you ever see it?

I do like this photo taken on a shoot advertising a new kind of Mars Bar. It's the one that rings true as honest and natural.

Daphne's adventures acting in television

Readers of Funnily Enough often ask after my mother - worried that she might be offended by some of the stories recorded in my diary. What they do not know if that she actually asked if I could put a picture of her looking absurd on the front cover.

Mum used to make an effort to look pretty. She started working as a television presenter in about 1969 and was with HTV for years, reading the local news and presenting a children's programme called 'It's Time For Me', 'Women Only' with Jan Leeming and appearing on Christmas Specials.
At the same time, she worked for BBC Radio Bristol presenting a sports programme called 'Come Alive' and reading letters on 'Any Answers' before there were phone-ins.

Here she is interviewing the artist Kit Williams at the time he bought out his book Masquerade and sent all of England on a treasure hunt, looking for a golden hare.

By 1980 Mum was working as a continuity announcer for Border Television. We nearly moved up to the Lake District. I found this clip of her appearing on Grampian TV a few years later ~

Whilst in-vision announcers disappeared from television screens in the 1980s Mum did not. She began gaining small parts in period dramas, many of which were filmed on location in the West Country.

Appearing in 'Miss Marple' with Joan Hickson

She has always thrived in front of the camera, whatever the weather -

Daphne Neville with Diana Dors in 'The Two Ronnies' for BBC TV

readily admitting that she loves dressing up and grabbing any chance to appear in costume.

Daphne Neville in 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'

What she is not so keen on is wearing fur coats.

On location with Cheryl Campbell in 'Rain on the Roof'

She hates the idea of animals suffering for fashion,

As Lady Kroesig, mother to Anthony Head in 'Love in a Cold Climate'

but is happy to comply with the costume designer's wishes. Here she is playing Lady Kroesig, mother to Anthony Head in the LWT adaptation of Nancy Mitford's novel Love in a Cold Climate, in which her daughter Tamzin played the young Linda.


To see more photographs of Mum in action, click here!

Mum, Dad and their tame otters

My parents have kept tame otters since about 1980.

Over the years they have collected quite a few stories about them.

They are very inquisitive,

love eggs

and playing in the hay.

but most of all, they love being loved.

They appeared on CBBC TV in 'Wild' one Saturday morning recently
and will be at the Royal Welsh Show all this week 

These beautiful photographs were taken recently for a feature in the Sunday Telegraph

Please click here for the article published on 21st July 2013 

Sophie Neville decluttering on Channel 4 November 2021

All permissions obtained in release contract with Betty TV for Channel 4

My most recent television broadcast appearance was on Channel 4 in the U.K. for Betty TV's 'Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners' helping my mother Daphne Neville with an overdue blitz on the clutter in her attic.

What do you think!

Jake the Dog ~

'You use funnily enough to indicate that, although something is surprising,     
it is true or really happened.'

~ Collins English Dictionary ~

Being ill for long time can be incredibly boring. Although he had no idea why I was lying around all day, it was our dog Jake who helped me to cope with the tedium of Chronic Fatigue. He would come upstairs, of his own accord, just to keep me company and was happy to rest with me all day long.

Funnily enough, Jake was born under my bed one Christmas morning. Daisy, our rather dim Airedale, who looked like a ginger biscuit on legs, unexpectedly gave birth to three unusual looking puppies. Jake was the one my parents chose to keep. Like many cross-breeds he proved a wonderful dog, living to a great age.

Jake was a character; a dog who seemed to have a sense of humour. Although he was not particularly well trained he had quite a notable career as an actor. This started when he cast himself as the hero in 'The Day in the Life of the Otter', which was made at home by the BBC Natural History Unit. In the story he rescues one of the otters from drowning in a fisherman's keep-net. It was a role he shared with Spike Milligan, who provided his voice. On the strength of this he appeared in Mr Bean with Rowan Atkinson and was asked to star in a television commercial.

The fact that Jake was quite a big dog worked well on film. When my father played the part of an estate agent in an educational info-drama called 'The Walls of Jericho' Jake was there as his dog. He enjoyed appearing in a Day Time magazine programme for Granada Television. Mum was interviewed on how to make your own dog food. They called the item 'Jake's patty pies'. I think all he did was eat them. When she tossed small meat balls in his direction, he'd catch them in mid-air and look terribly pleased with himself.

However, when our house was used as a location for 'The House of Elliot' Jake decided to take a back seat. He took up a position at the rear of the catering bus from where he surveyed progress of the shoot. The crew gave him the title 'Director of Operations'.  

Although he started life as a mistake, Jake proved a remarkable animal and is remembered with huge affection. He added an optimistic dimension to our lives and was a good friend of many. Honesty compels me to admit that I was slightly allergic to him, and perhaps he contributed to the load my system was having to cope with but he staved off loneliness. That was a great blessing.

    

How do you cope with being laid up in bed day after day?

15^th April ~ A huge Get Well card has arrived, signed by my entire cast and crew. It’s a picture of a crocodile in bed with a thermometer in its mouth. Not a very sexy looking one. My P.A. had written ‘Rest: don’t feel guilty about spending time in bed, you work too atrociously hard.’

I’m reading a book about the French Revolution but I can’t take it in; my brain seems to have shrunk to the size of an apricot.

Mum went around in a Police car today with a video camera, in an attempt to catch speeders speeding. The life of a J.P. (Justice of the Peace.) She absolutely adores being a magistrate. Having always complained about public lavatories, it gives her a title suitable for bullying people to do something about them. And, she always had an aptitude for prosecution. I can remember waiting at the traffic lights when we were little when Mum sharply informed a boy on his bike,

‘It’s getting dark, you should have your lights on.’

‘So should you lady,’ he answered back.

He was right; she hadn’t turned her own headlights on.

Alastair came to see me, leaving a trail of destruction. It comes naturally to him. In the last few years he has broken the dishwasher, sloshed coffee all over the Persian carpet and split open our pink bath. He stood in it. For some reason he got in without any water, which was just as well as Dad found a live electric wire running underneath. Rats had gnawed off the plastic insulation.

It’s sweet of Al to come over, but it’s rather enervating having him around. Like many high achievers, he switches from being frantically outgoing to being totally self absorbed. I just wish he could understand that we love him for who he is and not for what he can achieve.

I don’t know; he’s crazy about what he does; Alastair is even more engrossed in his work than I am. His great passion in life is birds and he loves, loves, loves making films about them. I once asked him what was the most important thing in his life, thinking he might talk about his faith or his family, his health or even perhaps me. He said, ‘Peregrine falcons.’

‘Oh. What’s the second most important thing in your life?’

‘White fronted bee-eaters.’

James says he finds it somewhat annoying; not the bird fetish so much as the desire to get up so early in the morning. Al says he’s sure everyone thinks he’s bonkers but doesn’t care. The great thing is that one is whisked along with his enthusiasm and where it takes you; out to see gannets on the Farne Islands in sparkling sunlight and high seas or off to remote parts of Morocco to find the flamingos and egrets he last filmed in the Camargue. Surprisingly good fun. A group of us girls went out to Kenya one Christmas to see him when he was making a film on the white fronted bee-eaters with Simon King. Al was so focused on the project that when we returned from a long and adventurous journey to Lake Turkana he didn't even say Hello. Mind you, he was battling to complete a sequence with a mongoose. (They predate on bee-eaters.) It wouldn’t do what Alastair wanted at all and that can be extremely frustrating. I had the idea that Marmite might smell like a female on heat. They got a shot of the mongoose sniffing a bit but somehow the Marmite got everywhere. Under Alastair’s arms, on Simon King’s pigtail, all over the mongoose, and I was covered in it. Mongooses don’t smell very nice either. The idea of making wildlife films suddenly lost its charm.

16^th April ~ My littlest sister Mary-Dieu, aged nineteen, has a baby girl aged one. She’s called Daisy, has no schedule at all and arrives with a huge pile of laundry. It’s pretty difficult looking after her as she normally sleeps in bed with my sister and objects to being plonked in a cot. But she’s come to stay because Mary-Dieu wants to go ‘Clubbing’. Night clubbing. The thought alone exhausts me.

Daisy is a delight. Her big eyes and curls make her look like a little imp with a question mark on top of her head. I really didn’t know what to do with her, but found Atalanta’s baby-walker behind the sofa. Daisy thought this was great and spent all afternoon whizzing about my room. I rather need a baby-walker myself.

Nicola, one of my best friends from school, came over. She looked at Daisy with horror and then said in a small voice, ‘I’m pregnant,’ sounding like a frightened sixteen-year old. She isn’t sixteen; she’s twenty-nine and has been married for two years. I think it’s exciting that she’s going to have a baby. I showed her the schedule, which is still hanging on the sitting room mantelpiece.

‘Oh, Sophie, I thought that was for you.’

‘Yes. I suppose it could be.’

‘Do you manage to keep to it?’

‘No, we’re always behind.’

Daisy is sleeping with Mum in her bed and my father has migrated to his study. I lie alone in my high four-poster, looking at the card of the crocodile. Mary-Dieu (Dieu as in mildew) was nearly four when we adopted her. I was fifteen. She was the sweetest little thing, easygoing, bright and extremely articulate. Our only problem, and it was quite a hazard, was that she was, and still is, radically outspoken. She could state the obvious at embarrassing and inopportune times. We all had to go to court for her formal adoption. Mum knew that the old judge only had one hand. The other had been replaced by a hook. We were all terrified that Mary-Dieu would declare, ‘You’ve got no hand,’ or something and had been drilling her frantically. Instead, she walked into the court, paused in the doorway, and when sure of everyone’s attention, looked at the judge, looked up at Mum and said, in her clear piping voice, ‘I no say anything about the hook. I just tell him to be careful of the crocodile.’

17^th April ~ Mum came plodding upstairs to ask if I wanted Rufus Knight-Webb to come and see me. I looked at her a little oddly. I know that Jesus wanted the sick to be visited but I’m not sure I should have so many people in my bedroom. Rufus is the son of our old G.P. and I haven’t seen him since he was adolescent. He’s an artist and lives in London; I’m sure he won’t want to come.

‘You’ve absolutely got to see his wife. She’s beautiful.’ I’d no idea they were downstairs.

Mum was getting impatient with me. ‘It’s all right, they live in a squat.’ She was referring to the chaos in my room.

Rufus’ new Yugoslavian wife is beautiful. Startlingly so. In the way she is, as much as how she looks. She speaks not one word of English. Rufus, in contrast, hadn’t brushed his hair for a long time and spoke without drawing breath.

‘I’m painting with ultra-violet in the dark,’ he told me. I could just imagine it. Rufus in Peckham, painting in the dark. I showed him the luminous stars stuck to the ceiling above my bed. His works of wonderment need to be illuminated by a black light or something. Weird. (How can you get black light anyway?) They’re going to James’ dance in May, when we all have to dress up as soap opera stars. I tried to persuade him to go as a carrot and represent The Archers.

My photos of South Africa have arrived from the developers. Oh, how I wish I’d never come back. The horses look so beautiful. I’m sitting on a big black Friesian with a flowing mane and tail. There are shots of us riding with the game. Shots of us walking through the mountains. Well, me walking, Sarah-Jane striding. I must’ve known her for twenty years. She has a wild and free life. And I mean a life in the wild, where she has freedom. Strong minded and independent, she’s torn away from convention and does what she wants. And why not? About five years ago we drove down through Africa and, although she had no money at all, she decided to stay and start her own business in tourism. Rebecca was on that trip. I’m going to send her some of these photographs and persuade her to get out there. It’s very much her thing.

18^th April ~ Syndrome worse today. Achy back. I can hardly do anything at all. It’s so frustrating; being unproductive goes against the grain of my essential make up. I’m not even much fun to talk to. But surely I’ll be better in time for James’ party.

I went to see my family’s General Practitioner. She peered down my throat.

‘Yes, well this is infected for sure, but tell me, do you always push yourself to the limit?’

‘In what way?’

‘Were you getting stressed-out at work?’

‘I was under a great deal of pressure, but I’m used to coping with that. It can be all quite exhilarating.’

‘How long have you been doing this job?’

‘I’ve worked for the BBC for about eight years, and have been in this particular job, directing stuff, for three.’

‘But is it a stressful job?’

‘Yes, it’s up to me to come up with the goods; the filming is pressurised,’ I admitted. ‘I work with children who are only allowed on set for a limited time, so I have to operate at a fair pace, directing with two cameras, but it’s not as if I was getting particularly anxious or worried. I enjoy it.’ I do, I love my work. I didn’t go into the details but it was the stupid recce that nearly killed me. These times of planning and reconnaissance are normally fun, but we had no time at all. I was going to have to film difficult sequences from a canal barge and wanted everything to be well organised. It was all rather difficult to envisage. Instead of delegating, insisting my production manager chose the locations, I’d spent a Saturday cycling miles up a gravely towpath and I think I pushed myself too hard physically. The only stress was on my muscles, which I’d thought would be good for me. But I was still on antibiotics and must have felt better than I really was.

‘Well, you have had two bad bouts of ’flu this year. I’d say you definitely have post-viral fatigue.’

‘How long can I expect to be ill for?’ I asked.

‘It’s hard to say.’

What I somehow never managed to explain was that while I was with Sarah-Jane I recognised the fact that I was badly in need of a long break; a proper sabbatical.

I staggered back from the surgery, sank into bed and spent all afternoon in a deep, hot sleep. Mum came back from Gloucester looking pretty exhausted herself. She told me that Mary-Dieu was still in bed when she’d returned Daisy at half past five. In the evening. Honestly, even I get up before then, and I’m meant to be in bed.

‘Her basement was filthy,’ Mum reported, ‘so I set to, scrubbing away. Mary-Dieu just sat on the sofa smoking, and watching me.’ Mum hates cigarette smoke. ‘I don’t suppose the night clubbing was much fun.’ Mary-Dieu’s lived in Gloucester for two years but hasn’t many friends. She seems to lead a nocturnal sort of life that I suppose cuts you off from the world after a while.

Mum, worried about christening her granddaughter, once asked Mary-Dieu if she had a church. ‘Yeah, I belong to The Church of Can’t be Bothered.’ It’s her choice but she must be so bored. Poor Daisy has to put up with all the muddle and smoke and the darkness of this ~ I don’t know what you call it ~ alternative lifestyle. Mum was quite funny though, going on about the mess; her own room is just as bad. The things she has on her windowsill alone: piles of letters, Agatha Christie books, wire coat hangers, one shoetree, empty boxes, her old specs (I bet she’s been looking for them for ages) and we are not allowed to interfere. Mary-Dieu knows this of course.

19^th April ~ Woke up with a stiff neck, feeling turgid and somehow compressed. It seems I’m unable to do anything productive. I ended up sitting slumped by my bookshelves reading about a boy who was dying, called William*. I was completely caught up by the story. His mother, Rosemary Attlee, tells the first part. Now I’m reading the journal William wrote in the last four months of his life. He was nineteen. It’s a spiritual journal and so touching. All true and much better reading than the French Revolution.

This diary of mine ought to be a spiritual diary but I’m shy about what people might think. I mean, it’s very personal. I used to think faith was a private thing, but we’re not going to learn anything by internalising what we experience. Anyway, it’s exciting hearing about what God’s doing in people’s lives. I don’t know if what’s happening in mine will be. Where do I start? I’m in the middle of so much. Start where I am now. Not a good place because I feel that nothing spiritual is happening in my life at all. I feel clogged up intellectually (and can hardly spell. I’ve just spelt hour: OUR and her: HAIR).

Should people pray when they’re ill? Well, yes, I’ve so much time on my hands. I ought to try to get closer to God. He really is here the whole time. That I have noticed. It’s a staggeringly beautiful spring for a start. These last few days I’ve been sitting quite motionless for ages, just soaking in all that is around me. I look out of my bedroom window at the cherry blossom. It’s spectacular. In the past I’ve been so busy filming that I’ve missed this extraordinary sight for years. Now it seems as if it’s out just for me, undaunted by wind or snow. Do people just get so busy they fail to appreciate God’s presence in their lives?

20^th April ~ Tried to pray. Can’t; too groggy. Must, must keep my intellect at least ticking over by writing more creatively. It’s essential to persevere. And take risks.

P o e m

If it wasn’t for all the mud and rain

Reality wouldn’t be the same.

Better try harder.

Try brain exercise. Must read newspaper. Reach for The Times. Ghastly news:

It says that an estimated 100,000 people have just died in Bangladesh, killed by a cyclone. That’s an awful lot. But then you read (well, I read in Bill Bryson’s book) that 1,360,000 people in the USA are airborne (flying over it) at anyone time; that must be about 5,000 aeroplanes; more. Dad says unless a load of planes are in the air, there’s not enough runway space for them to park up. Can’t bear to think about it. Give up. I don’t think I’m very well. Perhaps I could write about being ill for the advance of medical science.

I was just beginning to feel dejected when Mum appeared bearing ten pairs of the most enormous knickers I’ve ever seen. Five pairs white, five pairs ‘flesh tone’. Tamzin, who claims to be my most down to earth sister but is really quite glamorous, had just sent them to her for her birthday. Being a housewife she doesn’t earn any money, so my brother-in-law Johnty had had to pay for them. What an hysterical present. Mum had asked for knickers and told her to get the biggest possible, but these are VAST.

Dad, seriously concerned now about safety aspects of handling garden machinery, is writing an article about his experience with the rotary cultivator for The Kitchen Garden Magazine. They’ll just think he’s nutty.

21^st April ~ Nicola has kindly given me some emu oil for my skin. Real emu oil, all the way from Australia. The Aborigines say it has wonderful healing properties. The only problem is that it makes me smell like a roast chicken.

I’d love to be married like Nicola, but it’s just as well I’m not. I can’t bear anyone touching me at the moment. You don’t when you have ’flu and I feel like one does the day after the fever has gone, only this day seems to be going on and on and on. I must thank God for all the good things. He is in control. Control over a sick girl smelling like an emu.

Dad came back from buying plants looking relieved as he learnt that he’s not the only one to have an absurd relationship with a motorised plough. The man who runs the nursery, who after all is a professional gardener, said he started his rotavator in the garage and for some unknown reason it leapt into reverse too. The thing pinned him to the wall, blades spinning frantically within inches of his person. Like Dad, he was all alone and there was no way of escape. He had to wait until it ran out of petrol, which took about forty minutes.

*'William's Story' by Rosemary Attlee (Highland, 1987)

When I was first diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

England, 1991

9^th April ~

Extraordinary weather; blue sky, blue lake, brilliant sunshine – all the daffodils and cherry blossom out at once, and then very suddenly, snow. Not sleet, but great big flakes falling out of a grey sky almost as if the cherry blossom was coming off. It’s a bit like what’s happened to me.

I’m ill. Or not ill, I don’t know, but I’m totally exhausted. Enfeebled; like a sea creature stranded on a beach, with the tide receding. Everything was going well until I conked-out at work. I’ve been taken off my series and sent home to my parents’ farm. By the BBC doctor. For an indefinite period.

I suppose that when you just can’t move there must be something wrong. My father had to drive up to London and bring me home to Gloucestershire. I sat slumped in the car, shaking and unable to speak, but I’m going to stay here now, in my old bedroom, and get fat and fit and well.

I’d better be careful; I think it’s quite easy for stranded sea creatures to start feeling sorry for themselves. I knew an actor who once had a small part playing a sand monster in Doctor Who. His scenes were filmed on Brighton beach in January. ‘We monsters had to lie under a thin layer of sand, staying still until the director shouted “Action!” Then we would emerge and bear down, scarily, on the Doctor and his assistant’ (a buxom girl wearing a leotard.) They ended up having to do it again and again, take after take.

‘I got quite used to being buried and waiting around for the crew to set up the shot again.’ After the seventh take the monster found himself lying under the sand for what seemed like hours. ‘I thought I would just take a peek to see what was happening.’ The entire beach was deserted. It had started to drizzle. The crew must have moved on to the next location. ‘I felt so stupid. I didn’t have any money on me and had to walk back through Brighton to the unit hotel, all cold and stiff in the soggy sand monster costume, trying not to frighten old ladies or children in pushchairs.’

10^th April ~
There are stars above my bed here, here in my room high up at the top of the house. The windows are set in the eaves and look out into the treetops and across the lake. Our house is in a deep wooded valley so you can’t see far but are wrapped in sound. That is what’s so wonderful ~ the birdsong and the rushing water as the lake spills over, water falling twelve feet into the river flowing past the mill and away down to the sea.

‘I wish you wouldn’t interfere, Martin.’ I’ve heard this war cry from childhood. It’s my mother in normal state of chaos bustling about and shouting at Dad, who presumably, was trying to help. I’m going back to sleep.

11^th April ~
I have the concentration of a five-year-old and can’t do a thing. This is my symptom. It’s no good; I’m meant to be working. My throat is on fire.

Perhaps I should have done a bunk and stayed in South Africa after all. It wouldn’t be cold there, it would be sunny and I wouldn’t be ill. I’d be riding across the plains with the wind in my hair and wild animals all around me.

Apparently I have a syndrome: post-viral fatigue. Yuppie ’flu, of all things. The doctor at work took a long time examining me.

‘How long did you have to prepare for this drama series of yours?’

‘Three weeks, but I caught ’flu so it ended up being less.’

‘And how long do you normally need?’

‘Oh, three months. But I only finished editing the last series in February and couldn’t start any earlier.’

‘Why didn’t you take some leave, Sophie?’ he asked.

‘I did, I took two and a half weeks’ holiday and went to South Africa.’

‘I’m surprised you came back.’

‘I had to.’

‘So you got off the plane at 6.00am and walked straight into a meeting.’

‘How did you know?’

‘Yes, well you have to be pretty fit to do your job.’ He became very strict. ‘You can’t attempt to do it when you’re in this shape. I don’t want you to return to work unless you can look me in the eye and say you’ve been playing tennis every day for ten days. End of story. Keep a diary of how you feel, even if you only write five words a day, and take a list of symptoms to your G.P.’

It’s a bit of a shock. And a real nuisance. I went down with something vile for two endless weeks in January, then I’d been ill with a similar virus for ten days over Easter. It could have been a bug I caught on the aeroplane flying back from Johannesburg. My family doctor gave me antibiotics, which had made me feel so much better that I’d returned to work as soon as I could. I couldn’t not. We had rehearsals, I had scripts to prepare, and we had meetings, lots of them, and there were numerous locations to find.

In effect, I didn’t say ‘Cut’ early enough. I’m always forgetting to say ‘Cut’ and then stand around wondering why the actors continue to walk down the street. This time I should have stopped myself sooner. I collapsed after the first day of filming. Very embarrassing.

12^th April ~
Census day, of all things. We are about to become statistics and the media seems obsessed with it. England can be so parochial. I dreamt about warthogs last night, and zebra running in the dust; there were great herds of eland and giraffe standing against the mountains. And I was riding past on an Arab horse. I wonder if heaven will be like that? Do you think we’ll get there and find it covered in wildebeest?

I seem to sleep all the time. But my friend James is always nodding off and he seems ridiculously healthy. I hadn’t seen him for ages but he drove up from Bristol especially to see me, bringing my old boyfriend Alastair. They both happen to be working at the BBC Natural History Unit and smelt all officey. It was lovely to see them but a bit jarring:

‘How are you!’ James shouted, in his cheery Etonian voice.

‘Not feeling very well.’

‘Never mind,’ Alastair shouted back. ‘A couple of days in bed will sort you out.’ And giving me a slap on the back he took James off to look for a hobby. Hobby as in bird of prey. They only returned to eat. Why Mum is so enchanted by these two I don’t know.

‘Oh, but darling,’ she said, as soon as they were out of the house, ‘Alastair is tall, dark and good-looking and I suppose you could describe James as cuddly. Don’t you want to marry them?’

‘Not just at the moment.’

After supper Alastair gave James a plate of ice cream, not realising that he’d started snoozing on the sofa. James woke so suddenly he flung the bowl against the wall. The ice cream went splat! and dribbled, melting, down the radiator.

13^th April ~ must focus on getting better.

It’s quite busy here. I’ve been living in London for so long that I didn’t realise what my family was up to. Atalanta Blue has come to stay. She’s my niece, aged one, and has arrived with an extensive wardrobe of baby-grows. My incredibly efficient sister Perry has left instructions: pinned to the mantelpiece is a schedule of what Atalanta has to do and when.

·           7.00am ~ Wakes

·           8.00am ~ Eats

·           10.30am ~ Sleeps

·           12.30pm ~ Eats

·           2.30pm ~ Sleeps

·           5.00pm ~ Eats

·           5.30pm ~ Bath

·           6.00pm ~ Plays

·           7.00pm ~ Sleeps

What a life.

Perry has gone to make an advert for British Gas, her blonde hair bobbed, her pink suit pressed. She left in a furious temper because she slept the night in Mary-Dieu’s old bedroom. The smoke alarm kept going off every half-hour like an alarm clock. It was indicating that the batteries were running down. Poor Perry. She didn’t know this, couldn’t find what it was and ended up sleeping in Dad’s study, as there’s a bed there. Only she was unable to sleep due to my coughing. To make extra space Dad’s put the bed on top of a chest of drawers, which means that anyone sleeping on it is rather close to the ceiling and my bed’s on the floor above. Does this sound mad?

14^th April ~
Mum’s been trying to lose weight again. It puts her in such a bad mood. Her classic way of dealing with anything is to scream. It usually works; we all leap into action and scurry about doing things for her. The screaming is exacerbated when she’s irritated about something or hasn’t had enough to eat. Surely after all these years she must realise that dieting doesn’t work for her. I think the problem is that she insists on wearing baggy sweatshirts and tracksuit bottoms, which are most unflattering. They would make me look podgy and I’m a size 10.

‘I don’t care what I look like, for you lot,’ she shouted, turning on the whizzer to make more spinach soup. ‘I want to look slim for a part I’m going up for at the King’s Head in Islington.’ I bet the play doesn’t even get off the ground. She’s always going to futile auditions, despite the expense. Mum couldn’t resist auditioning for Peter Pan once. My sisters and I somehow couldn’t imagine her in flight.

‘Not to play Peter. I thought I might make a good Mrs. Darling.’ Once at the theatre she had to stand on the stage, looking out into silent darkness in the old fashioned way, and sing a song. ‘I sang By yon Bonny Banks, as it’s about all I can sing, and had just got to the bit about my true love, when a voice from the back shouted, “Stop. Stop! You don’t look a bit like a sexy green crocodile.”’ And that was it. ‘They were looking for a Mrs. Darling who could double as the crocodile in a sparkly bikini thing. I’m sure I could play a reptile if it was required.’

Dad has had an argument with his rotavator. He calls it a tiller. It’s a big red and white machine with handles like a plough and four rotary blades that churn up the vegetable garden.

He’d lent it to a friend who had managed to wear out the drive-belt. Instead of replacing it with an expensive Honda belt, his friend thought he’d buy a cheap one. This idea has nearly killed my father. When he put the tiller into reverse the drive-belt slid off and the whole thing leapt back at him, with the heavy blades turning madly right between his legs. And I mean right between his legs. They could easily have gouged out his stomach. As it was they caught his trousers, tearing and whipping the material round until his bottom was exposed and his right thigh was held in a tourniquet. The lower blades just missed his knees, slicing right through the rubber of his gumboots. Fortunately the engine then cut out. He couldn’t move though; he was pinned to the thing and awfully embarrassed about crying out for help, as he was quite naked around the middle. He said that luckily he found a hanky, which he put over his private parts.

As the vegetable garden is down the lane, 400 yards from our house, Dad knew we’d never hear him and became rather worried about whether he’d ever be found. In his desperation he hacked away at the material twisted round his leg with a piece of stone and finally managed to get free. He’s a bit shaken. Mum is trying to be sympathetic but thought the whole episode very funny.