There's Something I've Been Dying to Tell You (25 page)

I would hope, in a way, that Michael does meet a lovely lady, who could look after him and they could have a loving relationship. He says he doesn’t ever want that again, and I understand, but things can happen. However, if that lady was on the lookout for a meal ticket, and decided that my sons’ inheritance was of no consequence, that once I was gone they could fend for themselves and she and Michael could sail off into the sunset, then that would be a disaster. I want to know to the best of my ability I have them sorted. It would be just the same the other way around as well. So my dear husband has been running round like a mad man getting everything straight, and I do recommend that anyone reading this (God, I hope there are a few) will take note and make a will.

And while we are on the subject, a living will. Here is another thorny problem. I do not want to be resuscitated after a heart attack or a stroke, thank you very much. I am not going to try and tackle the whole issue of assisted suicide here, but it is a subject one should think about very seriously. It is so hard for me to discuss this with the family because we are coming from some different places. In a way their arguments are purely selfish. They want me to live, obviously, and so do I, of course, but if that is not possible then please let me go in as dignified a way as I can. I don’t want to be remembered in a bed, out of it, on morphine. I look at myself now on a bad day, haggard and drawn, with my white hair flat against my head and a stoop of tiredness and pain, and it is so depressing! I do not want Michael and the family to say goodbye to me looking like that. I see their faces now when I need to lie down, and I catch them watching me with such sadness in their faces. I want to say goodbye as me, Lynda Bellingham, B to my husband, Mum to my boys, Bellie to my friends, Lynda Bellingham OBE to my enemies!

Funnily enough I went to a psychic recently who opened the conversation with, ‘You have many people who hate you, Lynda.’

What?! I haven’t noticed that particularly in my life. If I have ever had run-ins with people I have tended to ignore them or just avoid them.

‘A lot of negativity in your life and you have had to fight very hard for anything good to happen.’

Now that is true. People talk about how lucky I am and I can honestly say that is not the case. I have made things happen by sheer force of will and I have refused to be overcome by other people’s negativity, such as that of my second husband. I have always looked to the future and moved on, but luck, as such, has not been in abundance and certainly not at this point in my life. But the idea that there are people around me who hate me was quite a shock. However, I do not have the time to worry about them now; if envy was ever a cause I am sure they feel better now knowing I won’t be around much longer!

I wasn’t gone yet though and I was continuing to try and get out and see people as much as possible so my next outing after my lunch with Robbie was in April to the Lady Taverners Spring Lunch. What a group of ladies they are! Over the years I have made some very good friends with these campaigners and while having a good time they raise thousands and thousands of pounds to buy buses for children with disabilities, and help them with facilities to play sports and have great days out. Each charity has a different approach to raising money and the Lady Tavs is like joining a club. You get to know people over the years and it is lovely to all meet up at these functions and have a gossip.

In May I attended the Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friendly Awards, and once again bumped into all sorts of different people I have seen over the years getting to grips with this insidious disease. Great Britain is now a leading voice in Europe, along with Holland, and even throughout the world. Japan has a huge interest in its ageing society and dare I say it has a much more respectful approach to the elderly than some parts of the UK. But slowly we are coming to terms with the illness and dealing with it. However there is so much research that still needs to be done that money is vital, as usual.

Thankfully the Alzheimer’s Society is getting there and we have Dementia Friends, supported by Prime Minister David Cameron. Hopefully we are teaching society a whole new way of approaching sufferers. It may be naive of me, but I hope that attitudes towards all the vulnerable members of society will improve through this campaign and we as a society will take time to consider those around us. In terms of care, of course, we have a long way to go. The government should have an all-party policy on this. We all know what it is going to cost in the future and it should not be a political issue. I feel that the NHS and caring professions have to be addressed and the public need to accept that they will have to pay towards their healthcare.

I think a lot can be done to educate people too. Why not make caring a decent career for a young person? Train them properly, show them it is not all about old people and nappies, pay a decent wage and make them feel an important part of the healthcare of this country. I know we hear so many awful things about healthcare but I really do believe that care workers should be given proper recognition and respect and money for the jobs they perform. They are invaluable to the running of any institution, be it a hospital or care home. God knows we are going to need more and more as the elderly population grows and there are so many young people needing work.

Nurses should be made to feel more special too because it does take a special kind of person to dedicate their lives to others. But nowadays everything has become lost in pay scales and administration and agency nursing. Carers, healthcare workers and nurses should all be recruited and young people enticed into a career with the offer of decent wages and lifelong commitment. Let us make it a profession to be proud of alongside the nursing profession. I now know, more than ever, just how important these people and the jobs they do are.

20

TIMES, THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

June 2014

With all the recent enquiries into sexual abuse, and the Yewtree investigation, I was asked to take part in a programme about life in the seventies and how much things have changed. I must say, looking back, it is amazing just how different attitudes are now. I left drama school in 1969, and so much of my career was formed from 1970 through to the early 1980s. That part of my career saw some good, some bad and even some
really
bad stuff in the form of my comedy work, which I naively imagined was showing people how versatile I could be when in reality it pitched me into what is now known as the ‘tits and arse’ brigade.

Almost every photo of me in a comedy saw me either playing a nurse with big boobs or as the only girl in the programme, always wearing a low-cut T-shirt or some such nonsense. At that time women were there to be mocked and ridiculed and yes – I am afraid to say – touched up. I remember a very famous comic saying to me, ‘Now in this scene I am going to drop a pencil down the front of your dress and then I look for it.’

He then spent a good five minutes basically abusing me. I just stood there not quite knowing what to do and then turned to the room and said, ‘How funny was that then?’

They all looked embarrassed I am pleased to say. But the line between what was acceptable or not was obviously in a different place back then.

Of course there are serious questions to be asked about certain people and obviously there are real sex offenders out there, but some of these cases now, I think, are way over the top. Do we honestly believe that all these young bands say to their groupies, ‘Now, how old are you and does your mother know you are here in my hotel room?’ I don’t think so!

I do blame the parents, because they really do not know where their children are half the time and they must know that if their daughters go out with not much on they are in a certain amount of danger. I can remember my dear old dad, who was so gentle and shy, telling me to understand the male psyche. As he put it, ‘All men have a basic animal instinct that women do not have, and if a man has not seen a woman for some time, or indeed never, as in some cultures, to suddenly be accosted by the sight of legs and thighs and breasts is just too much for them and they attack.’

I think some of the very liberal thinkers among our female society should take this onboard. I am not saying any young girl deserves to be raped or abused because of how she dresses, but maybe a little thought and understanding of the opposite sex might not go amiss.

But back to the seventies and I did have quite a few embarrassing moments, especially if there was a bed scene. I always dreaded these sorts of scenes as they are so cringe making. I had one with an actor much older than me and I was playing his mistress and we were supposed to be making mad passionate love. We both wore knickers but I had no bra on . . . ‘Intrinsic to the scene, dear’ is what they always told you. Anyway the director called action and this dirty old man stuck his hand between my legs. I let out a yell and the director shouted, ‘Cut!’

‘What on earth is the matter, Lynda?’ he asked impatiently. I looked at my co-star who was smiling at me. Smiling!

‘Nothing, sorry, let’s go again,’ I said as I settled back under the covers.

‘Action!’ cried the director, and with that I grabbed the actor’s crotch and squeezed, hard!

It was his turn to let out a yelp and the director called, ‘Cut. What the hell is going on here, you two?’

‘Nothing,’ we said in unison and indeed nothing did happen from then on. That is the way to deal with dirty old men.

To be honest it all depended who you were working with. Dear Robin Askwith spent his life on those
Confessions
films trying to protect the very actresses he was being asked to abuse. None of them seemed to mind much! My first husband was the producer of the films and he used to receive large photos of so-called actresses with nothing on except a big grin on their faces, saying ‘All producer’s requirements will be met’.

You could be forgiven for wondering who was abusing who!

In the seventies, every time one had to do a publicity shot it was inevitably a tits and arse number. Not that I ever took my clothes off for the newspapers, but the photographer would always ask you to undo one more button or stick your chest out. That was humiliating, but sadly in those days it never occurred to me to say no.

I do regret the jobs I took on in those days and I do wonder how much it affected my career, but it’s too late to think like that now. I should just be grateful I will never be asked again! Mind you, it is only two years ago that I stopped taking my clothes off nightly in
Calendar Girls
.

Doing it for
Calendar Girls
was so liberating though, for all of us, and it was not as if the audience saw anything, it was just between the actresses. Although one memorable night in Glasgow, when I had to move upstage to stand at the top of the imaginary hill and encourage the other ladies to strip, I had to take my top off and turn to the audience with my arms strategically crossed over my boobs. In order to get into that position, though, with my back to the audience while I got my bra off, I was very exposed to everyone in the wings. There were supposed to be rules about no male stagehands backstage during this part of the play, but this huge hairy Glaswegian had somehow managed to creep in and when I noticed him at the side of the stage he was waving at me, and giving me the thumbs up with a huge grin on his face, and I could do nothing!

Oh yes, there were all kinds of un-PC behaviour back in the day, but at least everyone on a Benny Hill show or a
Confessions
film didn’t pretend it was anything but what it was, whereas in the theatre it was quite a different kettle of
poissons
! They try to pass all sorts off as ‘art’. I remember doing a play at the Oxford Playhouse called
Diet for Women
which was loosely based (very loosely!) on Aristophanes’ play
Lysistrata
. It was a great cast of women, including Lynda La Plante – then known as the actress Lynda Marchal – Lesley Joseph and Jenny Logan. We all had to wear huge rubber breasts painted blue to emphasise our femininity. The director was Greek, and very flamboyant, if you take my meaning, and kept coming at us with cans of blue paint. He then decided we also needed rubber bums so we had these enormous rubber globes tied to our backsides. It was awful and you have never seen a stronger group of women reduced to tears!

I also had the pleasure of appearing in a musical in the West End about the life and loves of Toulouse-Lautrec. Very artistic, I thought. Again it was a cast made up mainly of women with Toulouse-Lautrec at the centre of the action, played by Henry Wolfe, who did look extraordinarily like him.

We all played lots of different parts and one of my roles was as his mistress, Suzanne Valadon, who liked to embarrass Toulouse-Lautrec in front of his mother. So there was to be this scene where his mother came for tea, and while they were sitting at the table Suzanne would enter, completely naked, and start looking for something on the table, leaning across the mother in a very obvious way, as you can imagine. When Toulouse-Lautrec demands to know what she is playing at, Suzanne replies innocently, ‘I am so sorry to disturb you, my darling, but I am looking for some fig leaves I made earlier, which I am wearing tonight at the fancy dress party you are giving, and if you remember correctly, we were going as Adam and Eve. Ah here they are, you have been using them as table mats.’ And with that I sashay offstage with the fig leaves.

It was a funny scene and very unexpected, but oh dear, the thought of complete nakedness was daunting, and apparently had never been seen on the Queen’s Theatre stage in Shaftesbury Avenue. The owners and producers were very nervous about the whole thing and wanted to see a taster of the scene before they committed to it being allowed at all. So I had to do the scene cold in the old Brixton Astoria, which was where we were rehearsing, just before lunch on a Friday. I have never been so scared. I went to the pub and had three large brandies and then went back and did the scene with aplomb! Of course everyone loved it so I was stuck with it. It never occurred to me to ring my agent and protest because I knew they would just find someone else.