SHERRIE HEWSON

Sherrie

Behind the Laughter

Dedication

To Mum, Keeley, Ollie and Molly

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Photographic Insert 1

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Photographic Insert 2

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Acknowledgements

Picture Credits

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Introduction

Nothing is ever straightforward in my life, and writing this book was no exception. In fact, at one point I truly believed there was a force out there similar to Darth Vader that really had it in for me. Each time I opened my laptop, his big glowing tube (OK, light sabre) would gather momentum and strike, causing disasters to happen – I was beginning to think it had all been sent to give me a reason not to do the book.

When you speak to real writers they find every excuse in the world not to write, from mundane tasks such as plants that need watering to ‘I have to watch This Morning – they’re doing a bikini wax on men’ or ‘I must clean my drains’ and even, ‘There’s a wild Alaskan bear in the garden!’ Yet once you’ve had a wee, brushed your teeth, found something nice to put on (and maybe a bit of mascara just in case), made a cup of tea, found your glasses, tied your legs to the table and started work, it’s so satisfying and therapeutic, if humbling and harrowing at times.

When what you’re writing happens to be your own story, the whole memory thing can be a bit of a worry. Sometimes you find yourself doubting you were in certain places at certain times and you do have to keep on confirming everything and consulting the reference library – in this case, my lovely mum. The mind is a trickster: it can play games with you. So, did I see The Beatles live in the Gaumont Cinema, Nottingham, in 1962 or was I backstage sitting on Paul McCartney’s knee? Did Julie Andrews inspire me to become an actress when I saw her in The Sound of Music at the ABC in Derby or was I actually in the film itself? In both cases, I’m sure you can guess the truth. So, you do have to be vigilant and honest, even if the real story isn’t quite as exciting as you would have wished.

The only thing is, when you’ve sat for a long time writing, your bum goes numb, you have to get up and the whole excuse thing starts all over again. I did have a genuine reason not to work on Christmas Eve: I’d had a very bad fall and cracked my ribs and injured my back in the process on a great big lump of ice. Naturally, sitting was extremely painful yet I gave myself every reason to work through the pain. How contrary is that?

It was a good job it happened at Christmas, too, because just before that, five of us – Zoe, Carol, Denise, Andrea and I – were thrilled to be asked to take part in the BBC’s Children in Need. I think we have Zoe to blame for the next bit: we were told they would like us to be Girls Aloud and sing ‘The Promise’ … wait for it, LIVE! Zoe is the only singer, Carol and I scatter cats for miles, Denise is passable and Andrea is, well, very tall.

We rehearsed with the Children in Need team and you could see it on their faces: the look of pain and knowing it was too late to turn back. Meanwhile, we started to love the song and the idea of being pop stars, but the more we got carried away the worse we became. Poor Zoe knew she couldn’t do any more with us! Later, we were fitted for our gold sparkly dresses (which were incredible) and then came the night itself. We were in a dressing room next to Take That, no less. In 2009 Robbie Williams had been a guest on Loose Women and we all fell in love with him. Carol and I went out with his lovely wife Ayda and his mum Jan, who I knew anyway, and got absolutely hammered. The next day Robbie let Carol know that he was very cross with us – he’d never seen his mum so drunk before.

While we waited to go onstage, I went out for a walk to calm myself down and Robbie passed me. ‘Hey,’ he shouted. ‘You OK?’ ‘No, Robbie – we’ve got to be Girls Aloud in a minute, we’re terrified!’ I told him. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he laughed. ‘We all think of you as Nanas Aloud, we love you all!’

I told the other girls this and it did calm us down – we didn’t have to be the proper Girls Aloud, just us. Of course, Take That went on and stormed the place and we were next up. There we were, the five of us, lined up in our full-length glittering gold dresses, big hair and sexy make-up, microphones at the ready … and knees knocking together in terror. At that moment all we could think was, ‘Why on earth did we agree to this?’

We were about to perform before an audience of 12 million people and it was one of the scariest things we’d ever done. As we walked on to a roar from the crowd, the music started up and the atmosphere was amazing. Every time one of us sang solo, the audience went mad – which was just as well because, hopefully, they couldn’t hear us then. It was electrifying and for those few short moments we really did feel like Girls Aloud (or as Robbie affectionately calls us, ‘Nanas Aloud’). Maybe we could start our own band for Nanas everywhere.

That was one of my highlights for Loose Women in 2010 and we know 2011 will bring us many more. The team backstage is wonderful – they work so hard and have to put up with us, too, but whenever we have our end-of-term parties or ‘after school’ drinks we are very close, a proper team. I’d like to say thank you to them all.

I have written a book before, a short novel called The Tannery. It was an extremely dark tale, very disturbing but fictional. This is so much harder because it’s the truth: you don’t want to come over as all sad or bitter, even pathetic, so you must guard against that. Luckily, seeing things in black and white can be highly therapeutic. They say there’s a book in all of us and I truly believe that. You know when your mum or granny says, ‘I could write a book’? Well, I honestly believe they can and should – my mum certainly could.

As you will see, I write as I act: from the heart. I don’t have any special technique … and I can hear you all agreeing with this. With me, what you see is what you get and I hope it gives you an understanding of who I am, my wacky behaviour, all the hurts and the triumphs along the way. You may recognise some of the things I’ve been through as being part of your own world because at the end of the day we’re all the same – just wrapped up differently. That’s why Loose Women is such a great show because there’s always someone you can relate to.

So, thank you for opening my book. You may well be shocked at some of the things that have happened in my life, but I hope you will laugh reading it just as much as I did writing it.

Chapter One

I was the spitting image of Winston Churchill when I was born; all I needed was a cigar and the appropriate ‘V’ sign. So pretty, I was probably not. I also had webbed feet à la Donald Duck. I’m not painting an attractive picture here, am I? In fact, I was the chubbiest, grumpiest baby in the world.

My birth, in what was perhaps a sign of things to come, was far from straightforward. Within hours I had to have a complete blood transfusion: the doctors feared I might be afflicted with the same condition which my brother Brett had suffered from when he popped out, 18 months earlier. He’d caused havoc by nearly dying: Mum lacked vitamin K, meaning Brett’s blood wouldn’t clot and instead poured out of every orifice in his tiny body. She was also desperately ill and too weak to choose a name for my brother – who, the doctors agreed, wouldn’t make it through the night. Remarkably, both survived; maybe that’s what made them into the strong, resilient people they are today.

I arrived in 1950, five years after the war had ended, but I never felt a thing. Indeed, my life was cushioned from day one. Shortly after I was born, the family moved from my grandparents’ house in the village of Beeston in Nottinghamshire to their very first home – a semi-detached down the road. It had a lovely garden and my mother would place Brett and me in our prams there to get some fresh air. Brett was good as gold, but I wriggled, squirmed and tried to escape until I ended up on at least one occasion hanging out of the pram by my neck.

My mother, Joy, was an extraordinary woman. Her own mother, like most women at that time, had been a housewife and had never gone out to work, but Mum had other ideas. Beautiful, determined and clever, she had energy and vision. And she knew what she wanted: to own a lovely home, send her children to private school and watch us make our mark in the world.

My parents met immediately after the war when Mum was a young woman and Dad was ten years older. Her day job was working for a friend in the clothing industry, but her real passion was ballroom dancing and modelling. She worked for various fashion labels, including Slix swimsuits and Chanel, and she won all kinds of prizes, both locally and nationally, for her dancing. My mother was, and still is, ultra-glamorous, stylish and elegant. Her wardrobe was bursting with beautiful dresses and the most glorious ballroom gowns. She seemed so magical, I used to love to dress up and try my hardest to look like her.

My father, Ron Hutchinson, was born near Sunderland in the North East. His mother died just after his birth and his father skedaddled from the family home, leaving Dad to be brought up by his aunties and uncles. I never knew much about his life up in the North, although I do remember visiting a terraced house where the door led straight into the kitchen and there was a rather large, jolly lady, who cuddled me all the time. It makes sense that she would be related to Dad as he was the most tactile man you could ever wish to meet.

I remember as you looked out of the back-room window of the house there was a large field and a pit, and so I always thought Dad’s family must be miners. They were Macams, which means ‘Sunderland-born’, never to be confused with Geordies from Newcastle. They did, however, have one thing in common: at New Year they had what was called the ‘First Footing’. It was one of my most joyous memories: I would sit on Dad’s knee and wait as midnight neared. Everything would go deadly quiet and as the clock struck twelve, in came a tall, dark and handsome man – probably a family friend, but to me a glamorous stranger – holding a piece of coal, a coin, salt, bread and whisky. Everyone would cheer and the party would begin. It may have been a superstition, but to me this was truly exciting; to Dad and his family it meant health, happiness and prosperity for the coming year.

Although he was happy at home and loved his family, Dad left at a very early age to discover the world. He had a natural wanderlust and curiosity about life till the day he died. At the age of 15 he joined the Army; that was before the war, which he managed to survive, unscathed. He led a charmed life: he attracted people, especially women, and a certain general’s wife took a fancy to him and insisted he become their personal chauffeur. As a result, the closest Dad came to battle was when the General and his wife had a row.

After the war, Dad drove for a General Palmer and had access to all the Army and Air Force bases, including the ones where the Americans were stationed, which meant he could get his hands on the so-called ‘black market’ goodies. He would turn up at my grandma’s house when Mum was at work with nylon stockings, chocolate, bananas and all manner of treats. Dad was so charming and handsome, he looked just like the heart-throb Errol Flynn and no one could resist him.

My mother would come home to find him having tea with my grandmother. Mum wasn’t short of suitors and was in no rush to settle down, but Dad was determined to win her over. He even took up ballroom dancing to impress her and became extremely accomplished. Later, he taught me the chacha, which we danced together on many an occasion. Eventually, his persuasive charm won Mum’s heart and the two of them married and set up home together.

Dad left the Army and began work for a company called Constance Murray, which made very upmarket men’s and women’s clothing. As the saying goes, he could sell snow to the Eskimos and so he was in his element in the retail trade. But it was when he sang that he came into his own: he was a Bing Crosby-style crooner and performed with all the big bands across the country.

I adored my dad. He was a warm and loving man and his love for me was unconditional. If I’d murdered ten people that morning he’d have said, ‘Never mind, darling – eat your breakfast and we’ll find a way.’ But he was also a restless dreamer, more often away than he was home, who never really allowed himself to be tied down to family life. We all used to joke that he should never have married and had children. It was only years later when I had my daughter Keeley and he came to live with us that he truly became part of family life and to every-one’s surprise proved to be a dab hand at childcare, cooking and housework.

In those early days it was Mum who organised everything and everyone, made the decisions and ran the show. She was the kind of woman who could do six things at once, and frequently did. Although she adored Brett and me, she wasn’t a stay-at-home mum but a force of nature, always full of ideas, plans and boundless energy.

I only remember one time when she was ill. She’d been up a ladder – she was always wallpapering or decorating – when she fell off. Her womb collapsed, so she had to have an emergency hysterectomy and then, as was the custom in those days, she stayed in a convalescent home for several weeks. I was still only three and not allowed inside, so my grandparents would take me there and I’d stand in the grounds waving up at Mum as she stood at the window.

My brother Brett was a lovely-looking child, blond and blue-eyed and angelic, while I was chubby and, as I have said, a potential body-double for Winston Churchill. As I grew older I became aware of how Brett’s good looks got him attention, or so it seemed to me, and maybe that explains why I became a potential serial killer. At two and a half years old, for some extraordinary reason I climbed out of my cot one night, negotiated the mountainous staircase, navigated my way around the house and picked up a knitting needle from my mother’s chair. At that point I discovered Brett sitting on the floor, watching the telly, and proceeded to shove the needle down his throat.

Of course it may have been that I was just plain curious as to how far I could submerge it: who knows what went on in my infant mind? Strangely, Brett – who was a strapping lad of four and much bigger than me – opened his mouth and allowed me to shove the needle in, at which point he started to choke.

The noise brought my mother running from the kitchen. She extracted said needle from my brother’s mouth while no doubt checking for puncture wounds and I was taken back to bed with a sore bottom. Peace reigned over the household once more, but not for long: minutes later I was off again and got down the staircase for a second time, found another knitting needle and tried the whole thing all over again. It beggars belief why my brother let this happen twice. This time I was well and truly punished, but I must have got the message because I never tried it again. After that the needles disappeared, although you might say I had my own Weapons of Mass Destruction long before the phrase was coined.

Around the same time, my mother enrolled me in a French nursery school. In those days it was unusual for a child to attend any kind of pre-school or nursery, let alone a French one, but Mum loved the idea of me learning French and so off I went in the nursery uniform of a little white dress with matching socks and sandals.

The nursery was in a big house and we spent the day in a room filled with little wooden chairs. It had elegant French windows and a large stove, where we warmed ourselves while drinking our milk. During our break we played on the lawn outside and at lunchtime we sat at a long table covered in white linen and used proper knives and forks. The staff were strict but kind and insisted on good manners. I remember on at least one occasion being removed from the room after banging my spoon on the table and having to wait for lunch until all the others had eaten.

I soon learned to sing nursery rhymes and recite my times tables in French. We danced and sang a lot, which I loved, and I think of the two and a half years spent at the nursery as a wonderful time. I felt secure and happy there. Perhaps that’s why to my mind, ever since then that little white dress, socks and shoes have symbolised all things good, safe and comforting.

At the age of five I had to leave the nursery and move on to a beautiful private school, the Dorothy Grants, which meant swapping my white dress for an extremely smart navy-blue skirt, white shirt and tie, a navy blazer and a posh blue overcoat with silver buttons, topped with a Panama hat. My uniform was very much of that period and I thought it was fabulous. The school was in an elegant old house, the teachers were kind and I was extremely happy in this environment, where I shone and loved every minute of it. On summer days we would take our chairs outside and have classes under the trees in the garden, which was so much nicer than being indoors.

Sadly, though, I was taught a harsh lesson while at this school. One day I waited at the gates for my mother to collect me, not knowing she had sent a message to say she was going to be late. After a bit I decided to walk home. Even in those days this was a daft thing to do, but I was only six years old and I was sure I could find my way. As I walked through the unfamiliar streets, however, I started to panic: all the roads looked the same. I kept on walking and suddenly I became aware of five kids behind me. They began to shout things and made fun of my posh uniform.

Within minutes I was surrounded: three girls and two boys were shoving and pushing me. They pulled at my hair and grabbed my satchel, I lost my hat and then one of them tripped me up and I fell onto the pavement. I knew my hands were scraped and bleeding, but I didn’t cry. Instead I jumped up and started to run as fast as my little legs could carry me. The boys kept up with me, still hitting and calling me names, but I just ran and ran. As I turned a corner there was a main road in front and a bus stop with a large red double-decker standing with the door open. I made for that but the driver had already sussed out the situation and shot round to help me, clouting one of the lads as he ran by. At this, I clung to the driver and cried. He was so kind and cleaned my bruises, then asked me where I lived. I told him the address and he sat me down in his bus, closed the doors and drove me right to my house. My mother was frantic but so grateful to the bus driver, who accepted a cup of tea and left after giving me a big hug.

While I loved school I enjoyed my dance and drama classes even more. As soon as I could walk, Mum enrolled me in the local dance school, which was run by a lovely lady called Mavis Levy. By the time I was three I regularly appeared in all the school’s productions, singing, dancing and acting. I wasn’t shy and I loved it all, especially as it so often involved dressing up in pretty outfits. In fact, such was my passion for the costumes that on one occasion I was willing to turn to crime to get my hands on a particular favourite.

I was standing backstage behind another four-year-old wannabe, who was about to go on for a ballet number. She was wearing the most beautiful pink sequinned tutu, which I had been coveting. In a moment of jealous fury when no one was looking, I gave her a shove. Unfortunately she tumbled down the two stone steps leading to the dressing rooms and sprained her ankle. Her shrieks of pain brought the adults running, and my wish was granted: I was given the tutu and sent onstage to do the dance in her place. I was thrilled, but my triumph was short-lived because as soon as I came offstage I was very aware of fingers pointing from those in the know. My dastardly deed having been discovered, I was immediately suspended from the show for several nights.

Through this experience I learned yet another invaluable lesson in life: envy is bad, get there by your own efforts and not through someone else’s misfortune. And so I did: soon afterwards I was doing a regular star turn, wearing a long Victorian dress and a huge hat as ‘Little Miss Lady Make-Believe’, singing ‘You’ve Gotta Have Heart’. I was very proud of this achievement because I wanted to be a singer like Dad, but sadly, as far as singing was concerned, this turned out to be my finest hour and since then I’ve never quite matched it. Despite my best efforts, and to my great disappointment, I don’t have an amazing singing voice (in fact, people have been known to stuff fingers in their ears when I launch into song) and once I’d outgrown the cuteness factor that was that.

Although singing wasn’t my foremost talent, I loved it, and especially when I got to sing with my dad. He was still crooning à la Bing Crosby and sometimes he would take me along to gigs and we’d duet together: our favourite was ‘Something Stupid’, the song made famous by father-and-daughter duo Frank and Nancy Sinatra. Dad had a wonderful singing voice and so, despite my less-than-perfect pitch, together we were a good act.

I was a good dancer, though, and I loved dancing just as much as singing, if not more. My mother would make me sweet little outfits and I would tap or pirouette my way across the stage in show after show. Mum would drive me to wherever we were performing, my costumes piled in the back of the car. She was very proud and encouraged me to perform not only by making my costumes and ferrying me about but clapping enthusiastically in the audience, too.

My talent for comedy also emerged early, completely by accident. Aged four and a half, I was due to open a show with a tap routine in my little white skirt, red blazer and tap shoes. Unfortunately I was desperate for a wee but there wasn’t time for me to go before I had to be on stage. Unable to hold it in, I did a big wee in front of everybody. The audience fell about, but I was in no mood to enjoy it: I fled in tears, my big moment ruined.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned to love making people laugh and made my mark as a comic actress. Perhaps this was prophetic because despite my best intentions I was always getting involved in things that went wrong.

When I was six I had a couple more brushes with crime, this time trying my hand at embezzlement. I decided to start a tea club for my friends and managed to persuade five little girls to go home and extract half a crown each (a considerable sum of money in those days) from their mothers. In return for handing the cash over to me, I told them that they would each get a badge made from cardboard, a sugar sandwich and a drink of pop. Delighted with my haul, I stashed the half crowns in my dolls’ pram, dipping into the money every now and again to buy one of my favourite sherbet dips – you know the kind, with a liquorice straw – from the corner shop.

I might have got away with this little piece of fraud had it not been for another scheme of mine a few weeks later. One afternoon I informed my friends that we would put on a bring-and-buy sale for Oxfam, which meant they had to extract more money from their mothers. When I told my mother the same thing, she said, ‘That’s a good idea – I’ll help you put up some trestle tables and we’ll sort out lots of clothes and bric-à-brac,’ and she went on to invite the whole village.

I can’t remember now actually how much profit we made on the day but it would have been a considerable sum and everyone believed they were doing their bit for charity. I, on the other hand, had only sherbet dips on the brain and went on to stash the proceeds in my dolls’ pram together with the remains of the previous haul. Ten sherbet dips, boxes of sweet cigarettes and many packets of wagon wheels later, I was one very happy little girl.

A couple of weeks on, a friend’s mother asked Mum how much money we’d raised. Being so busy, my mother assumed that Dad had taken care of the funds. As they say, the truth will out, and so it did, big time. Everything came to light: my tea-club member scam and of course the great Oxfam scandal. Now in my eyes I wasn’t stealing: this was enterprise. With the tea club the girls got treats, and the bring-and-buy would have been potentially worthy had I remembered to send the profit to wherever it was supposed to go. In fact, I had only borrowed a bit for the sweets, which I thought was fair enough given the hard work I’d put in, but that wasn’t quite the way my mother saw it. All was paid back, my tea club closed down forever and I was never made an Ambassador for Oxfam – another lesson for this wayward child to learn.

I never was very good at practical matters, perhaps because like Dad I was a bit of a dreamer. From the earliest age I lived much of my life in a fantasy world surrounded by imaginary friends. This wasn’t because I was a lonely child or didn’t have any other children to play with; it was simply a world of my own that I loved to be in. I used to carry on conversations with people who lived under the floorboards, or in the walls or underneath my bed – I would feel them tugging at my hand or leg, or hear them knocking on the floor. I’d talk to them for hours: there would be tears and laughter and arguments. It sounds strange but it was only the same as the little plays I would write and perform in my grandma’s house. I’d be every character, changing hats and voices as I swapped sides in a conversation.

I don’t think the adults around me were aware of this private world. While many children have highly creative imaginations, sadly as we reach adulthood we leave that innocence behind. And so I kept my secret friends to myself and chatted to them when no one else was around.

We were lucky to have a television at a time when many families were unable to afford one and I loved watching the children’s programmes because they fuelled me with yet more ideas, but books were my real passion: I am a bookaholic. My dream was to one day have my own library – I’m still working on that one. Back then, I would imagine the characters jumping out of the book and me being part of their world before they disappeared back into the pages. I loved all the animated shows and cartoons: I would have liked to work in the world of animation, given the chance. I adored going to the cinema and could well believe I was up there on that screen in whatever film it was: I might be Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz or Alice living in Wonder-land. At one time I even wanted to be John-Boy in The Waltons although that was more to do with the big-family thing than being a boy. Later still, in my teens, I fancied being Doris Day in all those films with Rock Hudson or Ginger Rogers with Fred Astaire, and then of course there was Audrey Hepburn with the wonderful Cary Grant.

Pretending to be someone else was as natural to me as breathing. I couldn’t imagine a place where I just had to be myself, and so for me it was a natural progression from a make-believe world into the exciting world of acting.

Chapter Two

When I was six we moved to a large and beautiful house in the pretty village of Burton Joyce, on the other side of Nottingham. My mother had worked hard doing up our last house: walls were knocked down to create larger rooms and she then decorated and improved before selling on for a healthy profit so we could move up in the world. Our new home was detached, double-fronted and gabled; it had its own grounds, outhouses and driveway as well as an impressive flight of steps leading up to the front door. Inside were six bedrooms and spacious living rooms, perfect for the lavish parties my parents loved to hold.

The house cost £8,000, which was a vast sum in the early fifties, but Mum and Dad worked hard and had also been enterprising, plus they’d had a major stroke of luck. My father bought a clothing firm that had gone into liquidation and he inherited all the stock, which filled ten enormous lorries. He saw an opportunity to make a lot of money selling the stock on. At this point my mother held a very senior position at the French cosmetics firm Orlane but she chose to sacrifice her career to help run the business. And so they rented a three-storey factory with a shop underneath, which they named Joy’s Boutique.

While Mum organised and ran the new shop, Dad (who could never have stayed in one place for a whole week) hired a team of people and set them up with vans full of stock to visit various markets in the country. On Saturdays I used to go with him. I loved standing behind the stall selling the clothes to shoppers, but we didn’t make as many sales as we might have because we would stop for a long breakfast on the way. Mum used to tell me, ‘Make sure your dad gets to the stall by seven – you must get there early.’ We’d both promise to do so and then Dad would drive us to his favourite transport café, where he would enjoy a full English while I had tea and baked beans. We’d tuck in and Dad would say, ‘Don’t tell your Mum.’ Afterwards he’d play the one-armed bandit while I watched and we’d eventually get to the stall around midday.

Inevitably Mum found out, probably because the takings were not what they ought to have been, but in any case Dad was bored by then and so he let other people take over that side of the business. I don’t think he was a lot of help: he would go off in search of new stock or on some other escapade, leaving Mum to do most of the work. She must have felt impatient with him because so much of the responsibility for our lives, our home and our income fell on her shoulders. They did have rows and on one occasion I remember her throwing a boiled egg at him, but it missed and hit a very hot radiator. Fortunately it was painted yellow, as the runny egg stuck like glue and stayed there for a long time.

My parents didn’t actually spend a lot of time together – at home they were often at opposite ends of the house and during the day Dad would disappear on some mission while Mum would be left running the shop. She made it into a really successful business and now not only did we live in a beautiful house with a swimming pool, stables and a mini golf course but we had a gorgeous pink and white Cresta with wings on the back, a Mercedes coupé, a violet MGB (custom-built for my mother) and a Jaguar. Little wonder I had a passion for cars when I grew older.

Mum’s determination was awesome. We always had a house full of dogs, and one day she decided to breed them. We mainly had poodles so she bred a miniature version, which turned out to be another success. I adored the poodles, especially the puppies, which I would tuck into my dolls’ pram and then pet and fuss over for hours. I’m not sure if they enjoyed this quite so much because I was fairly strict and would insist they stayed put, shoving them back into the pram whenever they dared to try and escape.

Dad was a bit of a soft touch around the poodles. When one little white puppy was born with deformed legs, the vet told us that it ought to be put down, but Dad insisted on keeping her as a family pet. We called her Dinkum and although she had to walk on her elbows she managed just fine and lived to the ripe old age of 20.

At the tender age of seven Brett was packed off to a boarding school called The Rodney, a few miles away in a village called Kirklington. I was six when he left home, and after that I only saw him when he came back for the holidays and so for much of the time I felt as if I was an only child. I missed my brother very much when he went away despite the fact that he and his friends often teased and tormented me. They were rough-and-tumble little boys and, although a bit of tomboy myself, I was an easy target. And, to compound the problem, Mum often told Brett to keep an eye on me so I had to tag along with him and his friends. Unfortunately, the ‘games’ they thought hilarious frequently left me petrified.

One day they took me to the local recreation ground, where some distance from the swings and roundabouts was a large tree covered in gruesome-looking fungus. I had been extremely wary of this tree ever since Brett had told me that the fungus was poisonous and whoever touched it would die a horrible death. Clearly desperate to dump me so they could run off and play, the boys decided to tie me to the tree. They knotted some belts and ties together and after a brief Indian war dance with plenty of whooping, they bound me to the tree. But I wasn’t touching the fungus (they had left a small gap and this meant that if I stood up straight I could avoid it) and before they ran off and left me they warned that if I shouted or struggled I would touch the fungus and die instantly.

More scared of the fungus than anything else, I stood straining at my bonds, desperately hoping they hadn’t meant it and would come back, but too scared even to shout out. It was Dad who eventually found me, what seemed like hours later. By that time my knees were sagging and I was in serious danger of collapsing against the fungus so I burst into floods of hysterical tears.

Brett couldn’t sit down for a week after that incident but it didn’t stop him from planning more assault-course tortures whenever he wanted to get rid of me. He used to climb up trees, haul me up after him and then clamber down and leave me sitting on a branch, too high up to get down on my own. Sometimes he remembered and came back for me (once after a game of football, I remember), but on other occasions he forgot all about me and it was some astonished adults passing by underneath who spotted me clinging on for dear life and helped me get down.

And it was another kind adult who came to my rescue on the day when Brett couldn’t resist pushing me, fully clothed, into the swimming pool. Mum loved to swim, and long before we moved and had a pool of our own installed she sometimes took us with her to the local pool. On this occasion, aged four, I was standing beside the pool and wearing a pretty cotton dress when Brett gave me a shove and I hit the deep end. I remember the water closing over my head as my skirt floated up around me: I sank down and down until, thankfully, strong arms grabbed me and I was hauled out, choking and spluttering.

The incident so terrified me that I could never bear having water over my head and I refused to take a shower until I was 15, prefering baths. I did eventually learn to swim but despite my best efforts, the phobia has remained with me and even now I won’t go in the sea, if I go to the beach.

Of course Brett, who was only six himself at the time, had no idea how much this would affect me. He probably didn’t even stop to wonder whether I could swim: he himself was a good swimmer and he and his friends would push one another into the pool without a second thought, to emerge laughing and splashing. I’m sure he expected me to do the same. When my father built our swimming pool in the back garden (which was in itself hilarious as he and a gang of my boyfriends dug the foundations), it was all done to the right specifications but Dad didn’t bother to seal it and although it was quite a large pool we would often come down in the morning to find half the water had disappeared. We’d fill it up again and again, but half the water would be gone by the next day – no one ever worked out where it was going. Despite this, the pool gave us a lot of joy and we had many noisy parties.

Funnily enough, my father hated water and never went swimming, so perhaps my fear was genetic and being pushed in simply made it worse. He built the pool for Mum – it was she who loved swimming – and she was an excellent swimmer and even took part in synchronised displays. You know, the kind where you put a peg on your nose and perform a graceful underwater routine in perfect synch with others.

After the swimming-pool débâcle, Brett turned his attention to acrobatics and insisted I join in as his assistant. He liked to make me stand on his shoulders or balance on his knees as he floated on his back and he would also spin me round, faster and faster, by my wrists or ankles. I was always wary of this but he was my brother and so I had no choice. Usually, I would become terrified halfway through the trick, at which point he would insist I carry on.

Things came to a head, literally, one day as I attempted to balance with one foot on his knee. I wobbled about, lost my balance and came crashing down, hitting my head against the sharp corner of a wall. My forehead was sliced open and blood gushed everywhere, but even as I sat howling with pain, I knew Brett was for it and I would get all the sympathy. Most probably terrified, he tried to mop up the blood on my face with the sleeve of his jumper. Mum came running in from the kitchen to witness this gory scene while I of course lapped up every minute of it.

She rushed me off to our local doctor, whose name happened to be Hutchinson (the same as ours). In those days you had the same doctor for most of your life and all the family went to him. As Brett cowered in the corner, the doctor cleaned me up and decided my injury looked far worse than it was. I had to have stitches, though, and I still have the scar. The doctor made sure Brett was well and truly sorry while I revelled in the drama of it all.

Although I liked our doctor (who was stern but friendly), the dentist was altogether another matter. The first time my mother took me to see him I was placed in an huge black leather chair and there were shiny instruments everywhere. A man in a white coat opened my mouth – which I closed again very sharply, catching his finger. He shouted something at me and then the next thing I knew there was a hissing sound and an enormous black mask loomed in front of me. I tried to get out of the chair but an ugly fat woman, sweating profusely, held me down and the mask was put over my face. Then came the smell of the gas – a metallic stench that made me feel quite sick.

The next thing I knew I was waking up with the fat woman poking at my shoulders. As the dentist bent down and peered at me with his foul breath and strangely bad teeth, he said, ‘Come on, girl – open your mouth,’ and tried to prise my lips apart. The projectile vomit hit first him and then the wall in front of me with such velocity that it must have been the equivalent of a turbo-charged paint stripper. Disgusted, they threw me out and told my mother not to bring her ungrateful little brat back. The whole episode was truly a Little Britain nugget.

As for Brett, he could be my tormentor but he was also the big brother who looked out for me. So when he went away looking so small in his smart red and grey uniform, with a big trunk stashed in the back of the car, I felt very sad. Without him there to thump up the stairs or shout down from the landing, the house fell silent and still. More than ever, I began to rely on my imaginary world, having endless conversations with make-believe friends.

I could have asked friends over, and sometimes I did, but mostly I played on my own. And there were always adults around: my grandparents came over a lot and often looked after me when Mum and Dad were out, but they tended to leave me to get on with my own games.

I adored my grandparents. My maternal Grandma Nancy (whom I called ‘Nanna’) was always very elegant and dressed beautifully. I remember her in a blue dress with a little collar and cuffs, pearls around her neck, her pure-white hair neatly permed. Her skin was baby-soft and remarkably unlined, probably due to the healthy additive-free food they ate plus the fact that she didn’t smoke, drink or sunbathe. She was kind and loving and adored dancing, while Granddad was tall, creative and very emotional.

When I stayed with them for dinner Nanna always gave Granddad his meal first. Like the three bears, he would have the biggest dinner, then Nanna and then me. If it happened to be something I really liked, such as mashed potato, I would look longingly over at Granddad’s huge portion until Nanna went out to the kitchen, whereupon he would quickly spoon some of his mash onto my plate and wink at me as she came back in. I loved their bed: it was a proper sprung one and when you were in it you rolled into the middle. And I also adored their open coal fire – I have lovely memories of nestling in Granddad’s lap in my woolly dressing gown on a winter’s night and listening to the sounds of Nanna knitting, the fire crackling and cheeky schoolboy Jimmy Clitheroe on the radio.

Mum was always close to her parents so they came to us almost every weekend and often I would go to their house in the school holidays when she had to work. Nanna and Granddad also came with us to our caravan, which was on a permanent site on the East Coast, between Skegness and Mablethorpe. I absolutely loved that caravan: to me, it seemed the perfect home with everything we needed packed neatly into tiny spaces and seats that turned into beds at night. For me, it was heaven – a proper grown-up dolls’ house.

Later, we started to go abroad for holidays and Mum once drove the pink-and-white Cresta all the way to Spain – which took a few days and was quite something then. We used to go and stay in Tossa de Mar, north of Barcelona. At that time it was just a small village with one hotel so they certainly hadn’t seen anything like this enormous flashy car with wings on the back driving into the little sandy bay. I think they believed we were aliens because the villagers would simply stand and stare. Our hotel was a gorgeous 1920s building, very glamorous, which was used as a location in an Ava Gardner film. I’m glad I got to see Spain when it was so unspoilt.

When we moved to our house in Burton Joyce, I had to leave Dorothy Grants (which was some distance away) and instead was enrolled in the little village primary school, where I stayed until I was 11. Though saddened to leave the school where I’d been so happy, one consolation was the fact that we now had stables at our house and I soon developed a life-long passion for horses. Indeed, I was crazy about them and lucky enough to have a horse of my own. My first horse was a sturdy mountain pony called Tinto, a bay with a black stripe down his back, and I loved him dearly. Patient and friendly, I felt he was my best friend and, yes, I would talk to him for hours. On very hot days he would sometimes lie down in the paddock behind the house and I would go and lie on his tummy.

I quickly learned to ride, and before I turned 7, I was a competent bareback rider, using only a rope halter and no rein. By then I thought nothing of going off alone on Tinto – in fact, I would often ride him down to the village shop, buy some sweets while he waited patiently outside and then ride back.

When I was 10 my parents took me to visit one of their clothing suppliers, a lady who lived in a village some distance away. She showed me the paddock behind her house and introduced me to her little racing pony, Whiskey. He was very young and hadn’t yet got used to a saddle but she let me ride him and we got along fine. Of course I fell in love and begged my parents to buy him for me. Generously, they agreed, and Mum said we could come back the following day with the horsebox to take him home. Typical me, I was having none of it: I didn’t want to wait, I was eager to take him home right away.

‘I’ll ride him home,’ I announced.

‘But it’s 22 miles,’ countered Mum. ‘That’s too far for you and for the pony.’

I wasn’t giving up, though, and eventually my parents agreed to let me ride him home, with them following behind in the car. We did it, but what a crazy stunt – it took so long that it grew dark. Whiskey and I plodded along in the car’s headlights. Home at last, Whiskey was bedded down in the stable, thankfully none the worse for his adventure because a ride that long might have damaged his legs. As for me, I was jubilant at having made it back with him, but completely exhausted.

The next day I set out to introduce Whiskey to Tinto (who was in the field behind the stables). As we approached, Tinto looked round at Whiskey and then at me. Nostrils flared and eyes blazing, he began galloping towards us. I backed out of the field fast! Tinto was jealous and most definitely not coming over to make friends with Whiskey. In fact, I think he had murder on his mind.

From then on, Tinto was like a spoilt child whose nose has been put out of joint. He was so aggressive towards Whiskey that it was months before we could put them in the field together. When we eventually did so, Whiskey held his own with Tinto (who stopped trying to bully him) and the two became partners in crime. Together, they escaped from their field and destroyed the graveyard next door, something that got them – and us – into all sorts of trouble.

One evening, a couple of years after I got Whiskey, I was mucking out in the stable when I heard a loud thud, followed by a deep shudder and sigh.

‘What was that?’ I asked the friend who was with me, too scared to look.

‘It’s Whiskey,’ she told me, after peering into his stable. ‘He’s lying on the ground and he doesn’t look right.’

I rushed in to find Whiskey lying down, which was unusual as horses seldom do this. Immediately, I convinced myself that he had a twisted gut (which can be fatal) and so I ran back to the house to phone the vet, certain my beloved pony was dying. The vet told me that he wouldn’t be able to come out for some time and so I settled down to wait beside Whiskey, gently placing an arm around him and resting my head on one side of his rib cage. He remained perfectly still, not moving a muscle, and after what seemed hours I fell asleep and was oblivious to Mum, who came in every now and then to check on us.

When the vet eventually arrived, early the next morning, I got up to tell him what had happened, and to my amazement Whiskey suddenly stirred, blew through his nose and got up.

After looking him over, the vet said: ‘There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this horse.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘He was so ill and he didn’t move a muscle all night.’

‘How could he?’ he laughed. ‘You were lying on top of him and he was clearly too much of a gentleman to disturb you.’

I was so happy to learn that Whiskey was fine that I didn’t even mind feeling a complete idiot for calling out the vet to a horse who was apparently just taking a nap.

Not only was Whiskey totally fine, he continued to be in the best of health for the next few years. I rode both him and Tinto almost daily, rushing in after school to see them and take them treats. And I was a totally fearless rider: I loved jumping and would career around the paddock, going over our homemade jumps or take off for long rides in the local lanes.

Sadly, my riding career came to an abrupt end when I was 16 years old and had an accident on Tinto. He had a bad habit of stopping every now and then, lowering his head so that I slid off down his neck. He’d done this a few times, but never when he was moving fast, and so I’d simply scold him and climb back on. This time, though, we were riding by the river when something spooked him. From a gentle trot, he launched into a madcap gallop but suddenly stopped and lowered his head so that I shot straight off him and hit the ground hard. I might have got away with a few nasty bruises, had my foot not been caught up in the stirrup. Meanwhile, Tinto took off again, dragging me along the ground with him. No doubt realising something was wrong, he didn’t go far, and once he’d stopped I was able to disentangle myself.

I was hurting all over but somehow I managed to get hold of the reins. Limping and in pain, I very slowly and carefully led him home. Once he was safely in his stable, I told Mum what had happened and she took me to the doctor. Luckily, no bones were broken: I was just grazed, battered and bruised. Unfortunately the accident made me fearful in a way I’d never been before, and although I did ride again I was never able to recapture the same fearless joy. Now I was cautious and the horses could smell my fear and subsequently played up.

Despite the accident, I never stopped loving horses. I haven’t lost that addiction to the sniff of a saddle, as I call it – horsey readers out there will know exactly what I mean. Horses are still very special to me and I have a close connection with a horse sanctuary in Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire: Only Foals and Horses. For many of the horses and ponies there, the sanctuary is the only safe place they have ever known. Many have suffered fear, pain and mistreatment. Some, including newborn foals dumped when their mothers were sold, have been rescued from auctions, where they were being sold for meat. I do what I can to help, and when Carol McGiffin (my fellow presenter on Loose Women) and I won £75,000 on Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire? I was able to donate my half to the sanctuary.

Back in the days when I lived for my horses I couldn’t bear to be separated from them for longer than twenty-four hours and so, when my parents decided that I should join Brett at boarding school (at the age of 11), naturally I was horrified.

Boarding school? Not if I had anything to do with it.

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