So here I was, a year later, recovering in my darling neighbour’s house from the shock of it all. I couldn’t wait to tell Brian when he came home. I planned a fancy meal and even lit the candles – I was going to do this properly.
Then I heard the front door open and before he’d even put his suitcase down I’d blurted it out!
Thirty-eight is pretty old to be starting a family – and it was even more unusual in the 1980s. When I went into hospital for the birth I overheard a matron say, ‘Better keep an eye on this one, put her by the door.’ Thank you so much.
I had a very healthy pregnancy, actually. So healthy that when the invite came a week later to attend a convention in Mobile, Alabama, I thought, Why not? I changed my mind when Brian announced he was too busy to come, but he persuaded me – ‘Go, you’ve got to do it, you’ll have fun!’
But I didn’t want to travel on my own so my agent’s assistant, Barbara, came along for a jolly. I warned her not to expect too much. ‘When Jon and I were on tour last year half the places didn’t even know we were coming, but we’ll have fun,’ I promised.
I have to admit, we had a terrific time. Not only did everyone in Mobile seem to know we were coming, they actually awarded me the Freedom of the City! There was a big ceremony and the Mayor of Mobile handed over a certificate.
As November drew close and the prospect of our annual trip to the Chicago convention loomed, my pregnancy seemed to kick up a gear. About ten days before we flew out, I just exploded – I simply doubled in size. Nothing would fit, so I was hurrying around for new clothes when I should have been getting ready. I remember getting in the lift at the hotel, wearing a pristine white frock, and Frazer Hines stepped in and did a double-take at my bump.
‘Christ, you look like a bloody Easter egg!’
After Mobile it was nice having Brian with me again, although when the organisers paid for his ticket I wonder if they realised his own involvement with the show. In January, viewers in the UK had seen him as Dugdale in Peter Davison’s Snakedance serial. Later, he would become the voice of the Daleks. It was nice to see him signing autographs as well.
Jon and Ingeborg were at Chicago, too. It was such a thrill to see them again and to rake over last year’s fun. I loved the way Ingeborg never took any nonsense from Jon. We were having lunch in the hotel when he said, ‘Inge, darling, do you want to come down and see me open the convention?’
She stared at him as if he was mad. ‘Jon, why would I want to see that? I see you every day!’
There was a really good spirit around the whole event. I don’t know if it was the hormones but I felt in an even sillier mood than usual, so when someone started signing fake names on the photographs, we all joined in. If you’ve got a photo of me from Chicago 1984, check the signature: it might just say ‘Mickey Mouse’!
* * *
Workwise, a BBC strike put paid to Alice’s production, but for the first time in my life I didn’t care. Time off with my bump was all I could think about. Brian, though, was working on a telly programme in the Midlands called, funnily enough, Eh, Brian! It’s a Whopper, so I was alone a lot. If I wanted to see him, it meant a train up to Birmingham.
The baby’s due date was 1 February – my birthday. I learned a lot about my headstrong daughter that month when she refused to budge until the 25th. By then I was so large I’d got stuck in the larder! Mandy from next door had to rescue me.
Dad came to visit in the last weeks and finally Brian finished in Birmingham. It was all looking good until he got a weekend job at Thames Television at the end of the month.
He’d been in a couple of hours on the Saturday when at five to midnight things started.
‘Brian,’ I said, ‘the baby’s coming.’
He leapt out of bed as if I’d put 10,000 volts through him and ran out the door. Wow, I thought, he’s practised this! Ten minutes later I was sitting dressed on the bed, packed overnight bag next to me, and I thought, Where the hell is he?
‘Brian!’
‘Yes?’ a voice came back from the bathroom.
‘What are you doing?’
He said, ‘I’m washing my hair – I’m recording tomorrow.’
The bastard!
I’m sitting there with my legs crossed and he’s primping and preening.
‘Look, I don’t know how long we’ll be there,’ he told me. ‘I might not have time to come home again.’
I was furious he was even contemplating work but that’s the actor’s lot. You’re at the whim of the industry. Let a director down and your career might never recover. Even so …
We got to hospital and things went so slowly that he was still there on the Sunday morning. Barely able to stand from exhaustion, he said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve got to go.’
I wasn’t happy but I understood.
When Brian came rushing back at eleven o’clock at night the only change was that I was now in agony. I didn’t want any painkillers but by the Monday morning they recommended an epidural. My God, the relief was instant! Then I heard a doctor say, ‘We need to monitor this because the baby’s in a bit of distress.’
Suddenly I was on full alert.
‘Hang on, distress? I don’t mind a bit of pain but we’re not risking my baby!’
After all my years on Who I should have realised you can’t tell a doctor anything.
‘We’ll leave it a couple of hours then help you push.’
‘Push?’ I said. ‘I can’t feel anything below my neck.’
Talk turned to forceps.
I said, ‘No way. The baby’s in distress, I want the baby out now!’
‘Look, if you have a caesarean, you will know about it tomorrow,’ a nurse told me.
‘If I don’t have a caesarean, you will know about it tomorrow!’ I insisted.
So about ten to three on the afternoon of 25 February 1985, Sadie Isabel Amy Miller was born. Eight pounds, but the size of a donkey, and beautiful – absolutely beautiful! I’d never been so happy in my life.
* * *
It should be obvious by now that Brian and I aren’t planners. I hadn’t planned to have a baby at thirty-nine – but then I hadn’t not planned to either. I guess we both assumed it would happen one day, although neither of us appreciated that time might have been running out. Consequently I never planned to give up work – or to not give up work. When I looked in the diary at a booking for the hit cop show at the time, Dempsey & Makepeace, it didn’t occur to me to cancel.
It was a mistake. I didn’t enjoy being away from Sadie, and trying to work while you’re still expressing milk simply doesn’t work. I nearly knocked it all on the head but then I got a call from my agent. Alice was up and running again. Every instinct told me to pass but it was Barry, bless him; I didn’t realise how worried he’d been about me either. ‘I hadn’t heard anything and she was so late arriving …’ He admitted he’d feared the worst.
It’s hard being a mother in a city with no family around to lend a hand. Mandy helped out a lot but because Brian was on Alice as well, we had to hire a nanny. She was nice but it wasn’t like leaving Sadie with family.
Still, having the nanny gave me a ridiculous amount of confidence. Before I knew it, I’d said ‘yes’ to that year’s Chicago convention on the proviso that the nanny had to come as well.
‘No problem.’
OK, I thought, Have baby, will travel.
Three days before we left, the nanny announced she was pregnant (she must have known before we’d booked the tickets). We got to Chicago and she had a lie down! Pregnancy does some strange things but I was so annoyed. At nine months Sadie was crawling all over the place. I remember getting up one morning, Brian was doing a phone interview – and our daughter was trying to chew through the cables! That’s it, I thought. No more juggling, something’s got to give.
The final straw came a few months later. Lovely Tim Stern, who’d played my husband in Robin Hood at Bristol, introduced me to his wife, Paddy. She was casting director on E
mmerdale and she said, ‘We’ve got the perfect part for you.’
At that moment I understood exactly what Oscar Wilde meant about resisting everything but temptation. The habits of twenty years as a freelance actor are hard to give up. So while every fibre in my body was screaming, No, I heard myself say, ‘Tell me more …’
I went up for a meet and greet with the producers and afterwards Paddy came over, scratching her head.
‘Lis, why did you just talk yourself out of that job?’
I thought, Yes, I did, didn’t I?
Physically I’d shown up and done what was required but subconsciously, deep inside, I really didn’t want the job – and that must have shown. I had other priorities – I was now a mother and that needed to come first. And I was so grateful for Paddy picking up on it – I needed more time with my baby before I could even think of work.
* * *
Your priorities change when you’re a parent – the world now revolves around your child. Some people find that easier to accept than others. When we sent out the invitations to Sadie’s christening, Jon and Ingeborg came top of the list. We’d had such a blast with them in the States and Brian and I now considered them both firm friends. Sadly they couldn’t come but sent a darling little dress. I took great pleasure in sending them a photo of Sadie wearing it.
Months later, when I spoke to Barry, he said, ‘You haven’t been in touch with Jon – I think he’s quite hurt.’
You know my number, Jon – pick up the damn phone! I thought.
When you’ve given birth, been ill, and you’re operating on no sleep and trying to spend some time with your daughter, the last thing on your mind is getting the house ready for a dinner party. But Jon had obviously taken offence – he always liked to be thought of as the leader of the pack – and we didn’t speak for quite a while after that. (Once again it would be Who which brought us together again.)
If Jon had been so bothered about seeing Sadie he could have popped round – like Ian Marter did. It was about eight o’clock when the bell rang one night. Sadie had just gone down, Brian was working at the Bristol Old Vic and I was shattered. Oh God, who’s that? I thought.
And it was Ian. It says a lot for how much I loved him that he didn’t get the door slammed in his face. He was as happy and bubbly as ever but he’d changed quite a bit during my pregnancy. He’d bulked up a lot at the gym, which I didn’t think was very healthy for an acute diabetic, but he wasn’t there to talk about himself – he was just desperate to get a peep at Sadie.
‘Oh, Ian, she’s just gone down!’
‘Let me pop up, Lis, I’d love to see her.’
You’ve never seen such a big man creep so silently. He was up there for quite a few minutes, just watching Sadie sleep – I loved him for that.
That was the last time Ian came to our house. In fact, I only saw him one more time. Then in 1986 I took a horrible call saying he’d died. Heart trouble. I was devastated. So was Brian – they’d been such tight friends for a while. The funeral was an incredibly sad affair but his sons were amazing, really strong for their mother. Louise Jameson leant over from the row behind me and said, ‘My God, aren’t they wonderful?’
Ian would have been so proud.
* * *
Ian’s death put a lot of things into perspective. When I ‘retired’, Barry said to me, ‘Don’t walk too far away.’ At the time I didn’t think too much about what that meant.
Until I tried to get back …
Chapter Fifteen
Count Me In
WHEN SADIE started school at four-and-a-half, I went along to work as a teacher’s helper, as you were called then. I would look after the little ones. Best of all, I got to see my daughter in the playground, on all her sports days, in all her plays. I really spent as much time as I could with her. It’s not how everyone chooses to live, of course, but it suited me.
Rarely did I think of work. My agent Todd Joseph had died shortly after Ian. Had he still been around, I think I might have felt more pressure to get back into the business. Left to my own devices, I was happy to drift along outside of it, though.
We were still part of the acting community, however, and every so often a job invite would come my way. Getting a new agent helped. The problem was, casting directors expect you to jump when they say so – they didn’t want to hear about my school work or having to pick Sadie up from here and take her there. I think I shut as many doors in my own face as my new agent, Claire, opened.
But the odd thing did work out. I got a part in The Bill – often said to be the lowest rung of any actor’s professional life. If I couldn’t get on there, I couldn’t get on anywhere! At the time, though, the main thing was that it fitted in with my domestic life. Barely a couple of days’ work in total, but at least I’d put a toe back in the water. Generally, though, I began to realise the industry can be pretty cold to women of a certain age. So, after the next door swung closed, I thought, You know what? I’m fine without it.
It’s fair to say even Sadie had more luck than me. In fact, there was a time when she was the only Miller working! We were at Claire’s agency’s Christmas party and she must have been watching Sadie because she said, ‘Have you ever thought of letting Sadie do something?’
I dismissed this with a laugh but of course Little Miss Big Ears heard. ‘What was that, Mummy? What was that? What? What?’
So I said to Claire, ‘I don’t mind anything that involves a lot of other children. Something small – I don’t want any pressure on her.’
Then Dear Mr God, It Is Anna turned up and Claire sent us along. Sadie got through the audition but then I bought the book and discovered it was about a little girl dying. That wasn’t what I had in mind for her so we pulled out. The longer I could protect my daughter from the concept of tragedy, the better. That might have been the end of a glittering career, but when the same director was casting for Royal Celebration – a television play about a party to celebrate Charles and Diana’s wedding – a few years later, he remembered Sadie. She went along and the next thing we knew she was playing Minnie Driver’s daughter alongside Peter Howarth, Leslie Phillips (who sat Sadie on his knee and told her stories about life as a child actor), Kenneth Cranham (who’d been in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with me all those years ago) and Rupert Graves. She needed a chaperone, of course, and I took her once, but mainly it was Brian. So, you see, she was the only one of us working.
The Daily Mail actually gave her the best review and soon Claire was back with another offer, this time to play Rik Mayall’s daughter in something for Granada. Sadie was desperate to do it but I looked at the hours and the travel and thought, No, education has to come first. She was furious, of course, but now she’s been to college, she has four A-levels and she’s been to university: she still has her acting career ahead of her.
* * *
While my television career appeared to have hit the buffers, my radio career was about to spring to life – and with it an old relationship.
The last I’d heard of Jon was Barry’s message that he was upset at not being invited round to dinner after Sadie was born. However, having managed to miss each other on the convention circuit for eight years, we both now agreed to take part in a Doctor Who radio serial for the BBC. I knew it was time to clear the air and was genuinely pleased to see him; I wondered if he’d forgotten. Then he said, ‘Ingeborg is very upset with you.’
I thought, Jon, don’t play that card. So I said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you know, we never got the invite to see Sadie.’
I wasn’t in the mood to pull punches.
‘Look, number one – you were invited to the christening and you couldn’t come. Number two – after that Brian was working in Bristol, I was alone and I didn’t have grandparents around to help: Brian’s mother is disabled and in Birmingham, bless her, my dad was very old. I had no one down here to say, “Have a day out, Lis.” Do you really think I had time to worry about dinner parties?’
He looked suitably sheepish at that.
‘Get Ingeborg on the phone – now.’
Ten minutes later we’d had a chat, our first in almost a decade, and it was all sorted. In fact, we were giggling about how the last time we’d met she’d been appalled by me saying I was going to give birth on a bucket – apparently gravity really helps! Everything was fine. How silly to have wasted so much negative energy over the years, though.
Of course, once the seal had been broken, Jon was like an uncle to Sadie. We started bumping into each other at conventions or parties and he was so good with her. Once we were at Manchester town hall doing an event and he said to her, ‘Come and help me with my signings’, so she sat there drawing or colouring while he scribbled his name. Some people reading this book might actually have my daughter’s first autographs! But he was such a terrible tease, too. I always think children should dress their age, not in something out of Victoria’s Secret. So she’d stand there in her frocks with her little lace-trimmed socks and Jon would turn his nose up and say, ‘Oh Sadie, your knickers are falling down.’ Bless her, she always looked!
Our radio programme was called The Paradise of Death and, I was so happy to hear, it was written by Barry Letts. His son Dominic played a few minor characters, which was nice, and Nick Courtney was onboard as well. We all had a great time. It’s such a treat to act without having to worry about hair and makeup. And there’s zero chance that anyone will say, ‘Can you bring your own clothes, Lis?’
Or so I thought.
Word came down that we were to go into the car park at Maida Vale studios in our lunch hour and have a few promotional snaps taken with the TARDIS. ‘Oh, and Lis – could you wear something colourful?’
The shoot was a disaster from start to finish. Firstly, the Brigadier’s costume sent for Nick came with the wrong belt. Nick’s a fastidious old thing and declared, ‘The Brig would not wear that and neither will I!’ So, he ended up in civvies. Jon, on the other hand, was resplendent in his original Who coat – which was odd because I could have sworn I’d seen it at auction half a dozen times. It was almost as if he’d had a whole bunch of them run up just to sell …
Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography Page 31