Bonkers: My Life in Laughs

by Saunders, Jennifer

  There were some girls who didn’t care, and faced her wrath. In my class, it was a girl called Jana Stenhouse, whose greatest triumph was running her knickers up the flagpole at the end of term. But generally, the girls and the staff were compliant.

  On Sports Day, Miss Dines would take to the cricket pitch in full whites and a cravat (covering the goitre). We didn’t play cricket at the school, but this was the traditional opening of the day – girls against staff. Miss Dines would stride out to the crease like a pro, patting down the odd divot, checking out the fielders, planning her boundaries and asking Miss Barnes (who was the umpire) to hold her jumper. One year she was facing a second-year girl who had been roped in to bowl. The very first ball left her hand at speed, went straight to the stumps and hit them hard. Everyone froze. The crowd was silent. Miss Dines made no move to leave the pitch. Under the pressure of Miss Dines’s stare, Miss Barnes eventually piped up in a shaky voice, ‘No ball!’ and the match continued.

  Shortly after I left, Miss Dines was taken to court by a pupil. This is part of the report. What is so bizarre is what was considered to be serious misbehaviour on the part of the girl.

  Daily Mail, London, 13 November 1976

  THE CLASSROOM TERROR

  Head cleared as caned girl sobs in court

  By James Golden

  THE REIGN OF LYNNE SIMMONDS as a classroom terror ended when she was caned by the headmistress, a court heard yesterday.

  Lynne, who had a history of bad behaviour, was sent to Miss Janet Dines for eating crisps during a maths lesson.

  But the three whacks given to 14-year-old Lynne on her bottom landed Miss Dines, head of Northwich Girls’ Grammar School, Cheshire, in court.

  Lynne’s parents brought a private assault and beating charge. They claimed that Lynne was punished unreasonably.

  But after Lynne broke down weeping as she told of her classroom antics, the case was withdrawn and Northwich magistrates dismissed the charge against the middle-aged headmistress.

  Lynne, who passed her 11 plus to go to the school, admitted a catalogue of misbehaviour when cross-examined by Mr John Hoggett, counsel for Miss Dines.

  She said she told rude jokes in the scripture lessons while discussing moral and ethical questions.

  She made remarks about teachers behind their backs and blew raspberries at them.

  She told lies about having lost homework which she had not done and took a classmate’s book without permission.

  She stole a teacher’s pen off her desk and offered it to a friend for a pound, and she disrupted the class.

  Lynne was suspended for half a day by Miss Dines for the pen incident and her father gave her the strap.

  She also admitted handing in a school project done by another girl, claiming it was hers.

  But the girl – in hospital and temporarily blind – returned and Lynne was found out.

  Then she was caught eating in a lesson and was sent to Miss Dines. The headmistress entered the punishment in the official book and told her she would be writing to her parents.

  Lynne said that after the caning her bottom was sore for several weeks and she had been unable to sleep properly.

  I knew girls who were caned so hard that the cane would strike the knuckles of the hand holding up their skirt. It beggars belief that a person was allowed to do this with no other adult present.

  Dines was eventually removed from the school. My mother sent me a small article from the Northwich Guardian announcing her departure. The photograph was of three sixth-formers presenting her with her leaving present: a shotgun. How very appropriate.

  In those days you got through school without much parental involvement. There was the odd parents’ evening, but apart from that, parents were thankfully not encouraged on to the premises. That is how it should be. I wouldn’t want to go home from school and have my parents know exactly what my homework is and how I’ve been in school that day. I wouldn’t want my teachers to email my mother. I wouldn’t want the school to send notes directly to my parents. I used to read all the notes from school on the bus and decide what they should and shouldn’t see. I wouldn’t want to go home and talk about school. For me, it was bus home, into house, throw down bag, eat sliced white bread and Flora marge, drink cup of tea, feet up in front of telly, then go and feed the animals. Clear head and do homework on bus the next morning, if listening to records had taken over in the evening.

  I get the feeling nowadays that parents are expected to attend school more than the children. And why and what and where and why do some parents want to start up schools? Can you imagine if your parents started up a school? Would you – as their child – want to go to that school? No. You go to school to get away from your parents.

  I’m sure most people don’t want more choice. They just want a better school – a good school – that’s quite close to where they live, and to not be required to enter the premises every other day and bake endless fund-raising cakes. Or is that just me?

  I’m not a panicker. I think I get that from my mother. In fact, if there is a crisis, an air of calm comes over me. You may laugh, but I actually think I would be very good in a war, or if aliens landed, or in an energy crisis which forces us to be self-sufficient. I think I am quite resourceful. I made lots of successful dens as a child, am a good shot and learned early in my life that there are few things that can’t be fixed with a piece of baler twine.

  There is, of course, the possibility that I am a little bit too calm. When it comes to script deadlines and paperwork, I become rigid with the inability to tackle them. When I first met Ade, he was horrified that I would regularly put letters from the bank that had sat unopened for months straight into the bin.

  A form of paralysis comes over me and I just can’t read them. In our marriage Ade has become a martyr to the paperwork, the bills, the letters, the insurance, the credit cards, the banks, and I know I never thank him enough for it. I think if I hadn’t met Ade I would probably be in prison.

  I first got pissed off with the bank when the one I had my account with at college forced me to sell my red bike to pay off a £20 overdraft in my second year. If they’d just waited, I could have paid them! That’s because the following year I had a good weekend job at the fire station. I cooked Sunday lunch for firemen. It was a job I had inherited from my friend Gill Hudspeth, and it paid about £20 a week, which was an unheard-of wage. The downside was that you had to get there really early and cook their toastie sandwiches as they were all waking up. They slept in their clothes, so it was all a bit stinky. I used to long for there to be a fire so they would get out of the kitchen area with their fags. I was usually hung-over, so the whole thing was a challenge.

  Please let someone have a chip-pan fire so I have the place to myself.

  Please, cat, get stuck up tree, or child, get head stuck in railings.

  Each watch would buy the food for the lunch and so, until I got there, I had no idea what I would have to cook. And I didn’t really know how to cook. Most things just got put in a roasting pan until they were the right side of burnt and then served up with Bisto.

  But now, look, here we are in Maureen’s office and the contract is on the table.

  Maureen attempts bravely to hold our attention while reading out the details of the agreement, knowing full well that she is fighting a losing battle. We interrupt.

  US: Maureen, Maureen. Do we get a pass?

  MAUREEN: Can I just finish going through this and then …

  US: Yes. Yes. But, Maureen, will we get a pass?

  MAUREEN: Let me just get through this, loves.

  A few weeks earlier, we had been called into the office of Jim Moir, the then Head of Light Entertainment (later the great saviour and reinventor of Radio 2) and told that the BBC was going to take the plunge and give us a series.

  Actually, his exact words were, ‘People I trust tell me you’re funny. I’m going to take their word for it. I’m going to put my dick on the table and give you a show.�
�

  Jim ‘This is the wife, don’t laugh’ Moir was a lovely man from a different era. I don’t think he ever read a script or came to watch a recording. In those days, executives made decisions and then let the people who made the shows just get on and do it.

  The only time he ever did come down to a studio, he made a brief appearance, took me and Dawn aside and said, ‘You two are my new Two Ronnies.’

  Then left.

  As Head of Light Entertainment, Jim had the job of hosting the Light Entertainment Christmas party every year. This was always held in a conference room on the top floor of the BBC. It was an event not to be missed, especially if you were a newcomer. It was always filled with real stars: the casts of Dad’s Army, It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and Hi-de-Hi!, Russ Abbot, the Krankies, Bruce Forsyth, Cilla and, of course, the Two Ronnies themselves. Everyone drank poor wine, ate appalling food and had the greatest time.

  Light entertainment is different from comedy. Being commissioned by LE meant that there had to be a certain amount of variety, i.e. music, in the shows. So every week we would have a singer and a guest star to fulfil the remit. I think it was a good thing. The shows were essentially live performance in a studio, and having a music guest made it feel like a real show. Even The Young Ones had to have a music guest.

  MAUREEN: Have you got any questions before you sign this, loves?

  US: Will we get a BBC pass?

  MAUREEN: A pass?

  US: So that we can just walk straight into the building and not get stopped.

  MAUREEN: A pass?

  US: Yes.

  MAUREEN: Well, there’s nothing in the contract specifically about that, but I’m sure it can be organized.

  US: OK. But we will need one.

  MAUREEN: Yes, loves. Are you going to sign?

  US: Yes. But we will need one. We will need a pass.

  MAUREEN: Yes. Note made.

  We sign.

  SIX

  A couple of years later, Dawn and I are at the BBC. We have been given an office here, to write our second series.

  The first series went out on BBC2 and was met with mixed reviews, as they say. But thankfully, in those days, the powers-that-be held their nerve and gave you a second chance. We were still learning, and the chances of getting it right first time were slim. Especially if, like us, you thought you knew it all and were not going to be told.

  We had developed the French and Saunders characters, which was a plus. I was the misguided, bossy and generally cross one, and Dawn was the cheeky, subversive upstart. I was the one who thought she was a star, and Dawn was the one who managed to upstage me at every given opportunity. (Nothing has changed.)

  We had decided to base the first series in a studio, as if we were producing our own variety show. ‘Let the variety begin!’ we would say, before introducing a troupe of dancers – led by the superb comedienne Betty Marsden – who would flap their way through a clog dance to the tune of ‘Windmill in Old Amsterdam’, accompanied by our house band, Raw Sex.

  Raw Sex was Simon Brint and Rowland Rivron. They played a father and son, Ken and Duane Bishop. Ken (Simon) played the keyboards and was deaf, and Duane (Rowland) played the bongos and acted hideously drunk (often he was actually drunk). After they had been seen live, The Stage described them as ‘musicians of almost indescribable sleaziness and technical incompetence … who reduced electronics to the status of the bow and arrow’. They were perfect for our show, which, we had decided, should be us looking like we didn’t know what we were doing and producing something that didn’t look like television.

  We succeeded on both counts. It wasn’t awful, but we knew it could be a lot better. In trying to make it simple, we overcomplicated it. There were some good sketches and characters, plus we had managed to persuade Alison Moyet and Joan Armatrading to be our musical guests. But there was also way too much faffing about and way too much bad dancing.

  Still, we were learning.

  For the second series, we got Bob Spiers on board to direct. Bob really knew what he was doing. Bob was a legend at the Beeb. He had worked on everything from Are you Being Served? to Fawlty Towers. He knew the studios inside out and, on a studio record evening, could genuinely boast that if we started at 7.30 p.m. we could be in the bar two hours later. As well as French and Saunders, Bob went on to direct most of Absolutely Fabulous, and rare was the time we were not necking a bevvy by 9.30 p.m. He was fast and really clever. He never missed a shot or left a joke uncovered.

  So, we are in our little room. Our little office room. I have arrived late, which is customary. Mobile phones haven’t been invented yet, so I haven’t been able to ring in with an excuse. Even if they had just been invented, chances are that Dawn wouldn’t have one.

  It took quite a long while to persuade Dawn to the mobile and I have never been able to persuade her to the computer. She doesn’t use one. You can’t email Dawn French off the teleovision. She is untouched by Google, Facebook and Twitter. I envy her that. My computer is the friend who knows I have to work but tries to tempt me to bunk off. It’s the girl sitting next to me in class that puts her desk lid up and is trying to distract me with pictures of David Cassidy.

  Stop it, computer! I know there are funny things on YouTube with kittens, and I know you have solitaire. And sudoku. And Angry Birds. But I have work! I have to do this thing. Leave me alone, or I will be forced to go back to the typewriter. That at least cuts out the printing stage. Printers who refuse to print and won’t let you know their name. Printers who can’t come online and run out of ink, even when there is ink in them. You know there’s ink in them because you bought that ink, and it cost more than caviar. It has a cartridge of beluga fitted and it still refuses to print anything but light grey, so you end up just hitting it and hating it as it takes four sheets of paper through at a time and then gets jammed.

  Yes, I might go back to the typewriter.

  So, we are sitting trying to think up ideas.

  Every journalist asks, ‘How do you think up your ideas?’

  And the answer is … You just think them. I suppose the real answer is by talking (not writing), and largely by playing. We play until we have something that works and makes us laugh. We play. We make up characters and voices and use people we have seen and lines we have heard, and then we play them into a sketch.

  How comedy works is often misunderstood by some writers and producers. The phrase we most often hear is ‘Can you two just stop messing about and get down to some work.’

  They can’t see that we are working! You don’t just get there by working comedy out on a piece of paper and behaving yourselves. You have to take it as far as it will go, and then rein it back into something broadcastable. This is the fun of it. This is the point of it. You have to find the lines that don’t just serve a purpose in the plot and are, to all intents and purposes, a ‘joke’. You have to find the thing that really tickles.

  I think Ken Dodd’s tickling analogy – the idea that laughter tickles – is a very good one. It is that feeling that makes you laugh. The laughter is in the expectation as much as in the actual sensation. When Tommy Cooper came onstage, the expectation of the tickle was so intense that people would have to leave the room in paroxysms before he had even spoken a word.

  I’m not saying that we ever achieved such heights, but that was always our ambition.

  In our years working with various guests on French and Saunders, we soon came to realize that there are people with funny bones, those with none, and those who are simply nervous of being funny.

  The guests with funny bones would always almost certainly accept the part, which was why we had wanted them in the first place. They understood the tickle. If someone hesitated, or wanted to see a script, we would be slightly dubious. When you have so little time to produce a show, the last thing you need is high maintenance. You want someone who wants to be part of the gang. That is why we so often had repeat guests: Alison Moyet, Kirsty MacColl, Lulu, Patrick Barlow, Kathy Burke, to
name but a few. And Raw Sex, of course.

  We particularly loved Lulu (who went on to be a regular on Ab Fab as well). Lulu was an old hand at the variety show and had the right attitude. An extraordinarily great and uncomplaining attitude, for which we were particularly grateful on the day that we shot her.

  Yes, dear reader, we shot her! We shot Lulu! We did mean to shoot her, but we didn’t mean to actually shoot her.

  This is what happened. Dawn and I were in the White Room, dressed as John Travolta from Pulp Fiction. Black suits, slicked-back black hair, sideburns and machine guns.

  We had invented the White Room in the second series, as a place where French and Saunders could live. Why did we make it white? Well, dear reader, we wanted it to allow us to be anything. We also wanted my character to be so anal and uptight that she couldn’t have possessions. If I’m totally honest, we couldn’t really be bothered to think up what those possessions might be. We settled on a white sofa covered in bubble wrap and a white armchair which was high enough so that when Dawn sat in it, her feet wouldn’t touch the floor. Apart from that, there was a white-painted fireplace and a door with a letter box in it. Some of my favourite moments ever were in the White Room.

  Not the shooting-of-Lulu moment, though. That wasn’t funny at all.

  So. We were holding Lulu hostage (as per the film), but Lulu was annoying us somewhat by constantly singing the opening to her big hit, ‘Shout!’. She did it once too often, so we turned our guns on her. We blew her apart with major Tarantino-esque bloodiness.

  Of course we didn’t, silly reader! She just had twenty or more blood charges taped to her skin inside her white blouse. As we pretended to fire, they would explode. The only instruction Lulu had was not to have her arms by her side. If she did, she would stop that charge exploding, and it would then backfire into her skin.

  No problem, silly reader! All very safe, dear.

  But the truth is, you can’t practise this sort of thing. It’s a one-off. There was only one blouse, so we went for it.