by Sue Johnston
Chapter Twelve
IT DIDN’T TAKE long before people got wind that ‘Sheila Grant’ lived in my house. Strangers would come and sit on the wall and stare through the windows, so we’d spend most weekends with the curtains drawn. I took to not answering the door when there was a knock. One weekend, however, I was waiting for a friend, so when a knock came at the door I answered it.
‘Sheila Grant?’ the woman asked, standing there in all her finery.
‘Er, yes…’ I stammered.
She turned to her friend and shouted down the path, ‘It is her. Told you. Come and have a look.’
Then she turned back to me and said matter-of-factly, ‘We just came to have a look at you.’
They both continued to stand, staring at me. I’m not sure what they expected me to do – invite them in and make them tea and talk about our Damon and Barry, perhaps? After what felt like an eternity of me staring at them and them staring at me, my friend rounded the corner.
Seeing these two women hovering in front of the door, who I obviously wasn’t inviting into my home, she ushered me inside and said curtly to the women, ‘She’s very busy at the moment.’
And the two women looked very disappointed to have to cut their day out short.
A couple of weeks later there was a man in my garden late at night staring up at my bedroom window. This might not have had any conncection to Sheila Grant, he could have been more interested in my video recorder. I threw the window open. ‘What the bloody hell do you want?’ He looked startled and then asked, thinking on his feet, ‘Do you know what time it is?’ Like I was the speaking clock. I called my neighbours who rang the police.
After this I began to feel quite vulnerable in the house. I think the straw that broke the camel’s back was when I threw a party where a lot of the cast and crew from Brookside came along. Word soon got out around the area and kids arrived from miles around. Pretty soon the whole thing descended into bedlam. After that I decided that I really needed to move to somewhere where Joel didn’t have to put up with all these intrusions. He was five or six at the time and I didn’t want his life adversely affected just because his mum was on the telly.
Frank was a close family friend who had bought a property at auction that he was doing up for himself and his family to live in. It was in the middle of an estate and surrounded by trees. Years ago there had been a stately home there called Enfield Hall, with a villa, cottages and stables attached. The hall had since burned down, but Frank had bought what remained, which had all gone to rack and ruin. He set about refurbishing the houses and mentioned that he would sell one to me if I was interested. The house he was talking about was in such disrepair at the time that I couldn’t secure a mortgage on it so I tried to put the idea of living there out of my mind.
Months later, Frank told my parents that the house was nearly finished and asked if I’d like to go and take a look. It was perfect. The little area that he’d bought was an oasis from the more modern houses nearby. It had a footpath that led straight through the trees to a brook. It felt calm and peaceful and somewhere Joel and I would be happy to live.
So I bought the house from Frank and went back to my parents’ dining room while the building work was completed. This time we had a new dog in tow. Woodbine was still with us but now we also had Ben, a big golden retriever who I’d bought on Joel’s sixth birthday.
Shortly before, Joel had been sitting on his bed and I sat next to him and said, ‘Do you know what you’d like for your birthday?’
Joel looked at me and with earnestness that only a child can muster said, ‘A brother, a sister or a dog.’
I nodded as if I was carefully weighing all three options up, ‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do.’ As a single mother with two days to go till his birthday, his chances of getting one of the first two of his requests were slim to none, but I was happy to go with the third. So Ben arrived in our lives.
We had had Ben for a few days when Joel came to me one day to say that he couldn’t find his socks. I put this down to him not being bothered to look. But then when I went to find a pair in their usual place, they’d gone too. Later, when I took Ben out for a walk, he grunted and strained until he finally passed what on closer inspection turned out to be a knitted poo. He was a sock eater. Paul Usher once looked after him while a friend of his was staying over. His mate had a pair of brand-new Adidas socks that were all the go and quite expensive. Of course, Ben took a fancy to them and by the time the Adidas socks worked their way through Ben’s system, his friend wasn’t so keen on his new socks any more. He was lucky, Ben was also known to demolish a pair of my knickers from time to time.
Anyway, we moved into the new house in Cinnamon Brow on 23 December 1986. We hadn’t unpacked, we put some blinds up and a Christmas tree, made sure the table was in the family kitchen and we were ready to have Christmas there. Poor Joel was devastated to leave the old house and his friends from the street behind. When children love somewhere it’s hard for them to imagine that anywhere better will come along. But he soon settled in and quickly grew to love our new home. And because it was quite secluded I didn’t find myself with visitors sitting on the wall having a gawp every weekend.
*
My mother hated me being recognised, it fell into the category of Drawing Attention to Myself, something that was on her list of social no-nos. The fact that she deemed my entire career to be Drawing Attention to Myself didn’t help either. My aunties, on the other hand, loved it when people stopped to chat with us. We were in Blackpool one day having a pub lunch when a few people spotted me and came over to talk.
‘Hello,’ said Aunty Jean brightly. ‘Are you here on holiday or just for the day?’
My mother was giving Jean an evil glare, which Jean duly ignored.
The ladies informed her that they were there for the weekend and asked us about our trip. Jean was more than happy to tell them about what a lovely day she was having as my mother silently seethed across the table. Eventually, this all became too much for Mum to put up with and she leaned across the table and hissed, ‘Stop encouraging them, Jean!’
‘Why are you embarrassed?’ Jean asked with a dismissive wave. But my mother couldn’t answer and instead pursed her lips, as she often did when stuck for something to say.
People would often say to my mother during these type of encounters, ‘I bet you’re proud of her, aren’t you?’ She would smile tightly but she would never answer. I think she just wished that I’d get off the telly, stop Drawing Attention to Myself – and by proxy her – and let her get on with her life!
Being on Brookside meant that I was given the opportunity to go to events like award ceremonies, and I liked to try and include my mother. But she would often clam up, and seem to not be enjoying herself. The days would sometimes end with her not speaking to me and I’d feel that I’d failed her somehow. I used to get very upset about these occasions; I suppose I was just trying to encourage my mum to enjoy herself and to take advantage of the things that now came our way. But looking back my mother was happiest and most at ease when in the company of her family. Taking her to these dos placed her entirely out of her comfort zone and I can understand now why she wanted to simply go home and have a cup of tea.
That said, she did love it when we were out and my friends made a fuss of her. I took her to York Races and she really was Queen Bee for the day. She was delighted when I asked her for tips, as, along with her brothers and sisters, she was a keen gambler (although they’d say, ‘We only play for pennies!’) We had a wonderful meal and Mum really enjoyed the day and the attention that she received. She also loved seeing Dean Sullivan who played Jimmy Corkhill in Brookside. He is a great friend of mine and would always make a big fuss of my mother.
He would say to her, ‘Look at you, Margaret, eh? Looking as gorgeous as ever.’ Mum would always have a twinkle in her eye when Dean was around and I really felt that I could relax when he was there as Mum thought so much of him.
*
It was around this time that my eating demon reared its ugly head again. I had begun a relationship with a lovely man but he was very keen on taking the next step and settling down and having children together. I really liked him but I didn’t want this. I wasn’t sure I needed a husband with all that that entailed. I was happy with my life with Joel. I found the situation very stressful and it is at times of stress that I now know I begin to overor under-eat.
There were other things in my life at the time that contributed to me turning my attentions to the rigid control of food. I have never liked seeing myself on-screen and only ever watch myself as a technical exercise to see how I can improve things. But I was on TV all the time now and I became acutely aware of my appearance. Having spent years of chasing my ideal weight – although I honestly don’t know if I even knew what that was – I hit upon an idea. I really did think that I’d somehow found the answer to my problems, rather than I was embarking on an even darker road with my relationship with food. I had some notion in my head about the fact that the Romans had vomitoriums, where they would purge themselves after gorging on food. The Romans were a civilised bunch, I reasoned, so surely they knew what they were doing. What a way to justify something, but I was clutching at straws.
So I began making myself sick. I would eat my lunch, go to the toilet, stick my fingers down my throat and throw up. I’d flush the loo and then return to whatever I had been doing, purged, as if this was part of a perfectly healthy routine.
It became something that I did after every meal. I was triumphant, feeling that I could eat what I wanted and with one simple trip to the toilet and my fingers down my throat I wouldn’t put on weight – my dieting prayers answered. I didn’t give any thought of what it was doing to my stomach, my gums and my teeth, which began to decay from all of the stomach acid eroding them as it made its way into the toilet bowl. And that’s not to mention what it was doing to my mind. I was constantly obsessed with food to the exclusion of everything else, and this went hand in hand with an intense self-loathing.
Looking back at pictures from that time, I look awful. I started to feel exceptionally low, but I never thought about going to the doctor about it. It wasn’t something I considered a problem at first, it was just a means to an end. I was getting desperate and knew that I needed help because I simply couldn’t stop on my own. I began to eat any old rubbish, shoving it down my neck and then throwing it up again. I was treating myself like a dustbin. It was disgusting. A continuing cycle of gorging and purging.
Anorexia had begun to be talked about in the media at the time but bulimia wasn’t really. So I didn’t think of it as an illness, I didn’t even have a name for it; it was just what I did. It was all so tied up with emotion and the depths of my subconscious that I wasn’t sure what I was really dealing with.
After a while, though, I became convinced that it was damaging me. I was utterly horrified with what I was doing to myself but I couldn’t stop. I would look in the mirror and cry with shame. I would think to myself I’m in my early forties, not some silly teenager! It took me years to confront my fears. It was a conversation with a friend that finally made me realise that I had a problem so out of control that I needed to seek professional help. She admitted that she had been bulimic for a few years and as she spoke I just came out with it. So was I. Just saying it out loud helped me. It gave me some relief from the guilt and the shame. I finally went to the doctor and told him how I had been suffering.
The journey from bulimia back to health was a slow process. I was prescribed antidepressants again and they helped kick-start my recovery and gave me a more positive frame of mind. After that I had to be diligent and honest with myself. I had to acknowledge what triggered the feeling that led me to make myself sick. There were times when I would find myself stood over the toilet bowl and I would have to talk myself around.
When you admit to an eating disorder, it’s amazing how many people confess that they been in the same boat as you. I think many women have an unhealthy relationship with food and it’s only getting worse as girls are exposed to unrealistic body images from an increasingly early age. I always think that an eating disorder is a particularly cruel form of addiction as the person suffering from it cannot abstain as with alcohol or drugs. You still need to eat. I have had to keep on top of my relationship with food and try to eat healthily and exercise. Bulimia not only eats away at you physically but mentally too and I am glad to say I can look back on it and be thankful that it is something that I don’t suffer from now, although I will always be mindful of how and what I eat.
Chapter Thirteen
WHEN I WAS younger my dad used to take me to both football and rugby and on occasion Mum would join us to watch the rugby. St Helens was Dad’s rugby team and Warrington was my mother’s so there was a good-natured rivalry between them. When I got older I used to also go to watch St Helens with my friend Marj and as a youngster I probably went to more rugby matches than football, but as I got older that was all to change. My dad’s football team was Liverpool and football was a huge part of my father’s life. I’m very pleased to say that because of his influence it is a huge part of mine.
If my dad was listening to the match indoors, he would perch on the edge of the chair in the sitting room, one ear to the radio. But more often than not I would wander outside to the shed to find him crouched over his radio listening to the football. I would always keep up with Liverpool and where they were in the league but it wasn’t until I moved to London in my twenties that I became an avid football fan. Rugby league wasn’t something that had travelled as far as London in those days, and there was no local team that might give cause for St Helens to visit, so, needing my sporting fix, I turned to football and Liverpool. Whenever they came down south to play one of the London teams I would go to support them. It was great to have that connection, not only to home but also to my dad.
Although I tried to get to the game as often as I could, being down south meant that more often than not I would only see away games. When I went back to work in the north, and more specifically when I started work on Brookside, I began going to see Liverpool religiously.
For me, being a Liverpool fan is as much about the camaraderie and spirit of the club and its supporters as it is about following the team. I love being immersed in the banter that goes on at the match. I think that a lot of this comes from working somewhere that has two teams in one place. When I had worked in the tax office in Liverpool in my teens I had enjoyed the slanging matches that used to go on between the Liverpool and Everton fans. Football is so integral to the city and is woven into the psyche of the people.
Joel was eight when I first took him to Anfield Road. We played Coventry City and lost. He was so disappointed afterwards that I was sure he wouldn’t ever want to go again. At Joel’s school everyone was into rugby as Warrington is a big rugby league town so, like me, Joel was more enamoured with rugby than football when he was younger. But as he got older he became more and more interested in football and today he is Liverpool’s biggest fan.
There were a couple of incidents when Joel was young that made him want to stop going to the away games altogether. One time we played Manchester City at their then ground, Maine Road. We were sitting among the City fans and they began chanting obscenities at me, the stewards had to take us out and put us behind the dugout. Then another time we went to a Manchester United game and I was called a ‘Scouse Bitch’ by a United fan.
When things like that happen I have always felt that the Liverpool fans protected me, that when we were in the middle of the Kop everything was safe. When I was asked to draw a raffle at Middlesbrough one year there was a resounding ‘You Scouse Bastard’ being chanted by the home crowd. I thought it was quite amusing if I’m honest, but I was delighted to hear the Liverpool fans who had travelled to the game chanting back, ‘There’s only one Sue Johnston!’
On the set of Brookside there was great banter between the supporters of both sides. Simon
O’Brien, who played Damon, came in for particular stick. His character supported Liverpool, but Simon was a life-long Everton fan. So any time he had a line praising Liverpool we’d make him repeat it and get the director to pretend he needed a retake. The poor lad was driven crackers by this constant ribbing of his precious Everton.
In April 1989 I was working on a book and I was very behind deadline. I had been at the Grand National the previous week and had met with a few of the Liverpool players and their wives. I was invited to the upcoming away game; Liverpool were to play Sheffield Wednesday at their home ground Hillsborough. I readily accepted the offer only to be told by the editor of the book that she was getting on a train and coming to see me in order to get me to submit the manuscript in a timely fashion. I had to relinquish my tickets for the game.
It was 15 April, and a beautiful spring day. I’d left the TV on in the house as we worked outside. As the game began I popped my head in to see if there had been an early score. I looked at the TV but couldn’t work out what was going on. At the time huge fences had been erected at a number of football grounds and the plan was for them to be installed at all football grounds to prevent pitch invasions. People were scaling the fences and spilling onto the pitch.
Bruce Grobbelaar was waving his arms trying to stop the match. I stood with my hand over my mouth. Had some sort of riot gone on, I wondered. The Heysel disaster, where Liverpool fans had rioted with Juventus supporters resulting in thirty-nine deaths of the Italian side’s fans, was only four years before. Now this was happening in front of my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. People were penned in behind the fences, desperate to get out to avoid being crushed. Those who could, climbed up the stand and were reaching to the upper stand for help.