by Sue Johnston
My friend Susie Mathis saw how desperate we all were and invited us around for Boxing Day. That year she really made Boxing Day our Christmas. Susie is a very dear friend and has always been a brilliant character. At the time she hosted the morning breakfast show at Piccadilly radio in Manchester and was great at throwing a party – she still is. This was the first time that my mother had met Susie and Susie’s language can be a little, shall we say…colourful. Susie sat there effing and jeffing and my mum sat at the other end of the table openmouthed: I watched with a mixture of horror and enjoyment. I have always been so careful not to upset my mum by swearing or saying anything that might offend her, and to have someone who was so confident and comfortable in her use of profanity was something of a joy to behold!
The party was great and Joel got the Christmas he needed and deserved. Bryan Robson came with his wife Denise and Joel beat him at chess. Bryan approaches everything he does with the attitude that he is going to win, be that football or tiddly winks, so to be beaten by a boy at chess came as something of a shock! We of course all thought it was fabulous and cheered Joel in his victory. Steve and Jan Bruce were there and other friends of Susie’s popped in from the village. My mum didn’t really drink but Susie was topping her lemonade up with wine. We were all still very much in shock from Dad’s death but this gathering helped us come back into the world a little after the awful few weeks we’d had.
I went back to work on Medics the following week and Tom Baker said, ‘Come here, my little orphan,’ and gave me a big hug. I felt very lucky to be working on that job in Manchester. All of the cast and crew were lovely and very understanding and I was so grateful to be near to my mum.
*
I tried to get on with life, my mum needed me and Joel needed me, I didn’t feel I had time to grieve for my dad. I knew that I missed him dreadfully but I thought my role was to just get on with it, so that’s what I tried to do. I didn’t want to show anyone how upset I was, least of all myself. I was so thankful that I had had a very special relationship with my dad. I didn’t want to spoil this by being upset about it. I now know that grief will always find a way out but I am still very grateful for the time I had with such a special man.
Chapter Sixteen
FOR THE NEXT year and a half after my dad’s death I tried to get on with life as best I could. I was looking after my mother, looking after Joel, and working on Medics. I didn’t feel like I had time for myself but that was fine as I think I was aware that as soon as I stopped, the fragile edifice I had constructed around me in a bid to ignore the grief I felt at my father’s death would come crashing down around me.
It was around this time that I took a step away from the Labour Party – or perhaps it is more correct to say that the Labour Party took a step away from me! I had always been happy to go along to Labour events to speak or just show my support and as such had been approached by the group Arts for Labour, who involved people in the arts and media with the party.
After the shock death of John Smith, the party needed a new leader. Seventeen years on, it is well known that some sort of deal was struck between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown and that the job of Leader of the Opposition went to the slicker, New Labour Blair in July 1994. At the time this wasn’t common knowledge, but I did think that within the walls of the party it was an acknowledged fact.
Shortly after Blair became leader I was asked by Arts for Labour if I would go along to one of their events. My role would be to make a little speech and then invite Gordon Brown on to the stage to address the party faithful.
I arrived at the venue and it was a lovely summer’s evening. There was an air of genuine optimism in the room and I have to say I felt buoyed by it. Labour seemed to be getting itself into shape for the next general election after the severe bruising it had taken in 1992. Everyone was extremely lovely to me when I arrived, chatting away, saying how pleased they were that I could make it. I felt very much welcomed. Peter Mandelson was there, keeping a beady eye on everything, but I wasn’t introduced to him.
I went up onstage, said my little bit, and then I said, ‘I’d like to welcome Gordon Brown onto the stage and I’m sure that everyone will join with me in thanking him for stepping aside in the bid for the leadership in order to not cause a rift in the party.’
There was stunned silence in the room. I had obviously said something that no one was supposed to acknowledge. I had mentioned the war! I felt tumbleweed rolling past my feet. Gordon Brown came on the stage with a tight smile and I was ushered off. After he spoke, everyone in the room literally turned their backs on me. It was the most extraordinary thing. An aide approached me and said simply, ‘Your car is ready.’ They couldn’t have got rid of me quicker if they’d fired me out of a cannon!
The following day the woman from Arts for Labour who had asked me to go along to the event called. ‘What on earth did you say to Peter Mandelson?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t say anything,’ I assured her. ‘I didn’t even speak to him!’
‘Well, he completely lost it,’ she informed me. ‘He was shouting afterwards, “How was that allowed to happen? No one vetted her speech!”’
I was horrified. I suppose I was given a glimpse of what was to come. Up until then I had always seen the Labour Party as somewhere you were encouraged to speak freely, but this was the beginning of the era of ‘spin’. After that, I was occasionally asked to go along to Arts for Labour events but I didn’t feel that I could. The incident had soured things for me. I hadn’t meant any disrespect to Gordon Brown and have always thought that he was a lovely man; I was just stating what I saw as the truth.
Having never met Mandelson before, our paths didn’t cross again throughout Labour’s time in power. The other year, however, I was lucky enough to get tickets to the filming of Strictly Come Dancing. Who should be sitting behind me but Peter Mandelson! I’m not sure if he knew who I was but I gave him a vinegar look my mother would have been proud of. I have to say he seemed to be enjoying the dancing far more than he enjoyed my introduction to Gordon Brown!
*
At this time I was continuing to feel the loss of my father terribly but still not acknowledging it to myself. Joel was a teenager and the last thing I thought he needed was his mum falling to pieces. Also, my mother was struggling and leaning heavily on me. She missed my dad dreadfully.
My dad had always done everything for her. He did all of the jobs around the house, cleaned the car, scrubbed the floor and tended the garden. He also cooked and used to make a great Sunday roast. Dad had been in the catering corps for some of his time in the army and had learned to cook there. It might have been unusual for a man of his generation, but Dad enjoyed it and was good at it, so it was just normal in our house. After he died, my mum tried to rewrite history and claim that it was she who’d done it all.
‘He never cleaned that car, it was always me,’ she would inform me.
And I can’t remember ever seeing my mother look for her own handbag when my dad was around. ‘Fred, where’s my handbag?’ she would demand.
Dad would go in search of it for her.
‘Here you go, Margaret,’ he would say without a note of complaint in his voice, he was so used to his role as Chief Handbag Fetcher, poor man.
There was no one in my life that I could take any of my own thoughts and feelings to about my dad so I just bottled them up. There were times when I did try to speak to my mum about it. ‘Mum…’ I’d begin tentatively. She would eye me as if to say, what’s coming here? ‘I’ve been thinking about Dad…’
Mum would immediately be up out of the chair, busying herself so that we didn’t have to have a conversation that she didn’t want.
‘Mum, are you listening?’ I would say, trying to persevere.
‘Are we having a cup of tea?’ she’d ask, making it clear that she wasn’t prepared to have a conversation about my father. I found this very sad but I knew my mother so well: she wasn’t the sort of person who was going to have a he
art to heart just because I wanted one.
I began to feel extremely low again and after eighteen months I hit a wall and slumped back into utter despondency: my depression was back. No one who was working with me at that time would have known that I was depressed as I was now adept at putting on a mask and pretending that everything was normal. My self-esteem was very low at this time and I began to feel quite worthless. I would look at people and wish that I could be as carefree as them. At the same time I would berate myself, ‘What have you got to worry about? You’ve got a good job, a good home, a lovely son. You haven’t anything to be depressed about.’ Classic depressive behaviour really, but when you’re in the thick of it it’s hard to see.
When Medics came to an end it compounded these feelings of worthlessness. Someone else was in control of my life, not me. I didn’t feel I had the power to affect my destiny as an actress; I was always at the mercy of the people who made the decisions. I was again waiting at home to see if anyone would call to give me a role. I had moved into a different age group, as far as parts were concerned. I was in my early fifties and I do think that at this age a lot of women disappear. We have seen it recently with the case of BBC presenters being supplanted by younger models. As an actress I was very aware of this. I went to look at small flats near Joel’s school, sure that I wouldn’t be able to continue to pay the mortgage on my house.
Mum had begun to bounce back at about the same time that my dad’s death was finally hitting me. She was getting out more with her brothers and sisters, and their bond, which had always been tight, became stronger. They would go on days out together and fill their time well with activities.
I had begun to avoid calls and to stay in bed when Joel was at school. I didn’t feel like I wanted to be part of the world and eventually I had to admit I needed help. I hauled myself out of the house and went to the doctor’s and told him of the bleak time I was having and I was put on antidepressants again. I just wanted it all to go away but I knew that when I felt like this I had to face it head on. I finally came out of the blackness and felt a little more like myself again but of course something was missing and that something was my dad.
I needed something to take me out of myself and by serendipity I was asked by Comic Relief to go to South Africa to film and see first-hand some of the work they were doing there. From its inception in 1989 I had witnessed the great work that Comic Relief was doing. I think there is a common misconception that Comic Relief’s work is solely focused on Africa, but in fact much of the money supports charities in the UK, and I had visited refuges in the UK where women who suffered from domestic violence were given a safe place to stay, counselling and support. On this occasion, though, I would be seeing how the money was spent in Africa.
Joel was sixteen so I took him with me. For both of us it was to be the most amazing, eye-opening trip.
*
We were taken to the constitutional courts in Johannesburg where we met Albie Sachs. Before the abolition of apartheid I had been horrified by what was happening in South Africa. Albie Sachs was a prominent freedom fighter during the era of apartheid. He had been imprisoned alongside Nelson Mandela on Robben Island. To meet this man meant a great deal to me, he had been through so much – losing an arm and the sight in one eye after a bomb that had been left in his car by government security agents exploded. He was now a judge and was overseeing the new courts and the reinstatement of land to people who had been dispossessed.
He was only meant to be with us for half an hour but I think he realised how interested and passionate we were about what he was doing that he stayed with us all morning. I tried to impress upon Joel what an honour this was, and who this man was. In the eighties I had been a member of the ANC, but I had always felt slightly ineffectual. I wasn’t really sure what me trying to stop people from buying grapefruit really achieved, but we just wanted to bring awareness to the cause. As far as I was concerned, our government turned a blind eye to apartheid for many years. Now I could see that even if all we did was raise awareness then it helped in a small way to throw light on what had been happening in this country.
After this we were taken to the townships and saw first-hand the poverty in which these people were living. After the abolition of apartheid large towns had been built to house black communities but they were so far out of the city that they were effectively another form of segregation. Soon people began to move back nearer the city and the townships expanded again.
We went to an old concrete factory that was now being used as accommodation. As we climbed out of the car a group of locals were there to greet us, singing a beautiful, harmonious a cappella song. Inside the factory were small, uninhabitable rooms with entire families living in them. The only sanitation was an open sewer that ran past the factory. The residents took us to see a toilet that had been built using Comic Relief money. We were led through into a room and shown a pristine toilet. It looked like it had never been used and polished for days.
We were stopped by some of the women as we left. One asked, ‘Please can you send more? We need help, you have seen how we are living.’
She was right and I felt terrible that I personally couldn’t do more.
She explained that the building of the toilet meant so much to them but they needed far more help than just one toilet – all we had to do was look around.
Next we went to an orphanage where the children there were orphans of parents who had contracted AIDS. The children were talking about their lives and there was an overwhelming sadness that came across. Kevin Cahill, the Comic Relief chief executive, was with us. The children had been telling their stories, there was so much grief and sadness in the room that he wanted to see if there was anything to distract them from their sorrow. He asked the children, ‘What makes you happy?’
They looked back at him blankly with these huge, sorrowful eyes. They had no answer for him. It was heartbreaking.
Steve Redgrave, the Olympic rower, was also with us. We had noticed that the children didn’t have footballs and would chase around carrier bags that had been tightly bound with twine. We had brought footballs to give out to the children on our travels and had one left. Steve went around the back of the orphanage and threw it into the field where the children were playing. There was almost a riot! These children were so pleased with such a small thing.
It really made me feel grateful for everything I had and to appreciate how lucky we are to be born in this country. After Steve gave them the gift of a ball they asked us to sing for them. Everywhere we had gone we had been greeted by beautiful harmonious song. We looked at one another, not knowing what to sing, and someone suggested ‘Away in a Manger’. So in the blistering African heat we began to sing a Christmas carol in our flat, British voices. The kids and their carers all looked at one another like they wished they hadn’t bothered asking!
Next we were taken to an AIDS clinic, which was attached to the orphanage. It had been built using Comic Relief money. I was asked to sit in with one of the nurses. It seemed to me that AIDS was the biggest problem faced by ordinary women in South Africa. There was such ignorance around the disease. People would rather believe that they had TB, as the symptoms were similar, rather than face an HIV test and live with the shame of this. Antiretroviral drugs were available but in order to be treated with them you had to be diagnosed as HIV positive. The saddest and most frustrating thing for me was that the women who had HIV had, on the whole, contracted the disease through their partner, who had concealed their infidelities from them. Culturally, the use of condoms was shunned. It was a desperate situation.
I was sitting in the room when a woman came in for the results of her blood test. She was a young mother and had one son with her, she had left her other children at home. I asked about her personal circumstances. She explained that her husband had left her and she was now bringing her children up with the help of her mother. This was a recurring tale: I met many women who had been left by their men to bring up their child
ren alone.
‘You’re HIV positive,’ the nurse said, leaning in to take the woman’s hand. She sat emotionless, staring at the wall. I felt like an unwanted presence, a shadow on the wall. I was totally uncomfortable being there as this woman received this devastating news.
‘My son?’ she asked.
The nurse looked at her compassionately before giving her the devastating news: ‘He’s positive too.’
She told the woman to go home and get her other children and bring them back for tests. I went away extremely saddened. But I was more convinced than ever that the work of Comic Relief was essential. If it could raise awareness about AIDS and prevent one other woman from going through what I had just witnessed, then its work was necessary.
One of the things that struck me most about the villages we visited was that there almost seemed to be a missing generation: grandparents were bringing up young children because their parents had died of AIDS. It was extraordinary and very sad.
Joel wasn’t the most expressive of teenagers but he was deeply touched by what he witnessed and I sensed that it was as much a privilege for him to go to South Africa as it was for me. He had taken his camera and took some amazing pictures of our travels.
*
Around this time I was approached about a role in a film about a group of miners who played in the colliery brass band as the pit is being forced into closure. After my involvement with the miners’ strike, the subject was very close to my heart. The film was Brassed Off.
Brassed Off was the first feature film I had been involved in. I went to meet the director Mark Herman and told him that I loved the script. I was offered the part later that day and I couldn’t have been happier.