It says a lot for my early acting ability, I like to think, that I got away with my tall tales. But I should have been quite good at it by then considering I’d been training for a dozen or so years.
When I was four my mother enrolled me in a local dancing school. Dancing had always given her such pleasure and she thought it would be a nice thing for me to do with my little friends. Nobody at that time saw it as the first step towards a career in performing.
When Mum picked me up after my first class I was gushing.
‘I love it, Mum. I want to go every day!’
‘We’ll see about that. For now let’s start with Saturdays, shall we?’
After that I couldn’t wait for weekends to come around so I could run along Bold Street, where Shelagh Elliott- Clarke ran her dance school.
‘SEC’, as we called her, had been in Liverpool all her life, acting and dancing. She lived in one of the grand old houses on Rodney Street, which also doubled as the venue for her drama classes. A big, round lady with Beaujoi, a yappy little dog always at her heels, she was in her fifties when I met her. For such a large woman, to this day I have never seen anyone dance so lightly on their feet. She was such an inspiration. I owe her a great deal although she scared the hell out of me, she really did. I think she terrified everyone. One glance from her and you’d be quivering like jelly for the rest of the day. Woe betide anyone summoned to her office for misbehaving or, even worse, not trying hard enough in a class. You’d stand there, white with fear, while she let you have both barrels, her ever-present cigarette waving theatrically around. Somehow, however long the ash extended, it never seemed to fall off.
It was the tradition in those days to enter competitions at local festivals where you would recite or perform a little piece and judges would hand out marks. I can still remember my first performance at one of these, as Gretel, at five years old. For this I wore a blue skirt with white spots on and a velvet jacket. I remember going up to the little girl playing my brother and saying, in my loudest voice, ‘Wake up, Hansel, wake up. The little dickie birds are coming!’ I can’t even recall scripts from this year so I’m amazed I can still dredge that one up!
Just thinking about that show gives me tingles because I can still recall the exact feeling of ‘This is magic.’ I was only five years old but I knew at that moment that performing was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Soon afterwards I began attending Friday acting classes after school as well. SEC’s school had a really strong reputation in those days. She wasn’t interested in producing dozens of identikit performers, one after another, like other drama schools tend to do. She used to encourage you to be yourself, which I think is actually quite rare.
I tended to focus most of my acting on whatever performances SEC was putting on and didn’t even bother auditioning for school productions, but in my last year at Mosspits Lane junior school I won the part of Alice in
The headmaster at Mosspits was Mr Calman, an amazing teacher. In fact I saw him on a television programme about twenty years ago. He’d just been parachuted into one of those troubled schools to sort it out. That gives you an idea of how good he was. You didn’t mess with him, but by God he was supportive.
Mr Calman was in charge of the school production and he would rehearse us over and over until everyone knew their lines – like professionals. It paid off. We had a week of excellent shows. Finally it was Saturday night, the last performance of the year, and the end of a particularly hot day. Because of the weather I’d had more than enough ice cream. In fact, by the time the curtain went up I was not feeling in the best of health, so I told Miss Lyons, the headmistress, I couldn’t do it.
‘Of course you can, dear. Try not to think about it.’
Somehow I managed to get to the interval. Then as soon as I came offstage Miss Lyons rushed me outside for some fresh air, which I really needed. But then she ruined it by pulling out a hanky soaked in lavender scent.
‘This will help you,’ she said.
But I knew it wouldn’t.
The second half was easier than the first and I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. We were about twenty minutes from the end and I remember a scene with the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting next to me. I don’t know how it happened, but as I turned to speak to the Red Queen I somehow got a whiff of lavender and that was it.
I threw up – all over the Red Queen.
The next thing I knew, Mr Calman was lifting me up and carrying me through the shocked choir. It was so awful, so embarrassing. Even backstage the only thing I could hear was the same whispered gasp rushing around the auditorium: ‘Elisabeth Sladen has been sick on Edwina Cohen! Elisabeth Sladen has been sick on Edwina Cohen!’
You’ll probably be more familiar with Edwina’s later married name of ‘Currie’. We’ve never spoken about the incident but perhaps that helped give her the thick skin she needed for a life in politics.
I pretty much retired from school productions after that. The attitude at my secondary school didn’t help. I’d only been at Aigburth Vale High School for Girls a few weeks when we had our first careers session. The teacher rattled off a few suitable – to her mind – job titles, then went round the class asking for our aspirations. I’m sure she thought she was being quite progressive by even encouraging us to think about a profession. When she got to me, I said, ‘I would just like to perform.’
She decided I was a lost cause there and then, shook her head and moved on to the next girl.
Once I’d made the decision to devote myself to SEC, life at Aigburth Vale – or ‘Eggy Jail’ as we called it – was never going to be fun. Even so, I think the place was too big for me. I felt lost among the hundreds of grammar school girls filling its giant corridors and large classrooms. There didn’t seem to be anyone there like Mr Calman who made you feel special, or simply not another nameless pupil, and so I kept my head down, trying my best to get through the day unnoticed. I think the cheekiest thing I ever did was join in with some of the other girls when they waved at the lads at the Tizer factory across the road.
The one teacher who did show an interest in me was our elocution mistress, although I don’t think I was as
