Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

I got to the studio for the first time and I heard a familiar voice.

‘Hello, chuck, how are you? Are you going to join us?’

Keith Barron was already a highly respected actor at the time. For years, he’d worked solidly on serials and one-offs and also had a decent list of film credits to his name (and would pop up in Who during Peter Davison’s era, a few years later). Quite why he’d chosen to present this show was unclear – maybe his agent was even less sharp than mine! – but I was suddenly glad that he had. From his opening ‘Hello, chuck’, I felt completely at home – but I still hadn’t seen a word of script!

Somehow in two-and-a-half days we managed to film five episodes! Arrive in the morning, rehearse, record, lunch, then another rehearsal, another recording session. Bang, bang, bang! Then it was off to the bar for a drink and back to May Brown’s. I liked my routine but Frank, typically, worried about me being alone.

‘Come on, Lis,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you back in my car to meet the family. We’ll have a nice bit of Yorkshire ham.’ So I’d meet his wife and children every time I went up and then he’d drive me back to York Road. Frank was such a chatterer and bundle of energy and so thoughtful that you felt like you were out on a jolly every night.

We had very little time in the studio but Frank made that fun as well. Always talking, always on the move, up and down those gantry steps all day … You couldn’t go five minutes without him popping out to call encouragement or improvements, or just laughing. I think his energy must have been rubbed off on the First, because he had a nervous arm. You didn’t know if he was flagging a horse down or telling you to start. His arm would be going nineteen to the dozen and Keith and I would be staring at each other: ‘Was that a cue? Was that a cue?’

I had such fun working with Keith. On one of our first episodes we were kneeling down next to a table that had a toy train set on it. As the train chuffed round and round its track we had to sing: ‘Bippetyboo, bippetyboo, I’m on a train, I’m off to loo.’ Then ‘zipperty zoo, zipperty zoo’, and so on: it was simple but silly.

The First gave one of his funny cues, then I started singing, but all I heard from Keith was ‘bippety – whooooh!’ I looked round and he’d disappeared under the track!

Retakes were rare as hen’s teeth so I had to carry on – even though I could see Keith’s backside sticking out from under the table while he tried desperately to stay out of shot. I don’t know how I got through it. By the time I finished I was laughing so hard the mascara was streaming down my face. Afterwards Keith said, ‘Oh my God, Chucky, I’m so sorry – but as soon as you said “Bippetyboo” I thought, What am I doing here? I can’t do this any more!’

He left shortly after that!

We did a good deal of filming outside the studio as well – nothing that required flying, thank goodness. I remember being sent to lots of farms and very quickly realised that I do not like the smell of animals. But there I was, week after week, standing in the middle of a goat herd or pig sty, saying, ‘Look at these delightful creatures!’ Frank decided we’d have a goat in the studio one week and of course it did the usual thing of making a mess. I thought I was going to gag. It’s affected me for life. I used to take Sadie to farms when she was young and I’d have to say, ‘You run through there and I’ll meet you at the other end.’

Just like on Merry-Go-Round, there was no clothes budget so you had to wear your own things. That was OK for the first few weeks, but even when you’re just putting different tops on with your jeans, you eventually start to run out. So I went to this old folks jumble sale and bought a horrendous bed jacket, which was the most incredible sickly pale green and pink, with a pink ribbon belt. I thought, If I wear this, they’ll have to get me some clothes. So I did.

And they couldn’t have been happier!

I must have done Stepping Stones for about two-and-a-half years (although the title changed at some point to My World) and – apart from the farmyard aromas – I adored every minute of it. A couple of days’ work with delightful people every few weeks – what’s not to love?

Looking back, though, was it a mistake to stay rooted in a kids’ show for so long? Should I have been trying to do more ‘serious’ roles? After all, I’d just turned thirty – was I throwing my career away?

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If I’d been worried about being perceived as a fluffy children’s personality, two events made me grow up – fast.

The first was a happy one. Brian and I bought our first house. Strictly speaking, we bought our only house – because we’re still there today! After looking far and wide we found a place round the corner from our flat in Ealing. When we pulled up outside I said to Brian, ‘How on earth can we afford this?’ Then we went inside and found out: it needed a lot of work but we just fell in love with it. It had the high ceilings and bay windows that I adore, so we bought it. Anyone who visited over the next few months was likely to find me doing a Spider-Man impression, bent double up a ladder painting, or scrubbing the ceilings and walls. I’ve always loved physical work in acting, but when it came to decorating I felt pain in muscles I never knew I had.

There was only so much we could do ourselves. When it came to walls being knocked down and RSJs fitted, we got the experts in. It would have been hellish to try and live there during that, so John Blackmore, Tony Colegate’s assistant director at Manchester, offered us both a tour of Alan Ayckbourn’s Bedroom Farce. We snatched at it.

Well, that was a mistake! Living in digs again was just horrendous – I would have preferred to take my chances under the dustsheets at home. The venues weren’t much better. At the theatre in Middlesbrough we were told not to flush the loo backstage because it would reverberate around the auditorium. Opening night in Newcastle pretty much summed it all up. The guy playing Trevor was quite uptight, really bodily stiff, which I’d noticed when I had to swing him round in rehearsal. When we got to that part in the show, I grabbed his shoulder and heard this crack. I had dislocated his arm! He wore it in a sling for the rest of the tour. The only thing that kept us going was knowing our fees would go towards fixing up the house.

It was such a relief to finally get the place looking ship-shape but we couldn’t celebrate because there was someone who was no longer around to see it. My mum had been ill since Christmas. She had been on heart tablets since I was about twenty, so any illnesses were potentially serious. I’d been popping up to Liverpool as often as I could, in between Stepping Stones and other bits. I kept saying to her, ‘You look tired, what does your doctor say?’ But she was a strong-willed woman – she wasn’t going to slow down for anyone. She died of a heart-attack in March 1978. I was actually in Liverpool at the time but I’d gone out to visit cousins. When the call came I felt my world fall apart.

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