Dear Fatty Read online

  When her marriage broke down, she moved in to the council flat in Rendle Street where my two great-uncles lived, her brothers, Bill and Jim. Both had been badly injured in the war serving with the Royal Devonshires. Uncle Bill was still in terrible shock from the unspeakable sights he had seen in Belsen. Uncle Jim had to have a full-body skin graft and lost several fingers, when he was the last off the roof of a bombed building in Greenland. He was the sergeant and, thus, final man to go down a precarious rope which burnt and snapped, plunging him, on fire, to the ground where his legs and ankles broke. When he was at the field hospital, they had set his legs wrong and covered his burns in sticking plaster which took months to soak off when he returned to England, where his legs had to be broken again and reset. In later life, he was the projectionist at the Plaza cinema in the Barbican while Uncle Bill built submarines in the dockyard and slowly contracted the asbestosis which eventually killed him, although no one would admit it. Neither of these lovely old guys had married and I always found it touching that they slept, Morecombe and Wise-like, in the same big bed just like they had as young lads, trusting only in their loyalty to each other. This meant, however, that there was a spare room and Lil wasted no time foisting herself upon them and somehow convincing them that they needed her to look after them. They were managing perfectly well on their own and surely they’d suffered enough? Not only did she decide they needed this service but she also demanded payment for it! An extortionate pecuniary arrangement was set up, and those poor brothers were stuck with their monstrous sister, charging them for living in their home. Another brilliant coup for Lil.

  It was during Lil’s time at this flat that another elderly relative, the previously mentioned Aunt Fan, came to live out her final days with them. She spent most of the time in bed in Lil’s room. She was a gentle, sweet lady who we all loved, and even Lil softened to care for her in those last weeks. Aunt Fan died in the room that I was later to share with Lil when I spent weekends there from boarding school because Mum and Dad lived a long way away. One weekend with Marjorie (ahh, lovely) and the next with Lil (eeeek!), on the pull-out camp bed at the bottom of the actual bed where Aunt Fan had JUST DIED! This spooked me out badly and I could never get to sleep until Lil came to bed. I gradually got used to Lil’s mysterious nighttime routine …

  11pm Curlers, hairnet, into bed. Teeth out into glass of water. Set alarm. ‘Night, maid!’ Light out. Snore.

  3am Alarm goes off. Light on. Sit up. Put teeth back in. (Why?!!) Open flask. Pour water into cup. Drink. Teeth out. Sleep. Snore.

  4-6am I am convinced I hear/see ghost of blind Aunt Fan.

  7am Up. Teeth in. Curlers out. Start day.

  It’s only now I understand that this strange behaviour was probably the curse of the truly alcoholic. The need to top up with GIN (not water) halfway through the night in order to survive without the shakes.

  Much later on, after Bill and Jim had died and there had been an alarming chip-fat fire incident in yet another flat she lived in, Mum organised for Lil to move to an amazing sheltered housing flat in Devonport where she was very happy. A warden at the end of the corridor, big buttons to press for attention (perfect for an accomplished attention-seeker), regular bingo and a view of the Hoe and the Sound beyond. It was in this flat that Lil mounted her final evil assault. She decided to spend her time making endless stuffed woollen toys for us, the next generation, to torture our children with. I have hundreds of them, all ugly and truly frightening – hobgoblins and pixies and nasty bug-eyed Santas. My daughter recoiled every year as she unwrapped yet another knitted gargoyle. Lil was famous in family circles for giving the worst ever presents. One Christmas she put all previous years in the shade by giving us each a special ornament: a plastic yule log with two robins perched on it, made from mushrooms. MUSHROOMS! Gotta hand it to you, Lil, you are the undisputed champ. No one did worse presents than you, nor ever will …

  When my career kicked off a bit in the eighties and occasionally a picture of me, or me and Fatty, turned up in a magazine, Lil would cut it out, mount it on card or frame it, and display it in a corner of her flat I liked to refer to as the ‘temple’. After I married Len, his visage occasionally turned up there too, among the reverential display. Other cousins’ graduation photos and wedding pictures and new baby photos were relegated to a tiny sideboard while more and more room was devoted to the expansion of the temple department. Once, after coming to see me perform in Plymouth, she demanded I sign a 4 x 6 publicity photo to her as follows: ‘To my darling grandma, I love you so much, thank you for everything, from your devoted granddaughter, Dawn French xx.’ This too was then placed at the temple altar. I tried several times to dismantle the temple since it caused me untold embarrassment and was beginning to send trouble ripples through the family, who were rightly furious. But she wasn’t having it, and it would be up again the next day. Woe betide any visitor who might come in and not know I was related to her.

  But y’know, even after all the weird and bad stuff she did, I was really sad when she died. I felt like a mould had been broken, probably for the best, but nevertheless we wouldn’t witness its like again. In her curious way, she loved me very much and I loved her, but it was the kind of love you only show when you’ve got your full armour on, just in case of unpredictable attack.

  At her funeral, I sat behind her offspring, my mum and my uncles all in a row. She had done much, mostly carelessly, to divide and harm them in her life but here they were, temporarily united in her death. Much as I reckon none of them had a proper parent in her, I think they all recognised that she was a true survivor and a larger-than-life ballsy dame. So, just wanted to say: ‘To my darling grandma, I love you so much, thank you for everything, from your devoted granddaughter, Dawn French xx.’ I think she’d like that.

  So, you see, these two women have had a massive influence on me. Two entirely different extremes, two entirely different legacies. And I am grateful to both because without either of these opposing powerful forces, I don’t think I would stop to balance things up as often as I do. It may frustrate me, but it’s just the way I am.

  Dear Jack,

  WHEN I WAS about six and your dad was about eight, only a couple of years younger than you are now – we went with our mum and dad to live on a hot island in the Mediterranean called Cyprus. Our dad, your grandad, who sadly you never met (you would have loved him, and boy would he have loved you), worked for the Royal Air Force and his bosses sent him to live over there for a few years. At the time we arrived, a frightening war was taking place on the island to do with the people who live there called Cypriots wanting their country to be separate from Great Britain. There was also some fighting between the two different types of people who lived there, the Turks and the Greeks, who had a long history of disliking each other, so all in all it was pretty scary.

  The first house we lived in was in a place called Nicosia, which is in the north of the island. The house was big and painted white and pink with iron railings round the balconies. There was an older house next door where a Greek family lived and we all became friends. The mother of the family was called Androniki and she was very loud and bossy but very kind to us. She never stopped kissing me and your dad – you can imagine how much he liked that! NOT! This lovely lady always used to call me Haravghi Moo instead of Dawn. She explained that the Haravghi bit is the Greek for dawn, as in the sunrise at the start of the day, and the little ‘Moo’ bit on the end of the name was in fact ‘Mou’ and is the way Greek people call you darling, or sweetheart. So, all the time I lived in Cyprus, our family called me ‘Haravghi Mou’, which slowly changed to just the plain old ‘Moo’ that you will have often heard your dad call me. At least, I hope that’s why he’s calling me that. If we find out that he’s just being rude, I will need you to kick him hard on the shins for me. I’ll show you how. I’m an expert at torturing your dad physically. Stick with me, kid, and I’ll teach you how to do it mentally one day, and then he will be overpowered and the Fren
ch kingdom will be yours, all yours, ha ha! (Do loud evil cackling here, Jack.)

  While we were living in the big white-and-pink house, quite a lot of fighting was going on nearby and we would often hear gunshots and loud bangs, which were terrifying. We had to be safely locked up in our house by a certain time in the evening, as did everybody else. This is called a curfew and it lasted for some time. Our dad was busy at work and occasionally couldn’t get home in the evenings so we were confined to our house and reliant on the radio to get instructions from the people who were in charge of the British on the island. One day, they would tell us to hang Union Jack flags on our front door to tell everyone we were British and the next day they would tell us to take them down as soon as possible. We were even told to pack up everything several times because we were being evacuated to a safer place. All of this was very confusing and frightening. Our mum, your granny, had to be very strong and she helped lots of other families in the same situation because she was what’s called a ‘senior wife’, meaning, I think, that she had more experience of being married to a serviceman than some of the other wives.

  I remember one day that was particularly alarming. Granny kept telling Gary and me not to look out of the window and down into the street. There were gunshots very close by and it was really dangerous to be near the windows. Of course, as you know, I am a champion nosy parker and was even worse when I was little, so being a Curious Caroline, I couldn’t resist a peek. I have never forgotten what I saw. A man was lying on the road right next to our house. I knew straight away he was dead. He had lots of blood on him and was lying in a strange crumpled way that would really hurt if you were alive. He was a Turk and had been shot by his enemy, a Greek. Granny was aware that gunmen, snipers, were aiming at the roof of our building and anyone who was on it. Honestly, Jack, you won’t believe what she did. She marched up to the roof (remember we were under the curfew and she wasn’t really allowed to go out), still wearing her apron, and she shouted at the gunmen to go away and leave us alone, that she had a family with young children inside to protect and that they should know better. She told them they were welcome to go and kill each other elsewhere, but not near her family and friends, thank you very much. While she was saying all this, she was taking down her washing, which was flapping in the warm breeze, and she told them off for that too, for fighting near her clean washing! These were real soldiers with real guns in the middle of a real battle, Jack! As you know, Granny can be pretty fearsome when she wants to be, so – can you believe it? – they apologised and moved elsewhere to continue their deadly fight. Wow! My mum was a superheroine.

  The body of the Turk stayed there on the road for a few days though, and I tried not to look but I kept wondering when the poor dead man would be returned to his family, who must have been feeling so sad not knowing where he was. Every time I looked, I felt sort of embarrassed. Like being dead is a very private thing and that somehow it was rude to stare, but I also felt that perhaps I was the only one caring that he had been cruelly abandoned. I felt I had to keep looking for him to matter. It was horrible. Then, one day, he was not there. He was there, then he was not there. He had been alive and then he was suddenly not alive. He was younger than my own dad, but he was dead, and that was hard to understand.

  During this difficult time, Cyprus was divided into two parts with a big border across the middle of the island from left to right, west to east. North of this line belonged to the Turks and south of this line belonged to the Greeks. We were moved to an air force base in the south, called Akrotiri near Limassol, and although the island was still at war, we were much safer and we were all together with other RAF families and life returned to relatively normal.

  Well, Jack, let me tell you what ‘normal’ was like. When you live in a country like that, people tend to get up very early and do their work in the morning before it gets too hot in the middle of the day, then people have lunch and a little sleep, called a siesta, and then people go back to work in the late afternoon when it’s cool again. So, us kids would go to school between 7am and 12 noon and then we would go to the beach all afternoon, EVERY DAY!! Fantastic! Sometimes a grown-up who wasn’t working would come with us but often we would be dropped there, a group of about a dozen RAF kids ranging in age from six to sixteen, given a picnic for lunch and then be picked up again just before dark. Those long sizzling afternoons have remained in my memory as some of the happiest times I’ve ever had. Swimming and splashing with your dad and our mates, building huts and dens and sand sculptures. Finding lizards and seeing what happens when they lose their tails. Watching chameleons strain to change colour to match their environment as camouflage, and placing them on tartan rugs to see if they could rise to the challenge! Exploring among huge ancient rocks both on land and in the sea. Hearing stories of Greek gods like Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Daring each other to dive-bomb into the sea from higher and higher rocks. Eating olives and smelling eucalyptus. Never wearing shoes other than flip-flops. Having loads of freckles and nutty-brown skin and bleached-by-the-sun blonde hair. Pretending to be mermaids and pirates. Inventing our own underwater towns and having jobs in submerged shops and factories. Befriending strange dogs on the beach and worrying about their welfare. Playing with local kids and not noticing for one second that we didn’t speak the same language. Learning from them where the best caves and treasures were. Keeping secrets for each other, cutting our fingers on purpose and fusing our blood to become a forever conjoined family. Snorkelling in brightly coloured masks and darting through shards of underwater light chasing fish and octopuses. Noticing how big your skin is and how remarkable hair follicles on your hand are in the magnified world of goggles and water. Having an indented mark around your eyes where your mask had become part of your skin after you’d suckered the mask off. Having dazzling white fingernails and toenails where the sand had exfoliated them. Avoiding greasy suntan lotion and actively feeling vitamins entering you through your skin. The unsurpassable, exhilarating sense of freedom. We would often be hugged and kissed by friendly old ladies in black who smelt of coffee and smoke. They reminded me of Androniki, our friend in the north, and we were all sad to hear that she and her family had been forced to leave their house and all their possessions in the middle of the night and flee to the south. Hard to imagine, isn’t it? Leaving behind everything you have worked for for years, knowing that another family is going to move in the next day among all your stuff and live the life you have been forced to leave. This made our constant moving seem insignificant.

  Most of the time we lived on the RAF base, your dad seemed to be dressed as a Roman centurion, wielding a huge toy sword, and roaring. Does this sound a bit like you, I wonder? Gary was very close to a little dog who lived with us called Whiskey, who I think we inherited from another family that were leaving. This was common practice among forces families. Pets were constantly passed around since they couldn’t be shipped home. He was a great dog, springy and keen, and could see no other purpose in life other than to play. He often came in quite handy as a centurion’s mascot or a hunting dog in Gary’s games. He was also an accomplished lilo surfer.

  Away from the beach, my playtime was taken up with four main activities. 1. Roller skating. Up and down the road for hours on end. Not the sleek in-line Rollerblades like you have. No, these had four wheels, one in each corner on a metal frame which you strapped to your shoes. They were ugly to look at and ungainly on my feet and made a huge rumbling noise on the pavement, but as far as I was concerned, I was a swan, gliding up and down the road in all my elegant splendour. I was sort of addicted to roller skating and would occasionally do it well after bedtime and on into the night, I loved it so much. I didn’t really learn any nifty tricks or turns, I just loved the rhythmic swaying and feeling of speed. 2. Horse riding. Not a real one, you understand, no – a horse’s face painted on the end of our fence with strings attached for reins which I sat on and jiggled about on for hours (!) pretending to be in endless imaginary gymkhanas and
western movies. Oh, the joy. 3. Hairdos. Your granny had a friend who was training to be a hairdresser and she needed hair models so Granny volunteered me. This lady was mainly perfecting the art of bridal hairstyling, so twice a week, I would be the proud owner of an elaborate ‘do’ – usually ‘up’, and festooned with masses of curls and plastic daisies – that’s what we liked in the sixties. Often the do would include ornate hairpieces which would be deftly pinned in to look like I had an enormous amount of piled-up hair. Sometimes the hairdo would be so fancy and flamboyant and flowery that my neck could not support it and I would simply fall over. Not good for roller skating. 4. Ballet. I was a divine dancer, so light, so graceful and renowned the world over as a champion junior prima ballerina who could leap higher than anyone else in the land. The trouble was, all of this was only true IN MY HEAD! I loved my ballet classes but was very quickly brought down to earth when your dad spied on one of my classes and said we looked and sounded like a herd of hippos. I couldn’t cope with the disappointment of the reality after that, and soon gave up ballet for good. I blame him for my lack of success in that area. I’m pretty sure I could have been internationally acclaimed.

  I do remember some sad times in Akrotiri, when Granny found out her dad had died and she cried for hours in front of a blow heater we had which glowed red. I remember her red face and her shiny hot red eyes and not really knowing how to make it all right for her. I also remember two other lots of crying. Everyone seemed to burst into tears when we heard of the death of someone called JFK in 1963. This person – who? – with no name, just initials, was important in America and he had been shot when he was visiting someone. That’s all I knew, but a lot of crying happened, so I decided to join in because it seemed quite fascinatingly dramatic and tragic. However, I didn’t stop skating. Roller skating and sobbing. Simultaneously. Quite a skill.