Dame Meera Syal: 12 Years Caring For My Parents & Surviving Divorce

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24:32Davina McCall:Sorry, I massively digressed there because I'd like to go back to your one woman play that you wrote with your lovely friend, Jackie. Yeah. Tell me. Well, it was like primal scream therapy, you know, frankly. All the stuff I was feeling about being different, about being lost, about not having role models, about where I was going to fit in, about wanting to act so desperately and knowing I would never do it. How many different parts did you play? About 15. I mean, that's the best showreel you could ever do, right? I want to act. I'm going to play 15 people. Yeah. I mean, amazing, right? What else could I do?

25:02There was no one else to act with. Yeah. I literally had to improvise with myself. It was completely mad, just kind of jumping into different characters. And I would improvise and Jackie would write it down and then shape it into a narrative. Oh, that's a good way of doing it. Yeah, it was a great way of working. And she did an amazing job. And that play's still being done in pockets. Is it? Yeah, amazingly. Isn't that amazing? It is amazing. and it started off as a little student show at Manchester in our little studio where we could do a show every month Monday night was studio night put it on there, didn't think anything of it had this amazing reaction of friends coming up going we didn't know how you felt we've known you for four years and we had no idea this is what was going on in your head and I thought that's why it's important to make stories because how do people know?

25:48They're not mind readers how do they know? Your show was so good you got invited to go to Edinburgh, right? Yes, I went to the National Student Drama Festival and got picked for Edinburgh. I mean, amazing. Won some prizes there and literally two weeks before I was due to go and take up an MA place and do, you know, go into academia. Because wait, wait, can we just blow your horn for a minute

26:11Davina McCall:and just say, what did you get in your degree? Everybody, listen to this. Listen to this. I'm proud of her. All right, you're like my mum. I got a double first. She got a double first. In English and drama. Just in English and drama. Right, right. Has anyone ever asked me that before? Well, I am so proud of you. Double first. What? I didn't go to uni. I'm like, I think you're the most amazing person ever. Well, that's probably because I should have been doing more sex and drugs and rock and roll, Davina. I did that for you. There you go. Thank you. But what I was going to say was there's something about your story.

26:47Davina McCall:I think the reason why I love it so much that you got a double first was that your parents were like go do what you want to do you don't have to become a doctor or a dentist which is what South Asian parents were wanting other children to do and you knew that and you were so grateful that they let you do what you wanted to do I wanted to be really good at it you're so right I wanted to repay that but not what you did yeah and they must have been literally beside themselves yes and relieved because in their head was like at least you've got a good degree so if the acting doesn't work out you can go and do something else and I was about to go and do something else you had two weeks right because the thing is I looked at the profession out there and I didn't see anyone like me or if I did they were in tiny little parts in sitcoms these tiny little cliched stereotype roles and I thought who am I kidding I might have done everything here at uni but this is uni, that's real life there's no one that looks like me There's no scripts that tell stories about me.

27:48Who's going to employ me? This is crazy. So I literally had my life planned for two years. At Edinburgh, this director called Carol Heyman walks into the venue, said, I've just seen your show. I'm about to do a play at the Royal Court with Joint Stock Theatre and then a nine-month tour. Would you like to be in it? And here's a job with an equity card. I know. I know. I mean, it was one of those. Higher power, like. I know. What? And it was like someone, the universe was saying, we know you how much you want this. What a shame if you don't even try. Go and try. Go and try. And it kicks me out of that sort of immigrant mindset that I had.

28:34Of course I did, which was security, safety, you know, get the job with the pension. Do that. Make your parents proud. It was like the universe was going, no, no, no, no, no. Try this first. Just try this. You know, if you get to 35 and it's still not happening, fair enough. Go and do the other thing. But don't regret it. And because I'd been surrounded, and this is why the memoir is called Vigilante, because I'd been surrounded by aunties who'd never feel their potential.

29:03Davina McCall:So this is, I mean, I probably should have done this at the beginning, if I'm honest, you know. But anyway, Mira is an artist. She's a comedian. She's a writer. She is also a novelist, but she has also just written a memoir called Vigilante. A memoir, and I like this, in it. And Vigilante, we were talking about this earlier because I was like, that is a very clever play on words. Yes. And who came up with that? My daughter Millie. Good girl, Millie. Came up with that. Well done. Genius. Because she said, Mum, that sums you up. You know, the auntie bit of you, which is wear your vest. Have you eaten?

29:41who you're going out with, and then the vigilante bit of you, which is that you bust all these things open and you're trying to, you know, be the best of the aunties and avoid the worst bits of the aunties. So I thought it was a brilliant title.

29:55Davina McCall:I mean, that is actually very clever, isn't it? It's so clever. And an auntie is kind of like a woman, and it doesn't have to be, she's not necessarily even part of the family. she could be a friend but she's a woman with experience in life who through that has a right to kind of tell you what to do if you're younger than her totally, that leaves something up carefully and you know what a lot of my friends have had them, my friends up north Welsh friends, Irish friends Greek friends, you say auntie and go yeah, African friends, it's like it's part of lots of older cultures and older communities and in my case it was my mum and dad's friends, you know, all the other Punjabis that arrived.

30:39And because, as I said before, when you don't have your real family, these friends become family. And auntie and uncle were just respectful terms that we were told to use for any elder, any man or woman, mum and dad's friends. I like it. You would never think of going, all right, Jatinda, you get a cuff around the ear. It's like, that's uncle to you. You don't call him by his name, right? So it's a type of respect, really, isn't it? Absolutely. But you're quite right because we were brought up communally. And I don't think the nuclear family works anyway. I think it's a good way to be brought up communally.

31:13Davina McCall:When you say that, is it like it takes a village, like everybody takes care of everybody? Yes. I love that. We need to do that more everywhere. Totally. Too much pressure on two parents to think, you need your mentors. So these aunties were very instrumental because they, for me, with my mum, are my examples of womanhood. How do I grow into a woman? Here you are. Here's a whole bunch of you. But the thing is, some of them are really bloody scary and repressive. Yes. And they enjoy the scary kind of hierarchy thing of it. Totally. So there were those aunties that went, you will do maths, you will marry this person.

31:53Don't sit with your legs apart. Don't laugh too loudly. You can only get fat after you're married. That's one of the titles in the book. These are the things that were said to me, all about squishing young women, squish, squish, squish. And then there were some other amazing aunties that really inspired me, but a lot of them were unfulfilled. A lot of them didn't get the chances. And it's only when I became an auntie myself that I began to realize that a lot of that fear and the controlling behavior came from their own disappointment and their own missed opportunities and their own. the fact that they didn't get to spread their wings and they were trying to protect me but also were mourning their own lost yeah opportunities there's a little bit of like

32:42Davina McCall:almost not wanting you to get what they couldn't have yes like well I didn't have it you can't have it exactly not realizing not in a mean way i i mean yeah but just or imagine if you go for it you don't get it so just don't try avoid the disappointment avoid the disappointment there's a lot of i'm not wrapped up in that a lot wrapped up and this whole thing as well like the family honor is sort of always the crown on a young girl's head it doesn't matter what the men do it's your responsibility to keep the family honor so all of that fear well it's all about patriarchy in the end. Of course it is.

33:21A lot of these rules are just to keep women in their place. And I had to really pick through all of that. That was part of becoming a vigilante, I suppose, and deciding what are the bits of these amazing women that I want to preserve and keep? Their compassion, their strength, their fearlessness, their huge shoulders of steel that hold up the whole family the language the humor the food there's so much of my culture i love love love love and want to keep the history and then picking out those bits that were like i don't think this is about culture yes uh beating your wife is not a tradition making your wife walk 10 paces behind you isn't tradition squashing your wife down when she has an opinion or wants to laugh loudly did see that a lot that's not culture sometimes not from all not at all some of my aunts would you know try that and they'd kick you kick you across the room but no there were there were and a lot of it was sold as culture and tradition and I had to suddenly take a step back and go that isn't that really isn't that's about that's about controlling women I mean I think because you're

34:34Davina McCall:famous you're like an auntie to lots of women not just of your culture I mean I think we as famous women right are aunties yes I feel like that yes two women who are going to be menopausal that's like what I've chosen yes yes yes and it's like I owe it to you yes to show you yeah that it's going to be okay that's what you're doing that's a really nice way of putting it I mean I suppose I I do worry about being held up as the representative because you're so aware, aren't you, that you can't possibly speak for everyone. And there'll be lots of people that disagree with me or what I do. You and me do something really naughty.

35:14Davina McCall:Yeah. Then all of a sudden. Yes. Everything we represent is timeless. But the problem is when you speak out or when you're the only one, you become representative whether you want to be. Of everything. Whether you want it or not. Yeah. Because there's so few of you, right? If there was a million versions of women like me, I'd just be one more. Pressure. There's a lot. Yes. So you have to curate that very, very carefully. You do, even if you don't want the responsibility, in a way you have to take it on and go, I have to be really careful about what I put out there, what I say. And always to put it under the umbrella of this is just my truth.

35:53Yes. It might not be yours. please come forward and speak yours because the point is to come forward right everyone's story

36:01Davina McCall:is valid i love what somebody said once there's three versions of the truth there's my truth your truth and the truth no right and everybody sees things in a different way so as many different voices as we can all have yes in the world expressing how they're feeling is good but i I realise that must be a great pressure for you. And I think we're talking a lot about you need more people to step forward. So when did you find the team that you went on to go and make Goodness Gracious Me with? Like, how did that happen? Oh, that happened sort of quite organically, I suppose. I'd been working on a show called The Real McCoy, which was amazing.

36:50Britain's first black sketch show. Yes, it was so good. Yeah. So I was just a guest on that and a writer. And Anil Gupta was a script editor. And of course, you know, like an auntie at a wedding, I spot the other brown person in the room and go, hello, who are you? Come talk to me. and we became friends and um and he's hugely talented still is and i said you know this show's amazing but of course what about our version don't you think there could be a world in which we could do a british asian sketch show um and he went to the bbc and they said we don't know what that is Wow Our Asians funny was the subtext And we said well We don't know But you have to realise that In the eyes of the world we weren't We were invisible at that point

37:46Davina McCall:It's mad isn't it really when you think about it What was people's impressions of us We weren't comedians, we weren't cool We weren't even that visible really on television So yeah so we were very well aware That whatever we were suggesting was completely unknown in anyone's sort of experience about, no, you guys don't do that. Do you? And we said, well, I don't know. We'll just do the stuff that makes us laugh then. No expectation, nothing. We're not going to try and fit an algorithm here. We're just going to do the stuff that we have been doing actually for a long time that nobody's noticed.

38:21We'd all been doing comedy stuff and there were, you know, South Asian comedy nights going on, but it was like a subculture. The rest of the world didn't know about it. Our community did. And so Anil gathered this team of me and Klovinda, who'd been on The Real McCoy as well, Sanjeev and Nisin Sawney, who were a duo, a comedy duo. And the night that Anil went to see them, Nina was supporting them. Oh, really? So suddenly here we go. That was the crew. And then it took a long time to get from there to our first TV pilot. We had to do a radio show first. Lots and lots and lots of hoops. proof lots of proving we are funny well we got there it will work

39:02Davina McCall:yeah and it really did work yeah it did work I mean it was mega yeah but I was it was a shock I think to everybody that it didn't go on for longer yeah was it a shock for you yes yeah we couldn't really understand it we think we did three series yeah we've actually done more specials yeah that we did series that's mad I didn't know that that's mad mad how many specials have you done then I think four oh yeah Even five. I mean, in India special as well. I mean, mad. You know what TV is like, Davina. It doesn't necessarily follow any sort of rules. Sometimes it's a change of regime. Sometimes it's a weird political decision.

39:42I mean, I don't know. I think the BBC clearly regretted it. Otherwise, it wouldn't have continually invited us back to do the specials. But I guess, you know, be grateful we did it because it changed the landscape. Maybe be grateful we went at an absolute high. I mean, you really did. We didn't stay and flog it over eight series that it just got worse and worse and worse. And people still watch it. People still quote it. It's out there on YouTube. New generations are finding it. So whatever the vagaries of that decision was, I'm really glad it happened. I'm profoundly grateful to have been part of it because it's really humbling when people come up and go, that show, and then quote it back at you.

40:24Davina McCall:It's just amazing. Isn't that great? Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was a sit up and pay attention program because it felt like so fresh and new and funny. Because we were ourselves and the authenticity of that. And that was a real lesson for everything else I chose to go on and do. It was like, remember this. Remember, even when people don't think it's the thing they want, you know in your gut that this is the thing you want to do this is your voice it's really important there is an estimated 31.1 billion sitting in lost pension pots in the uk 31.1 billion this is me when i was at mtv remember that like it was yesterday did i have a pension who was it with and you know what i couldn't tell you and i suspect i'm not the only one but the good news is Monzo, our sponsors, can help you find and combine yours In partnership with their tracing provider, Raindrop They are the only bank that offer the service for free You tell them where you worked and when And they do the searching for you It's basically a private investigator for your pension So far, more than 150 ,000 pensions worth over£900 million have been transferred into Monzo That could be you So download Monzo now and keep track of your pensions alongside the rest of your money.

41:45Davina McCall:The value of your pension could go up or down and you could get back less than you put in. You need a free Monzo current account to open a Monzo pension. 18 to 70 years old only. UK residents only. T's and C's apply. This segment was sponsored by Garnier. Oh my God! Oh, lady over there. Hi. What's your name? Shoshanna. Shoshanna. We've got a colleague at work, Emma, who wants to have her hair coloured. I'm trying to find somebody to come with me to come and colour her hair with some Garnier Nutrice at work. Yeah, why not? Would you really? Follow me, follow me. So this is the Begin Again Studio.

42:29Davina McCall:And this is Emma! Shana seemed really confident. She has coloured her friend's hair and stuff before. We've got to put this one into here and shake to activate the colour. Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

42:42Davina McCall:Already the colour's lovely. The shade that we are doing on Emma is Mocha Brown, which is my shade. Mine. I own this. I don't. There are actually 35 shades to choose from. It's got fruit oils in it. They are what nourishes it. Emma, you're very lucky. You have no grey hairs. But Garnier Nutrice, the permanent colour's got 100 % grey coverage. I can vouch for that. That is it. Oh, wow. Easier to do it yourself. Do you see what you mean? Is that easier than you thought? Very easy. Just like putting like hair oil in. Yeah. It's like so easy. Time to go. Go Emma! Oh my god! It looks great! Oh my god, I'm not being funny.

43:25Davina McCall:You've done a great job. Look at that. Can we just discuss the shine? That's amazing. Are you pleased with it? Do you like it? Love, love, love, love, love. How confident are you now out of 10? Oh, 10 out of 10. That was a lot simpler than I thought. I'm so pleased. We did a thing. Thank you. You're trusting us. Yeah, thank you. You guys have done amazing. And thank you, Garnier and you, Therese. Love you.

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44:55Davina McCall:What's been amazing is you've done every single kind of different type of acting. You've done theater, you've done TV, you've done film. Like what's your favourite, would you say? Oh, well, I'm doing a play at the moment called The Children at the Lyric Amherst, which is an amazing, amazing play, three-hander. And it's two years since I did my last play. And I mean, there is something magical about theatre. The lyrics are great. The lyrics are great. It's such an intimate, like brilliant space, isn't it? Brilliant space, amazing team, amazing roles, all three roles. It's three-hander, 90 minutes for people in the 60s.

45:37I mean, who writes plays like that, right? Proper, chunky roles. And it is that connection with the audience night after night. It's the fact that every show is different. It's the fact that it's a live connection. You can hear when they're listening. You can hear when they laugh. You can hear when they're crying. You can hear when they're with you. You can feel when they're pulling away.

45:56Davina McCall:I mean, God, how magic is that? It's so magical. and I think it's where you learn all the skills you need as an actor is actually in the theatre. It teaches you everything you need to know about listening. You must learn a lot about real life though as well, being in a theatre, right? Yes, because of the feedback and when we want to chat after. And I mean, listening actually is such a huge thing. I increasingly think that's the secret to being a good actor. You're so focused up on my performance and my lines. the acting actually comes naturally when you're listening properly and when you're aware that you're as a team telling a story together it's teamwork theatre as well it's none of this I'll come out from my trailer when I'm ready for my close-up you know bugger that it's like 7 30 you're on with everybody else get on with it you know tell the story I know you've been married twice yeah um and um I would love to talk to you a little bit about navigating that because so many of our listeners obviously I am newly married to somebody who I was just really best friends with for decades and I know that you had that experience but you also you were married before and you had a daughter Millie but what stage in your career did you meet your first husband like how what like where were you at oh my gosh was it were you very young very I was 25 right Right.

47:25So right at the beginning. I barely started. Yeah. And to be honest, because he had a proper job, just like me, I wouldn't have survived those early difficult hungry years without him and his support. So I owe him a lot, you know, and the fact that he really thought what I did was cool. I mean, I suspect I think we were way too young, both of us. And that's probably in the end why we couldn't make it work.

47:50Davina McCall:Did you meet him out of love? It wasn't an arranged marriage. No. No. No, although weirdly, I had gone along to have a sort of arranged look at someone. I was in the West End. This is so typical of my dual existence, you know. In the West End, on the stage, Monday to Saturday. Sunday, off to the Hindu temple in Peckham to meet this boy that my uncle wanted me to meet. On the tube. So bizarre. What a bizarre schizophrenic life. It's just very typical. I've always been juggling. But you know what is brilliant? Sorry, that's just came to mind. You know, that's what makes you you. these crazy things in your life like a little bit of this, a little bit of that a little bit of this you can't put you anywhere you are you uniquely because of your brilliant, unique life very true and also because I don't believe in sort of writing things of if you haven't sort of given them a chance and so I knew plenty of people who had met through family it's not really assisted marriage is what they call it now It's like blind dating.

48:55Well, yes.

48:56Davina McCall:You meet somebody, I mean, you know, it's a good way. It's what loads of communities do and still do. It's like, oh, your auntie so-and-so knows a nice boy. Go and have a coffee with him. I mean, it was like that. I mean, it might be great. Exactly, right? Who knows? And the fact that your auntie knows the family means that they're all right. We've checked them out, right? Nothing wrong with that. Better than a dating app. Better. Oh, wait. Oh, my God. It's like ordering a pizza, isn't it? Extra topping. No. No, no. I mean, terrible. Really terrible. I think people are swinging away from that, though.

49:23I think so too.

49:25Davina McCall:So what I wanted to talk to you about was how you managed to get divorced but still stay friends. Now, how did you do that? Because I think that would be very helpful for anybody watching that lots of people are going through that. It's not easy. It's a big begin again, that. It's a big begin again and it's not easy. and you have to know that in advance unless you're one of the very lucky 1%. I think whenever you've got children, it's always going to be more complicated. There's no doubt about that. But you sort of have to take a big swallow of pride. You really do. You have to stop the point scoring.

50:06You kind of have to let things go, even if they've really hurt you. By the way, I'm making a big distinction now between if you've been in a full-on abusive... Yes. very different set of rules right there are some women that just can't go near their ex for love no money right okay very very important to say that but for a majority of people when it's a sad decline i think that you've stopped with the point scoring don't slag off your partner in front of your kids whatever you think of them and just take the bigger picture which is we made this child or children they didn't ask to be born this is our responsibility it's now and we are the grown-ups and however much it hurts to be nice to the ex or their partner and for me it wasn't difficult because it was very civilized but that's what you have to keep in mind how can we make this and remember the friendship and the love we had before because that's what our child wants to see and that is in the end is what goes on to help them come through it as undamaged as possible I really want to say congratulations on doing that

51:14Davina McCall:it makes a difference it makes a huge difference and actually it's remembering that, it's remembering the friendship and what brought you together is really important and then I, you know, obviously you and Sanjeev had worked together for a long time and you had done the Kumars we were doing the Kumars so can I just quickly say something that really made me laugh I went back and looked at our episode I was in an episode with Graham Norton. Yeah, it was fantastic. So that would have been, I was pregnant with Holly, my firstborn. Right. Who is 25 next week. Oh, my God. What? What? Yeah. So firstly, what I think is interesting, you've been on television forever, you know, like since like 30 years or something.

52:08Davina McCall:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And do you look at yourself and go, I don't even recognize you like you are you. But I guess because you're acting, it's slightly different. Oh, but you act as you're confronted with your age and process. Oh, OK. All the time. Interesting. Of course you are. Because there's clips of you when you were a baby and people bring them up and you go, oh, my God. I just was like, yeah, for me, it was more a confidence thing. Yeah. Oh, I feel way more confident now. It's a different path. Like I looked at myself and I was like, oh, you're scared. You don't know how to just be. Isn't that?

52:43Davina McCall:I know. And I was like, oh, I wanted to kind of get in the telly and give myself a hug. I was like, who are you? Yeah. Do you feel like a different person? Do you? Oh, my God. Do you feel better? Oh, my God. Yeah. Like 50 onwards. It's great, right? It's bloody marvellous. It really is. People who say you get to know yourself in your 30s, no. No. Not for me. I was getting divorced at around 40 so the 40s were a time of exploration and discovery but honestly I don't think it was until I got into my late 40s, early 50s that I went, I think I'm alright I don't think I'm the piece of fucked up shit I thought I was But isn't that mad?

53:26Davina McCall:And thank God we get that moment Yes, I know And I wish it could happen earlier And I suppose that is a message you want to give to younger women and go, if only you knew what was coming. If only you could reach this degree of acceptance now. I know. But maybe it just does come with age and experience. I don't know. Maybe you can't fast track that. I feel a lot like that around being a parent. Yes, that too. I wish I could go back and do it all again now. I know. You just do it in a blind panic. Yes. You're so tired and panicking. I know. Oh, you're going to be okay. I know. You're all fine. I know.

54:05Davina McCall:Why was I worried? This is where the aunties are actually very useful. Right? Yeah. I was also interested to see that you had a son quite late. Yes. And what a gift. Yeah. That must have been. Talk me through that experience of having a child in your 40s. Yeah. It's quite a shocker. It's tiring, right? Yeah. Oh, my God. And working as much as. I really had to stop work for a couple of years. I couldn't hack it. And also my darling son decided he didn't really want to sleep. No, okay. He's one of those. Yeah. Loved him to bits, but yeah. I had a daughter that I couldn't wake up and then a son who wouldn't go to sleep.

54:46That's what just the universe does, isn't it? So yeah, I just had to step back because honestly it was a shocker to the system. And I got 12 years between my kids and I'd forgotten everything. Like even basic things like when do they eat and what? When did the teeth come out? I mean, honestly. And then, of course, random child-rearing advice changes. Oh, I mean, I can't find that. Solid at three months, solid at six months. No, no, three. No, go back to six. All of that. And that's when... That's where the anxiety comes in, I think, as a parent. Yes. And I was... I did... I made a mistake the second time.

55:22The first time round, I went on instinct. And it was a breeze, honestly, in so many ways. And auntie's a mum. so much amazing advice and you go who do you ask the child rearing expert who's never had a baby or this bunch of women that have had 28 between them i know a few things i think i might ask them um and the second time i decided to follow this you know the gene afford method oh works for some people i abandon it after about three weeks so restrictive wasn't it wasn't listen to your baby it's like your baby will listen your baby is a robot yeah i mean no i know i know it works for some people great if whatever works for you is whatever works for you it didn't work for me you do you absolutely do you the most important thing is is it aligning with your yes gut and when i went back to auntie instinct and gut it all got a lot easier but yes it's a bit of a shocker having a late baby the advantage is you're more solvent and you can pay for help which i wasn't able to do so much of my first but then I was so much younger so there are wins and loses the big one is it's a baby it's a baby I can't I really want to talk to you actually about being um a

56:38Davina McCall:well-known woman and how tricky is dating oh uh when you're when you're a well-known woman it's like who are you ever gonna like go out with because what I really know about you and Sanjeev is that he and you are each other's champions. And there's no competition or jealousy about what you do or the success that you have because you're just both equally happy for each other. Yeah, for sure. What does that feel like? I honestly think increasingly the key to all that is your friendship again because we were friends long, long, long before we ever thought about each other romantically. And in a way, that's when you really get to know someone because they haven't got their game face on.

57:28Davina McCall:Yeah, and they're not trying to impress you or anything. So you get the whole truth. You get the unfiltered... Do you still get that? Yeah. Oh, good, me too. Yeah. It's so good. And that actually is the best basis. It's so important. It's so important because you always, you know, when I was younger, I'd think, why can't I find a fella that I can relax with like I do with my girlfriends? oh no that never happens of course that doesn't happen because that's a different kind of thing it shouldn't be the ease that you feel with your girlfriends the ability to be you should be exactly what you feel with a partner it should feel like coming home this is where you kick off your slippers and go I don't have to pretend, you know all my bad bits because you've been together a long time now how long have you been together?

58:09Davina McCall:oh my gosh, is it 21 years married? I mean that's a long time and how is it? it's all right we're still there but it's that's amazing right yeah yeah i mean it's just i don't know it's sort of a quiet you still you still love each other yeah but in a very sort of quiet undramatic way don't really need to feel like furniture part of the furniture like in a good way in a good way but like um ease that's what it is i think it is that I think coming home is the best way to describe it that's how it feels you sort of walk in the house and the shoulders go like that all the stresses fall away and you go oh good you're the person I just want to talk to about my day every day and I will bore you silly with it and you're going to have to sit there and now make me a tea and I bet he does and I bet he does the same for you and you do the same for him it is you and the other person against the world it's got to be well and if it isn't you need to re to rethink we'll have a big talk about that yeah i think the big thing as well and i know you've gone through it and i'm i'm going through it is the empty nest and i've always been a great believer of i want to give my children wings so they fly away and never look back but then when that comes to happening you're like but look back once or twice yes please I know um and um they're actually all brilliant and they're going but then you are left with that person yes um that you are going to spend the rest of your life with and it's just the two of you yeah so you gotta work on that before they go yeah and keep it keep it good because you know but it can be an amazing reinvention for couples exactly because you suddenly go now I'm not thinking about GCSEs and football lessons and whatever now I mean children take up so much of your time here we are across the breakfast what do you want hello again hi it can be actually yeah exactly well it can be wonderful not with my back love what time is it oh no

1:00:33Davina McCall:I also think that like Michael said to me last year, he said, what do you want? You know, what do you want? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's got like so many wants. He wants to go and learn about this and he wants to do this and he wants to go and help mental health. And I was like, God, you've got so many things. He said, what do you want? And you had to really think about that. I don't know. A good-to-ask question, right? I'm pretty generally. What do you want, Mira? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do I want? Yeah. Do you know, I'm living the wants in a lot of ways. Oh, Mira, that's so good! I mean, if you'd have told, you know, the 10-year-old chubby brown girl from Wolverhampton that at my age I'd be making a living out of the thing I never thought I'd get anywhere close to achieving, the thing I loved more than anything, would not have believed you.

1:01:31And here I am. So to be doing that, which was such a pipe dream, what more could I have asked for? That is just wondrous to me that I'm still able to do that. That, you know, thank you. I have a wonderful partner, wonderful friends, wonderful children. I have enough to eat, I have a roof over my head. I mean, tick, tick, tick. There's so many things that couldn't be there. There are still so many things that might happen and go wrong. But right now, I'm so grateful.

1:02:03Davina McCall:I think it's also historically quite a tricky time for women. I mean, when they go through kind of midlife, like maybe late 40s onwards, where you've got teenage kids and parents who are unwell and caring and everything. And I know that, you know, you looking after your dad, especially when he had dementia and Alzheimer's, that was exhausting. And I had the same thing with my dad, but my stepmom was around, but she cared for him a lot and through COVID and everything, it was really dreadful. How was it for you when your parents went? because I know you were very close. What was that like, that experience?

1:02:49Davina McCall:That thing was probably the hardest phase of my life. It lasted a good 12 years. Yeah, God. And you start saying goodbye from the minute they get diagnosed, right? Yeah, it's a slow, long goodbye. Both my parents got ill at the same time, unfortunately. So my mum had cancer and my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's within weeks. Oh, my God, that is so... And they were living in the Midlands and we both suddenly had to move them both down. So it was very emergent. It was like an emergency situation. We had to react very quickly. You were working, you got kids. Yeah, and then I had a young child and a teenage daughter and this.

1:03:27Honestly, it was a very grueling period and we all had to pull together. And yeah, and, you know, I write in the book, you know, this whole chapter about my dad's Alzheimer's and how it affected us as a family and how we cope with it. And I do say in there, I know how many people are going through this, how you are the filling in this horrible sandwich. And you never think it's going to end. And I just sort of want to do that to everyone because it's like it's the hardest phase of life. And it happens to a lot of us. And we really did have to reach out for a lot of support. The Alzheimer's Society were amazing, I have to say.

1:04:02Davina McCall:You're an ambassador for them, weren't you? That's why I became an ambassador, because they really held us up. Because you're in this foreign land. Yesterday, my life was different. My life has turned overnight. I'm in a new land with new vocabulary, a disease I know nothing about. I've got to think about care. What's my financial position? What's my legal position? What, what, what? I've got a million questions. And not enough hours in the day. Not enough hours in the day to cope with it. So it profoundly affected us on every level. Mum moved in with us. Dad had to go into care because he didn't, he had Capgras syndrome, so he didn't recognise mum and they couldn't live in the same house.

1:04:43my brother and I shared care with my mum and my dad so whole absolute shift of life we had to move house everything, everything changed I'm talking about gratitude

1:04:54Davina McCall:I think that's one of the reasons why now it's like we got through it you did it we got through it but also the journey I think it's very hard when you're in the middle of this journey to think of anything positive because all you can think about is this is the cruelest disease and why and awful and how. But when your loved one enters the phase where they really are in their own world, in a way you think maybe you're happier there than you were in this one. And my job is to go into that world with you. And be happy in that. And if you want to think that I am mum 50 years ago, I am mum 50 years ago and I will be that for this hour I'm with you today.

1:05:45Of course I'll be that. And I'm not going to go, no, dad, you don't. No, just the wrong thing to do. And somewhere you think spiritually your soul is just going on another little journey here and I can't come with you this time. But my God, I will do everything in my power to make sure wherever you're going next is good.

1:06:13so yeah you know that one and i'm sorry your dad suffered too um yeah i mean

1:06:20Davina McCall:but you're right i think about people going somewhere and they're happy it's just you're still still there watching yeah and how painful that is yeah um you mentioned your dad earlier and what he'd been through and you taking him back to his home that he had before he was forced to leave and could you just talk to me about because I knew that India had been colonized but actually I knew a woeful amount about what happened during that time and how hard it was how many people died actually so could you just talk to me about what life was like for your parents in India at that time okay so India obviously the British sort of started off as traders and then became colonizers.

1:07:04And that was a slow process over 250 years. And they were the first multinational, really. You can think of them like that. And my father grew up, India was one big undivided country. My father grew up in Lahore, which was known as the Paris of the East, one of the most beautiful, vibrant, artistic cities. And he loved it. And in 1947, when the British finally left, having used all of India's resources to fund the Industrial Revolution. And so all the colonized wealth made Britain what it was, a world power. All of that wealth went there. And in 1947, India was divided into three. So, and if you lived in majority Muslim area, that became Pakistan, East Pakistan and West Pakistan.

1:07:53If you think of the shape of India like an elephant, two big ears like that, then basically the ears were cut off either side. And the border was drawn up by a lawyer in London who'd never been to India. I mean, that's mad, isn't it?

1:08:09Davina McCall:When you think about that. It's mad. That people's whole lives. On the stroke of a pen. Yeah. With very little notice. And without kind of any understanding. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, real people, your parents, sort of in the quagmire that's left. And it was 1947. Yeah. And then your parents left a bit later. Yeah, 1959. And the reason that he came to Britain is that there was no prospects for him in India. The economy was destroyed.

1:08:51GDP in India was 40 % it was a massively wealthy country before it was colonised and it was 1 or 2 % when British left so when people go why go back to where you come from why are you here you go if you knew a bit more about history you'd know we are here because you were there I don't think my mum and dad who chooses to leave their homeland their family their roots Who wants to do that unless you have to, right? Because you have no prospects.

1:09:21Davina McCall:I think you leave half your heart there. Of course you do. But that's in the end why they came here. And I used to ask them quite often, do you ever regret it? And not once did they say, we regret it. Never. They honestly felt that Britain gave them the choices and more importantly, their children, the choices and the prospects they would have never have had. And I'm really grateful I grew up because I got the British sense of humour. where I got this amazing legacy and the art and the creativity of this incredible artistic heritage here. So that was amazing for me to grow up with that. Before we end, and I will try and finish on a happier note at the end of this bit, I really want to talk to you about your sexual assault because...

1:10:08Davina McCall:Sorry, was that the happy note we were ending on? Yeah, I'm going to end on a happy note at the end of this. Okay, okay. I'm going to talk about your book after this, but I just quickly wanted to say, because that really spoke to me, because you correctly said like 90 % of your friends from our era, 60s, 70s, have suffered a or numerous sexual assaults of some sort. It was a gropey era. Yeah. And more than that as well. And normalised. Completely normalised. that you have spoken out about it. And when you speak to other people, it's like, oh, yeah, that happened to me. I've never spoken about it.

1:10:49This is what shocked me. Right? When I sat in a room, I really thought hard about including it because I knew, obviously, once it's out there, it's out there and people will ask about it. And the last thing you want to do is to be prurient or sensationalist.

1:11:03Davina McCall:Yeah, or become like a spokesperson. Right. It's actually two pages in the whole book. That's all it is. But, of course, people have asked me about it. Well, I think, but do you know why? Because I think it does help women. Yeah. It was like when Giselle Pellico went, no, I am talking about it. Exactly that. It was like, oh, thank you. Yeah. Because we don't. Yeah, we don't. And what convinced me is when I tested this out with a bunch of girlfriends and I said, look, this happened. I don't know whether to put it in the book. And then one by one, the hands went up around the room and I went, you're kidding me.

1:11:41and a lot of them had never, never said anything. That's how normalised it was. And also because it happened at a time in my life where it would have been really easy to give up. You know, I wasn't working. I was very young. I'd only been in the business for like a year, year and a half. Money had run out. Luck had run out. I was homeless, sleeping on floors and it would have been really easy to go. And I nearly did go, I can't do this. If this is what it's going to be like, I can't do this. and then it led me to find a writers group and a bunch of aunties and a bunch of incredible women that absolutely changed the course of my life I became politicized I became angry I wanted to write useful yeah this writers group maybe wanted to create characters that were braver than me and roared and then through that group I met someone that said you're homeless I'm in a housing association flat.

1:12:38I'll help you fill in the four. I found a place to live. I found a whole bunch of friends. Actually, it was a big turning point in my life. And if I had given up and blamed myself and shrunk and taken on the shame like we all do, that wouldn't have happened. And I thought, for that reason, it's quite important to go, this does not have to define you.

1:12:59Davina McCall:your greatest revenge is to be happy yes i mean i think what i love um about you and this book is that everyone but especially women will get a lot from this book i hope so yeah that there is um a lot of your gratitude a lot of your hope bob your light as such a beautiful woman and where I love you. So, no, honestly, you are an absolute gem and a real torchbearer, I think, for women. And I'm very grateful to you for that. Thank you, and so do you. Well, everybody, Vigilante is a brilliant book. You must go and get it. I love Don't Sit With Your Legs Apart. You can only get fat after you're married.

1:13:55Davina McCall:These are all the things you said earlier. an Asian comedy sketch show or Asian's funny God it is mad isn't it? It's mad The other thing I keep thinking about and this is the one happy night to end on is that you and Sanjay have got together but you played his grandma that's quite mad isn't it? I've talked to my therapist about that I bet you have I love that Hang on a minute I know At least he knows what I'm going to look like in 20 years time there are absolutely no surprises there I told you I warned you You saw this coming, don't complain. You can't complain. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful.

1:14:34Davina McCall:So welcome. Thank you for having me. Thanks for being so open and wise. So just in case you missed this episode here, if you love this episode, I know you're going to love that.

1:15:21I'm not giving up. I am selling the building.

1:15:27Davina McCall:The final season of FX is the Bear. The restaurant is flooded. Everything's either gonna be okay. No, stop. Or not. We are outgunned and we are outmanned. We have each other. FX is the Bear, the final season. All episodes now streaming on Disney+.