Fern Britton: “I Never Wanted to Be Famous”

31:27And I mean, at the moment, I think television content is looking pretty good and pretty healthy. Yeah, for sure, for sure. But there was a bit of a slump. But it was good. It was good. How did you know you had a wonderful voice? Because like everybody else from various generations, before you arrived today, I kind of in my head already knew you. I have a sort of, which, you know, you'll be familiar with that feeling. But until you just did that then, that continuity, when you turned up that gear, that's just Fern talk, that's Fern Britain talking. But how did you know you had such a, because you do have a really lovely voice.

32:00Well, thank you. I often think if I have had, you know, Apparently we all are given a God-given talent of something. And mine is that I can read fluently. You can give me anything that I've not seen at all and I can read it and make sense. And I worked with a director who, because I mean I was in my 20s thinking, yeah, I can smoke, I can do everything. And he'd say, put that out, you're going to ruin the timbre of your voice. I carried on smoking, of course. But I was lucky and my father has a very good voice, had a very good voice. He did wonderful audio books. He would do a lot of those. Geoffrey Archer's and Dick Francis in particular.

32:40And people often say to me, oh, we used to listen to him. And he did wonderful women's voices, apparently. So that's nice. But I like it. I like reading aloud. I'm happiest loud. Ask me to read anything aloud. Yes. Come around, everybody. So you knew. I'm very comfortable doing this. And people like it. Yeah. And David invites you out for lunch and offers to double your salary. Yes. So the next thing you know, you're at the BBC doing rather more than continuity. Did you take that in your stride? they put me on the let me get this right hang on no no i'd already done the kind of news desk when i was at westwood okay but now i was um you know one of a pair we were the the co-hosts with a very good guy called chris denham who went on to do all the um floyd cooking things um and he and i got on very well together and i learned a lot there i think working when you're out in not the provinces because that's theatrical but in the eight areas regions thank you the regions um you can really make a lot of mistakes and people are very forgiving and that was helpful helpful for understanding that the audience are very sophisticated so if something's gone wrong just admit it and you know have a laugh and they like all that it's okay be relaxed and they'll be relaxed and i remember somebody saying to me very early on um if a woman looks nervous in a studio radio television whatever those nerves will run like wildfire in and it's particularly women if a man says where's my pen where's my pen get me my pen people just jump and get it if a woman goes, excuse me, excuse me, can I just have and it's like, oh my god, she doesn't know what she's doing, give it to the man, she's gone mad.

34:25So that was a good lesson, to stay calm, it's absolutely fine. I don't care if I haven't got lipstick on and my mascara is running down my face, hey, that's life. And did you enjoy it? Yeah, hugely. What parts did it reach that other things hadn't reached? Well, it just pushed another set of experiences into me. And I was very willing to accept it and look at it and think about it. Another piece of good advice someone gave me was, oh, this years and years and years ago. 46 years I've been doing this. Somebody said to me, when you're in a studio, you're doing a live show, don't say, oh, I'm so tired, I'm so late at night, I've got a bit of a headache.

35:12Because as far as the audience is concerned, you live in bloody la-la land. And you're there to make them feel better. And that's a really good one. You have a sense of responsibility then already. Even though you're still in your early to mid-20s. You have a responsibility to the job and the viewer. Yes, definitely. The viewer is important. And when I was doing this morning, the interviews that were the most interesting, and I think you'll probably agree, is the people who aren't famous but who have some incredible story to tell. and they trust you with it. And they trust you that the questions you're going to ask might be searching, but they know it's gentle and will get to the truth.

35:56You don't need to say, so, you saw your husband stabbed to death. No, no, no, it's not that. Although there are a couple of people who do prefer that approach. Well, I worry, you know, news reports. Things are going in that direction. News reports and news writing is all about, you know, a wife was stabbed to death. No, why don't you just calm down that aggressive speech? It's not good for anybody. It's a way of telling that story without. The things that work in real life probably work in our professional things as well. And you'd never approach a subject any more than you turn up at the pub with a list of topics and then start tipping them off one by one.

36:33And we'll talk about something else now. Precisely. I had Guy Gomer on the radio show today. You know, the guy when he got booked by accident. Oh, and he was the taxi driver. Oh, it's a wonderful story, isn't it? I was looking forward to that interview more than I was looking forward to the last prime minister who came in. Who was the last prime minister who came in? I think it was the current one, actually. Oh, that's amazing. I wonder who it'll be next week. Yeah, oh, stop it. Did you allow yourself to think that you must be rather good at this? Because you're moving now very rapidly through the ranks.

37:06Did you have pride? I don't mean preening. I just mean simple professional pride yes I think it gave me confidence yeah for sure not that you're not the person who I know bloody everything in this room and I would not that I hope I never projected that but it was confidence in wow you know but I never really saw it as big my mum rang me up one day when I interviewed Tony Blair and I was going home in the car and she just said I thought it was very good and I mean that's the Prime Minister and you know there are only so many hours on television you have every day and you did that one you know. That was nice.

37:46That's a lovely way of looking at things. Isn't it lovely? What did she make of it all in the very early days? What did she make of it all at this period? Yeah she wasn't in Cornwall so she didn't know. Oh but yes. Regional TV is mad like that right? Because you can open fates and then go three miles up the road and you couldn't get arrested. It's absolutely incredible. It's always rather lovely. It is yes I can imagine that. Coming back into Cornwall you think oh I better put some lipstick on now I'm back in Cornwall. But the move to London 25 years old onto one of the sort of it was a huge deal breakfast time and then you know your mum's going to be aware of that but so is everybody else.

38:22Yes. Yes. But again you know I'd leave the show we'd be out by about nine o 'clock so about ten past nine I'd be I'd walk out of the studios down near Shepherd's Bush and just trot about. Nobody, you know. And this is before that. I mean, it was just on the cusp, wasn't it? When everybody appearing on breakfast television was a new type of celebrity. But that was too early for you. Just your role wasn't big enough? Because Selina Scott was... Yeah, she was huge. And such a lovely person. Got on really well with her. That's nice. It was difficult with Frank Boff. She found it difficult with Frank Boff.

39:03And one day she said to me, come to breakfast with me, Fern. I said, OK. So she took me to the Savoy. Thank you. She says, you do. Oh, no, the Ritz. I'm sorry. Because that was a short walk. Sorry. The Ritz. Breakfast. And we walked in. And of course, the waiter, your usual table, and took her to Selena's table. And we sat there. And we had a lovely breakfast. And she said, how are you finding Frank? I said, he hasn't got much of a sense of humor, has he? And she laughed. She said, no. She said, here's the trick. He has everything in his head, but he can't ad lib. So ask him a question and you'll fall apart.

39:42And I thought, well done, Selena, because it was great because she was getting trounced by him. He said one day watching her on a film and I was sitting next to him that morning. I was her. Yeah. And he was watching her cycling across the highlands or something. And he said, look at her. She even rides a bike with her knees together. Christ. So that. So I, I did employ the ask him a question. And he just couldn't do it. It worked. Yeah. So he was actually the auto cutie, so to speak, as opposed to. Well, he had, his agenda was very strong and not elastic enough, perhaps. I mean, the first time I tried it, Mother's Day was coming up and we were talking about the price of flowers, you know.

40:20And so I said to him, what does your wife flower? What flowers are your wife's favorite? And he went. Yeah. And he said to me, what are yours? Yeah. Really? Yeah. And this is great because now he's on the back foot every time you're sitting next to him because you might ask him another question like that. So interesting. Oh, what a genius as well. And he would want to, there were some people, yeah. And early in the morning when you get the brief of the show, and he would take all the oxygen. It was my interview. Yes, yes, do we know? And so I'd be just like, hmm. And he'd sometimes, there was Noel Edmonds was coming on.

40:56And he said, what sort of person is Noel Edmonds? We'll have him. And I thought, what? Don't pick it. Yeah, it was quite unpleasant. It's a weird business. I mean, we say it's a weird, or I said it's a weird business, but actually, as Ricky Gervais taught us, you could be working in a paper factory in Slough, couldn't you, and still be dealing with characters and personalities just like this? They are everywhere. They are, aren't they? They are absolutely everywhere. Can I tell you the story when I first met Frank? Yeah. This is the God's truth. So I was invited to meet them all for lunch because I was the new person joining the team.

41:27Frank was on my right-hand side. The editor was on my left. And we got to the part where everyone was smoking and stubbing it out on the pudding plate, as you could. And he leant back in his chair with his fag on, turned his knees towards him, and he went, Well, I wonder how long it'll be before I'm having an affair with you. Because I do have a very big cock. Did you ask him what his wife's favourite flowers were? Yes. Not at that stage, because I didn't know. And I went home and I told my mother, and she went, Oh, that's dreadful. and that's how we coped with it. They said, oh, dreadful man.

42:03You know, that was it. It's not even short, really. No, just not. Appalling behaviour, but just, you know. Well, that was kind of the way it was. I'm not saying that was right, but it was at the time happening. No, I know you're not saying that was right. It's a good Lord. We're kind of approaching the bit now where people will be familiar with what you were doing, but there's a return from London to Southampton next, isn't it, to do coast to coast south, which is and now you're the main the cheese no shared cheese with fred diner yes he's still there i think is he no he just recently just recently incredible broadcast yes a perfect example actually of what we were talking about of being the most famous man in town until you move to the next town along although he did national work as well of course he did but that that was another move so you're you're you're kinetic aren't you you're not you're you're looking for the next Yeah, I left because I was very unhappy that the producer, sorry, the editor hated me.

43:02Frank hated me. It was made very, very difficult for me. It was one morning when the editor walked in at eight o 'clock, sort of halfway through the morning. And the news was being read in the corner. And we had to be quiet sitting on the sofa. And he came through the forest of cameras and guests were sitting around. and he said to me you are terrible you are awful now sit down there and do another hour and after the show I mean I managed it after the show he called me into his office he closed the door and locked it he was in there with his deputy editor and they just shredded me and I cried and cried and cried it was a Friday and he said you're not leaving this office until you put some makeup on I said well it's in the bag on my desk and he went and he got my bag and he And I had to put my paper in front of him.

43:53Because he didn't want everyone to know you'd been crying? Well, yes. I mean, what he did was really bad. It was a really... It desiccated me. Why? It was shit. But you obviously weren't. You should look more about how Frank does it. He's blah, blah, blah. Well, Frank hated me. He wanted to get rid of me. So in between time, I had an interview. Well, I got phoned by Greg Dyke, who was doing TVAM. And Greg rang me and said... But you must know you're not shit if Greg Dyke's ringing you up. Well, yeah, but at the time I didn't compute that. No, it doesn't matter, does it? No, it doesn't. Because someone's punching you.

44:32It's like saying it doesn't hurt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course it hurts. And then he said, yeah, I'm going down to TVS. Nobody knows. We need some new people to do the show, the six o 'clock show. And we'd like to meet you. So that happened. And then the editor, the bad, the horrible editor, left. and another one came in who was very pompous and he called me into his office and he said, yes, I see your contract's coming to an end. I said, yes, actually, I'm thinking of leaving anyway. Don't play that old trick on me. Okay, well, yeah, no, bye, bye then. So that was easy. Good for you. And there I was.

45:07Did you allow yourself a sort of air punch as you left that room? There are bits of times when you just think, hmm, that landed.

45:21And so off to Southampton. Off to Southampton. Where you had nice chemistry. Is chemistry a word that you recognise? I mean, because you've worked with some absolute twats. Some twats. Yes. But you're still, to the viewer, you might have appeared to have chemistry with them, is what I mean. Yes, and we did. Right, so it is a thing. But it's not a sign of anything off screen. It just works on screen. No, no, exactly. No, it worked. And we had a very similar sense of humour. And I learnt a lot from him. You know, you do learn a lot from people, the good stuff and the bad stuff yes of course yeah so this was a nice period yeah and what came next that was it we do after five on itv so you're doing regional and national now yes and ready steady cook changes everything yes so i had my twins my twin boys and uh my husband and i had you know me longing for a child we got twins which was just lovely um and then i went up to do the program after five which was great but it was just after the boys well i had left the boys they were about four months old and i thought i can go and do some work well i wasn't in the right space i had a bit of postnatal depression and i wasn't right at all and then i broke my wrist and i was traveling in from london out to buckinghamshire trying to go up escalators at marlebone with a broken wrist and then getting going to two boys and try to bath them you know yes it was and I looking back I was clearly mad and just overtired um and so I had a phone call one day in the middle of doing an after five show great phone calls I have taken it sounds like it doesn't it it wasn't my phone call actually it was a phone call to the the boss of the program who'd been an old friend from tvs oh that's nice and he came into the studio during the break and he said to me just had a phone call i said yeah it's yeah from um peter basil get i said oh yeah he said yeah you've got the gig so that was that was ready steady cook so that was like oh well bye everybody and and ready steady we could do three shows in an afternoon so you could do first camera at two and out at six yeah and i would do three days of that and then you're away for a fortnight you know whatever you know it was really nice and and it was i mean bonkers bonkers do you know When did you realise how it had sort of broken out of both genre and schedule to become a sort of television film nominee?

47:44Yeah, well, we just kept hearing that the ratings were just growing and growing and growing on BBC Two. And my husband at the time was a big cheese in ITV. And he said in the boardrooms that guys were going, can you tell your wife to stop it? Wind it in a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was fun. They're destroying us. And why was the show so successful? because was it i mean the last part of it was you you're probably too modest to say that the format was pretty good the chefs and the there was proper chemistry there the chefs all clearly loved you yeah and and there was that wonderful thing which you don't get on television a genuinely friendly rivalry so they really wanted to beat each other but they didn't want to like crush their opponent into the floor i don't think maybe one or two did there was skullduggery yes people would get on the set and one chef would go over to the other chef's station before we started and turn off the water and the electricity and everything.

48:37So suddenly they couldn't turn the ovens on and the hobs wouldn't work and all that. So there was sort of some friendly shit that went on down there. But it was a good show and I did enjoy it because my agent at the time was very, very ill. He was dying, Peter Plant, and he got all his customers, all his clients, good jobs before he went. That was his main thing. And he got me ready to study cook. He said, please go and do the audition. I said, I hate cooking. I'm not interested. I don't want please for me you'll get a car and a bottle of champagne oh well all right then um and because I didn't like cooking because I knew very little about it I could ask the stupid questions and I'm sure you have heard this one you know always ask the daft lads questions because it makes you look well there's going to be people in the audience who really don't know yeah yeah and so I could say what what's that for then why what yeah and then one of them Andrew Anthony Warrell Thompson used to say to me look when you can see I'm having a problem don't come next to me and I'm going no that's when they want to see it they became stars as well it was an extraordinarily launch pad wasn't it really wonderful and it was so much fun I sense it was it must have been lovely and inevitably the phone rings again as a consequence of the success and the children are a little bit older and they offer you Fridays I think on this morning yes yes that's right It was quite a nice balance.

50:03Yes. It was Fridays with John, Leslie. And we got on very well together. And, yeah. Yeah, hang on. I've got to get that straight in my head. Have I jumped ahead? No, no, no. It's fine. 99, I think, now. Yes. So the boys were born. Yes, the boys were born in 1997. So they were just over a year when I started Ready Steady. And then 1999, yes, this morning came. And it was a program I always thought I was built for and had done an audition for at one stage and didn't get it. Okay. Yeah. And built for it because it's kind of what you do, isn't it? It's a combination of warmth and rigor. Oh, I like that.

50:49Do you good? I was frightened when I thought I wanted it. Warmth and rigor mortis. Well, no, warmth and rigor, I said. I'm joking. And now you personally and professionally move, I think within three years you're doing the rest of the week you now move on to it so this plus ready steady cook must have turned you into somebody who would get stopped regularly in the street oh yes did you enjoy that sometimes it's a bit of a I must say people are very very nice to me very rarely do I get something really people are always nice and you know it takes nothing to say yes of course I have a selfie yes of course and sometimes people do you remember when we met in the blah blah blah and if I can understand the location I think yes I think we must have yes it doesn't take 30 seconds to just be hello and the gap between you on screen and you off screen is much smaller than it is with somebody like well no maybe not someone like Frank Boff for example there isn't a huge difference between you on screen and you off screen thank you that's nice thank you I hope that's nice.

51:57Oh, yeah, really nice. Yeah. Good. Because with some people, they're bloody, it really is. You know, you can see the switch being flicked as they walk onto the set. Yeah. And, you see, I'm not a good actor. Right. And I know I'm not a good actor. So this really is as genuine as I can be. That's nice. And now everybody's familiar with the next few years of your career. I have to ask you, and you would expect me to, I mean, you've got now John Leslie and Philip Schofield on your kind of most regular. And don't forget, I work with Frank as well. And Frank Boff before that. Please don't let me work with any other men.

52:33Yeah, well, that's why I'm keeping my distance, actually. Is it, I mean, how do you process, because you knew what Frank Boff was like all along, but with presumably with John Leslie and Philip Schofield, you would have been somewhat surprised by some of the stuff that's come out. well I will say that I really like John I still like John I have never seen anything that would set my um alarms off nothing I know that if we nipped over to the pub after a show the girls would be all over I'd witnessed that actually did you so you know I saw that at a party and uh-huh okay well I wasn't partying of course at that stage but it wasn't that kind of party it was just a launch a book but i mean he's a big tall handsome guy yeah and single yes there's an awful lot but actually you're right and um he's always been acquitted of everything that's true and he's you know disappeared having a life of his own doing property developments i think i think his um his ex uh model says um in between jobs he has a sense of humor and and i was very fond of him and he would come home with me because we might be cooking chicken he loved roast chicken so he'd come home with me we cooked chicken and all the kids were hanging around they loved him and he'd say oh look at the lego be on the floor doing the take a picture of that and then send it into blue peter you'll get a badge for that and they're going well we yeah yeah yeah that's fine we we he walked with the pram with um with grace who's now 29 uh down to school to pick the boys up and it was raining and i said oh and i gave him an orange orange anorak those the sleeves were finishing at his elbows you know we walked into the playground i mean it was just people swooning all over the place so i have a lot of time for john um i mean he rang me up last year And we might ring every couple of years.

54:34That's it. But lovely. And then, of course, with all of that newspaper speculation and he was sacked from the show and everyone on the show, we were all heartbroken. I will tell you that. I really missed him. And Philip had been doing one day a week. So John was doing four before all this happened. So I was used to working with Philip. And and we had to get to know each other very quickly. so we sat in my dressing room after the show and I had a bottle of whiskey in there and we drank half of it told each other everything I thought everything right and laughed and had a good time and uh and we we had to fix it from there so that's that's how I did that and and then in 2009 that you get to the end of that rainbow um I'd already left yeah it was just well one day I'll I'm not going to pry.

55:31No, no. My feeling, I have very mixed emotions because it was a very good relationship on and off air. And things got difficult and I couldn't. Well, I was having my own stuff all in the newspapers being followed by PAPS because of gastric band gate. Because I was a victim of hacking, I found out only five years ago. Right. so that goes back 17 years of being hacked that's a violation we were yeah and so you know a private medical condition why if a man had had a gastric band up no exactly but i was shredded for that one and i had to keep going somehow but i had an awful lot of attention too much attention had overly attention spotted on me and things did become difficult and then the day i did resign i had no idea I was going to resign that day but I was sort of suggested now one day I'll tell you but he you know okay yeah how do you how do you got by this point by 2005 2006 did you have a little dream of of writing novels and settle it sort of stepping well particularly perhaps when the attention became unfair and close to unbearable it was unbearable was that was that your pod your escape pod in any sense or did you just drift into this as well like well yeah what drifted in was before that yes i had a penguin rang me up

57:10so yeah penguin rang me up would you like to do your autobiography and um and then of course we were oh then there's a big story as well to add to the end of the of the autobiography and it went really well and um because people really like you oh some people don't well but the people well i live in a world of people being very nice and i'm and i'm very happy but it's it's you know you get back what you put out i think well thank you that's kind of you but that would explain a it was a very well written memoir and and funny and warm but b people really wanted to read about you. Well, it was lovely.

57:50And Penguin realised you could write. Yeah, well, you know I can write a little voiceover script. How much is a book? Well, about 80 to 100 ,000 words. What? And then HarperCollins came because the autobiography went well, HarperCollins went well. And then the novel started and I was like, yeah, gung-ho, off we go. Write what you know, look in television, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, oh no, and it went okay. And then HarperCollins said, right, we're going to give you a two-book deal. Off you go. You're fine now. On your own. Don't need us. So then every book now gets harder and harder and harder.

58:26Yes. Because what? Because you've got to find the subject matter or because you just find the process? The process. Do you? Yes, absolutely. Really, it's a real thing. I hate writers who say it's easy or that they can't wait to get behind the desk in the morning. They're driving a potty. It's all nonsense. That's nonsense. The writer's profile, you know, the graph starts up here and goes, yippee, page one, quickly goes boom. And you spend another six months feeling utterly miserable, wanting to slit your wrists. And then at the end, you've typed the end. Thank you. That's how it goes. So you don't lose yourself in these books.

59:00I mean, on a good day. Yeah, on a good day. It's like I think Douglas Adams said it's like throwing yourself at the ground and missing. You just go into the strats of the best days. Exactly. The best days. That's a good one. That's a good one. And Hemingway said, writing is easy. You sit yourself in front of a typewriter and you bleed. Gosh. Yeah. So for people who are not familiar with your oeuvre of fiction, what should we tell them? What do they need to know? Mostly set in Cornwall. And thankfully, people like reading about it. So that's good. But I think generally about ordinary human beings in this time trying to get through complicated relationships and situations and, you know, sibling rivalry and ex-parents and all of that stuff.

59:49And I find that quite fun. I try to make it laugh and I try to have a laugh. And also you have to write a little bit of sex, which is a bit, you know, I quite enjoy that, actually. And the kids go, don't tell me, mother, don't.

1:00:02it's not it's not pornography it's just that people do happen to have sex and so this is it odd story if yeah i mean the only thing people don't do in books is go to the lavatory really well yes perhaps i'll be a bit more of that you're right you're right yeah and the latest in in the in the um series is a well it's not a series but the latest book is a cornish legacy which is which is out now um do you have any boxes left unticked firm britain is that because you've never really been a big box ticker have you you've been more a phone ringer than a box ticker phone answerer phone answerer yes do you know what i'd love okay this is what i would love i wrote a book called the good servant which is about our late queens growing up with her governess Crawfee who then got in our language cancelled because she wrote a book and I've done a bit of research into that and was it really her because it's a much more nuanced story and I really love, I researched it an awful lot and I wrote it as obviously some of it is fiction because you have to but it's pretty much as spot on as it might have been I think and I thought this is my champion book and actually didn't sell as well as the others because it didn't say Cornwall um so this is what I really hope for it I think I want to keep it alive and I want Netflix you know hello yes certainly it should be a movie indeed yes yes so I'm just waiting for that phone call can you sort that one out well I don't you're the one with the magic phone I don't know there's a great deal that I can do about it um Apple TV would do a very good job on it they absolutely would.

1:01:40Well, you never know, do you? I mean, to be fair, you'd have thought that post-Crown and things like that they'd be looking around. Have you sent it to all the right people? Have you done your 100 letters and sent them to every film? Blimey, that's the one thing I haven't done. Yeah, I'll do that. We've come full circle. Thank you. That's where it began. I've just got to find a roneo machine. That's where the next chapter will begin. A Cornish Legacy by Fern Britton is out now. It's done very well, I will say. Yes. It's out now in paperback. Yes, which fits into your suitcase, which is the most important.

1:02:08Indeed it does. Is it Wilder Who or Wilder Who? Wilder. Wilder. A crumbling manor house on Cornwall's Atlantic coast. Yes. Based on a real house, Beconoc House, which was restored by a husband and wife who had it. I think it was in his family. And then unfortunately he died before he saw it all finished. But it's beautiful. And I was filming there and this got into my head, this house. And it did for a couple of years. And I thought, it's telling me it wants to be a character. so it became a character and it's lovely and some funny people it has a funny old housekeeper called Mrs Joy who may or may not be real she kind of floats in and out at all the right times and even I don't know through that thin veil through that thin veil you love a story don't you I love telling a story I love reading a story oh I love hearing your stories Fern Britain thank you oh James thank you very much indeed

1:03:07Transcription by CastingWords