Hilary Whitehall

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0:57coffee with Michael Whitehouse. He wanted a wife, not just a client. He was 21 years older than her and divorced, but it turned out to be not just a professional match made in heaven, but a personal one too. 40 years later, they are still going strong. Although the business and family continue to be entwined. One of their three children is a certain Jack Whitehall, who's made his father and his family a central tenant of his comedy over the last 15 years or so. As a result, Hillary's acting roles in the likes of Miranda and Bad Education might not have brought her as much attention as her podcast The Wittering Whitehalls and the role of being Jack's mum.

1:32But Hilary is also keen to talk about another new role which she stepped into, being a grandma and how that and being a mother-in-law have been more life-changing than any of her later life fame. Let's go meet Hilary. Hilary Whitehall, welcome to The Midpoint. Thank you so much. I'm very excited about this chat because you approached me and told me you needed to come on there's a few things to get off your chest a few things I need to talk about yes indeed which we will come on to but you have just referenced the fact that I'm wearing silver today this I'm channeling my because I'm obsessed with this particular topic with no knowledge of it particularly other than I'm fascinated by it this is my Artemis astronaut a homage okay so I was fascinated by that whole thing Do you dress according to world events?

2:20On this occasion, yes. But I like to try and theme what I'm wearing. And I sort of feel this is very Artemis, I feel. I love this. Because I know Claudia Winkerman has talked about the Strictly wardrobe, not the Traces one, how she would have, say, Elvis as a point of kind of reference for a whole series. Yeah. And yours is much bigger than that, really. if we're talking bigger with a slightly smaller audience I feel than Darling Claudia who I adore but yes I think that she's singing to a bigger crowd see I'm just my my person is Laura Bacall I just think of would Lauren wear this yeah and in the same way we used to have a thing my daughter and I um about what would Joanna Lumley do um yes which somebody else had given to me as a kind of way of referencing a problem solving kind of conundrum you know yeah um but i like the fact that that it's an astronaut day today it's perfect i've got very extreme as i've got older i think because one of my roles now as a grandmother which i am now a grandmother we are a grandmother to quote mrs thatcher um is to embarrass my children so i like to be extreme i like to have be out there with my clothing do they notice now because they're probably quite used to you yep They sure do.

3:35Sequins is my sort of go-to now. I love a sequin. In fact, we have a wedding incoming. At the weekend, you were saying. Yes. So whose wedding is this? This is the big one. This is Jack's wedding. You're speaking to me on the Monday ahead of Jack and Roxy's wedding. I am. We're all very relaxed about it. I mean, they seem particularly relaxed about it. We had, so yesterday was Michael and mine's ruby wedding anniversary. 40? 40, yes. 40, wow. I mean, that's an achievement. congratulations thank you so much so it's our silver this summer oh is it yeah yeah well done so we had a because we got married on michael's birthday uh on the basis that he would never forget the wedding anniversary never remembers because it's his birthday it's all about him exactly so we had a joint 86th birthday party slash 40th wedding anniversary party how lovely It's the Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby wedding.

4:34And then obviously Jack and Roxy's wedding anniversary is going to be a week later. It is. And the reason that we didn't do it, I want to have a massive party. I will be having a massive party, just to let you know, at the end of the summer. Because I didn't want to trample all over their time. This is their time. Definitely. Yeah. And that would have probably taken a little bit of attention. Yes. If I'd had 200 people in a room yesterday, I think they might have thought, but we're doing this next weekend. Yeah. And are you having that kind of number to the wedding? their wedding is slightly smaller than that yes i mean they're are they the ones who've orchestrated and choreographed everything literally 100 we've had nothing to do with it um a wedding planner has been involved to the point that when i asked jack what the dress code was several weeks ago with regards to buying a dress he gave me the wrong dress code so i got the wrong dress i said do you not i mean the wedding invitation has arrived with a completely different dress code on it jack he said oh yeah sorry about that mumza he said astronaut That is the theme for this wedding.

5:33So the wedding's coming up this weekend. I mean, that is so... Have you married any other children off? Yes, but both of my other children got married before Jack. Okay. Yes. So this is the last of my children getting married. The last to go. And we're going to have a real hoolie. I can feel it. I can feel it in my bones. I'm sure it's going to be fantastic. And I've gone big on the dress, as you would expect. A big dress or expensive dress? Not an expensive dress. It's a dress I actually bought about four years ago off a sail rail. And I thought one day that dress is going to come. You've never worn.

6:03I've never worn it. One day that dress is going to come into its own. And this is the weekend because it is ruby red and it's sequins. Of course it is. So it's a black tie wedding. It's a black tie wedding. We had black tie. Oh, did you? I think it's quite good to give as much direction to men as possible with a dress code. I agree. And they can't go wrong with black tie. No. I mean, obviously, I married a Scot. Not obviously, but I married a Scot. There were a lot of kilts and black tie. Nice. Or tout and trues as well. So there's a bit of variation. And as an homage and an honour to him, a lot of his English rugby playing friends wore kilts as well.

6:37Fantastic. Which is quite a big deal. But this is going to be a glamorous wedding then. You can really go for it. Go to town on it. I spent the morning this morning, the reason I was early, it's a rarity for me. I was late. Please don't worry. I'm so sorry. I was buying, helping my younger son, who is Jack's best man, to buy a new, not black, he's actually gone smoking jacket. He's gone velvet. Oh, beautiful. I love smoking jacket. Yeah, it's lovely. So is he delivering the speech? I mean, poor Barney. Yeah. Imagine that. The pressure. Yes. Because Jack's giving a speech before him, because you know, best man goes last as well.

7:14I said, how are you feeling about it? He said, well, the point is, I know where the skeletons are, Mother. I know where the bodies are buried. You'd almost be wanting to ask Jack to help you write that speech, but he can't. But Jack has got plenty of friends in the industry. I'm sure he could call on to help. He has, yes. Oh, it'll be so entertaining. And is Roxy's father? Roxy's father is speaking. Perry, yes, who I gather is very cross-public speaking. So that's great. Oh, you're going to be in for a real treat. Don't be in for a real humdinger. Have you kind of allocated a three-hour session for these speeches?

7:44This could be quite... I notice it's being peppered throughout the meal. Nice. I like that. A meal. The word Mr Whitehall hates more than any other. Meal. Meal. Dinner. It's a wedding breakfast. even if it's in the evening well don't start him on that one he said it's not breakfast it's at five o 'clock in the afternoon and also what kind of meal is that at five o 'clock because he's very prescriptive about when he eats this is so exciting I can't imagine as somebody whose children aren't married yet it must be the loveliest feeling to see your kids happy and healthy and on their way in their own families and we have been so lucky with their choice of partners because they're all fabulous they're amazing and I'm That's because they wanted to imitate what their parents had Well that's very sweet of you to say I mean it's 40 years it's been a journey that's for sure there have been some moments along the way but we're still here it's 40 years in Rubies were involved Oh sorry I just didn't mean to give you the middle finger Yeah you did give me the digit then I did sorry Is this the present?

8:40This came with and was this a surprise? No It was a little bit of hell Beautiful Thank you Beautiful What youthful hands you have Gellarie as well I've been in hand mitts for the last week I was going to say about hand surgery this is a new thing No Have you been wearing hand mitts, have you? Yeah, overnight. Oh, well it's working. The dream. Yeah. The ringlet's gorgeous. Well, because I've spent the last few weekends with all the grandchildren with us, which means I'm doing the washing. So I'm there with the stain remover. And I don't wear, I hate rubber gloves. I'm there with the stain remover, getting everything out of the clothing.

9:10So my hands were not in great shape. How many children? I've got four. You weren't cleaning the big people's clothes. You mean the grandchildren? I mean the grandchildren. You've got four grandchildren. Right, so you've got four grandchildren. The tag bowl out of the white t-shirt. You know that one? Yes, yes. Yeah, I remember those. I'm a big fan of Nappy San. That is a go-to. That's how I used to do Jack and Barney's Cricket Whites. Nappy San. Back in the day, I would have had, I'm sure you did Terry Towning nappies. Do you know what I didn't? No. So you didn't use Nappy San back then? I can't believe it.

9:44This is the first time on the midpoint the word Nappy San has actually been mentioned. which I think the end point, we might start talking nappy sound again, might we? Yes, I like it. But not for the midpoint. Now, before we started recording, I asked you a question. You said, I'll save that. What was that about? How was your day? Well, I sort of told you how my day was because we were doing black tie jacket or sort of smoking jacket for my son. I thought something terrible had happened on the way here. No, just the stress. As I'm up in town, I thought I'll maximise my time. So you're not up in town that often these days then?

10:17well it's funny we live on the fringes of it i live in putney well you're right yeah that to me i'm a country girl you're in town where are you we're out south bucks so it's not that far but probably sometimes it takes me as long to get home as you maybe yeah i mean all the bridges that are now closed last week i have to say we had we came up to do uh mark wogan's podcast lovely mark and uh we had a car back other podcasts are allowed yes other podcasts on other platforms are allowed we had a car back they shut the end of the New King's Road it was literally a 10 foot section of the New King's Road right where it meets Putney Bridge now Putney Bridge is already challenging because they've just changed all the layout of it which has caused carnage I mean it took us nearly 3 hours to get home did you not feel like getting out and walking?

11:04well I would have done had Mr Whitehall had the right shoes on it's all about shoes at this age now his bloody stilettos again exactly they've only left my shoes alone You have got a 21 year age gap, haven't you? We have got a 21 year age gap. Is it more pronounced now than it was when you were young? I would say yes, if I'm honest. And I'm sure he would be happy for me, to be honest. He is 86. The one or two little mobility, not issues, but mobility restrictions, shall we say. So, for instance, getting out the wrong side of the Kings Road, the wrong side of Putney Bridge in the Kings Road, is challenging if he's not in the right shoe.

11:41he needs a proper walking shoe rather than and he was in a casual shoe because he'd been doing something he's been working into his 80s quite a lot i mean that is the stuff he's been doing with jack traveling so he's obviously fit and feels up for the challenge of taking on those things yes he does i think we've had one or two issue back issues recently because he's done a couple of ludicrous things like deciding to move a piece of furniture which has then impacted the lower back which as you know once you've got lower back it's bad enough when you're younger but when you're 85 trying to shift a lower back it's more problematic so there are one or two things impacting now.

12:18Are you good at being a nurse? I was going to say kind of a caring wife in the physical sense I'm quite impatient I'll be honest I'm very much of the, come on get on with it now, take a couple of paracetamol and get on with it but you're going to have to, your patients will be tested a little bit more won't it? Absolutely absolutely but is that something you think about when you marry somebody I never thought older than you I never thought about it I literally met Michael and we hit it off pretty much immediately I mean there was a slight false start because he thought I was married and for various reasons I thought he was gay which was not a great start but once we got over that two barriers to success yes we were fine once we went on the double date with um Martin his then client Martin Jarvis and his wife we were fine we were off and running you went as an actress to get representation i did yeah when we met he was looking for a wife i was looking for an agent i think he got the better deal because when he was my agent he never got me any work because he wanted me at home cooking dinner he turned down all sorts gladiator i mean there were films were coming across his path did the work immediately cease to be as important because you'd found your man and your other person and this was a you know this was something I think I was still quite ambitious I think that the turning point for me in terms of things work taking a slight second a back seat was because I had married someone older who had not had children but wanted children I had to get on with it we had a couple of false starts beforehand which was annoying and there was quite took me quite a long time to get pregnant between each one then finally I had Jack and then I said to him because we've had these issues when I stopped breastfeeding maybe at six months we probably need to get on with it little did I know that we were nearly up to six months I was already pregnant so we had two very close together and then I wanted another one I thought we'll get on with it so I had three under four I don't know what your age span is well I've got twins so 16 minutes oh yeah okay that's yeah my mum had our first three there were four of us and she had the first three within three years yes so yeah it's quite tough yeah i mean it's two cots and two high chairs and everyone's in nappies and but then they sort of move as a rump you seem like a very capable woman uh i was from capable stock my mother was very capable my mother had a very um in many ways a sad life because she was an only child and she was orphaned by the time she was eight so her mother died when she was two and her father died when she was eight and she was then immediately packed off to boarding school and lived with a sort of branch of the family that were weirdly for that time a maiden aunt with her mother the mother had dementia and the maiden aunt worked you know she had a career so that hence the boarding school and I think it made her very self-reliant and very you know determined and she had to be she was a survivor and she very much instilled that in all of us.

15:21Getting on with it. Amazing qualities. Was she also able to find, she obviously wanted to be a mum in spite of everything that happened to her. She did. And she wanted lots of children, so she had four. And was she naturally very caring? She was. So she actually had four children over quite a long span of time. And again, back then, she didn't finish university because she married my father and got pregnant immediately, so university was out the window. Then had the rest of us. And then when I when I was about 11, she went back to college and actually qualified and then became a social worker and worked with children and families in the family services.

16:01So she was very caring. So she instilled in you, I think, obviously the capability, but also how to have a family was absolutely. and she'd learnt a lot of that from my father who was one of four and when she met my father she was I think floundering a bit because she was an only child but this was a very strange upbringing and again wartime boarding school in wartime as well and he kind of taught her how to mother because he was a very soft individual too he was a psychologist and very into people and what make people tick and how things work with people and so was Michael obviously he wanted children you said he wanted you to get on with it.

16:42Did he instinctively know how to be a father? I think by the time he had his children, he was less ambitious because he was established in his career. So he had the time and the space to be a good father, in fact, and probably had more patience because he was a bit of an older father and wasn't sort of ploughing the career ladder. Took time out when he needed to act. And slightly more flexible lifestyle, being your own boss, doing what he did. Absolutely. a lot of other professionals. And also, no one was in the office before 10 o 'clock in those days and everyone left at 6. Although there was evening work to be done with clients, going to the theatre and that kind of thing, but it was a bit more flexible.

17:22The family life seems, I mean, we know a lot more about your family life than we do a lot of other people because Jack has used you all as part of his career. Yeah. I mean, he's talked a lot about that, about kind of how he's done that in a way that actually you all seem to go along with very well and especially you and Michael and that has given you an opportunity to have your own platforms. Nepo parents, hence midpoint. I mean, our midpoint, well, Michael's midpoint, very much not a midpoint. It's a sort of exaggerated midpoint. Yes, mine's sort of a midpoint because, you know, we've all had a sort of complete, well, Michael, complete career change being a performer, which he never wanted to be.

18:01He just looked after performers. He didn't want to be front and centre. Exactly, he was very much a backroom boy. Yeah. And then from my perspective, I was a sort of a jobbing actress which meant that I didn't I mean I worked about 10 minutes a year like so many actors and then of course the older you get there's less work and Jack sort of reframed both of us into this whole new world of I mean I hate the words reality TV but I mean it was sort of our lives really being documented on TV on screens and does he take enormous credit then for your kind of latter life renaissance he has named us the Nepo parents we are the Nepo parents we are very much on those coattails but loving it and now you've got the time as well because your kids are grown up and established you've got the time to enjoy this work and feel that you can throw yourself into stuff and I feel that you know my career never really got going because of you know having the three children very quickly and then I was just forgot to say too that my reframe on all of that was that I was very ill after I had molly so I had one two and then I was seriously ill when I had molly there was a flu epidemic I got flu I then got double pneumonia I then got fluorsy I was very sick after I had her and that made me just slightly think I mean there were moments when I thought I wasn't going to survive it how old was she at this point she was I mean like weeks months rather so you weren't able to immediately no she was born end of October and I got this kind of begin sort of mid-November I remember um Nigel Havers got married at the very end of that year and I couldn't go to the wedding because I didn't feel up to it but I did go to the evening thing and that was November but I part of the problem was that I was given the wrong antibiotic and the wrong dose of the antibiotic I've never I never quite got to the bottom of why but I remember talking to my brother and his wife both of whom were GPs at the time and my brother said you really need to go back to the doctor and get this sorted out because you're on the wrong antibiotic and the wrong dose so i went back but it meant that the pneumonia had really taken a grip has that left a scar i then had asthma for many years but actually that's that's calmed down it's it's it's all fine now because we're talking you know 35 years ago but it did make me think if i survived this because there were moments you know when i would say to michael in an evening i would say will you tell the children what i was like and he said don't be ridiculous you know so you're going to be fine you know and did that reframe your life a little bit then it did it just made me think you know i need to try and have a balance between work life and not be quite so ambitious and so it's hard for actresses very hard because of that isn't i've got friends who've been in the business and it's definitely the female part of the partnership but they're both actors that has taken the hit with the career it's it's very difficult and i think the older you get as an actress the less work there is and that's just a sad reality how did you balance off the fact that you'd get rejections or you go for an audition you never hit back or you'd you know where did you learn to put that in its perspective in one place and allow yourself to partly because i felt that i had a job as a mother as well that was a job definitely that helped it's interesting because the business has changed exponentially and i have many friends who are agents who would say you know they're seriously thinking of maybe giving it up because in the old days as an actress you would get in a room with a casting director and a director or you know there would be an audition process where you are actually in a room and you can get a feel for each other having a relationship now done on the phone the whole thing you self-tape and you send it off if you're lucky you might get some notes back to redo it if not you never hear another thing and there's no feedback and the agents everything's done on email i just don't whereas it was a real in-person business it was a creative industry and i don't understand how you can be creative when you're using tech to do it all a lot of my actress friends say the same thing and actor friends say the same thing and it's the it's the not hearing back it feels so rude i know just not acknowledge yeah and not have that ability if the director's there to say can you just do it with a slightly more jovial tone.

22:12Can you just give me a little bit more anger in that? Or why did you do it like that? And then you get to explain your interpretation. They say, could you just try it this way? And let alone what AI is going to do, of course, to the industry. So it feels like you might have had the best years, you and Michael, in that industry. I think we probably did. I mean, it was also a very social industry in those days, you know, because drink was taken on occasions. You could get something to eat after a show. I mean there was a whole trade and most restaurateurs nowadays will tell you that there's no trade after the theatre whereas in the old days you'd go to the Wolseley say or the Ivy and it would be ram packed after the theatre.

22:50All the clubs down here were in Soho as well. Because you'd have pre-dinner or post-dinner tables. Even people going to see you, let alone the actors and the actresses in the plays. When you think about it now, it's a whole different landscape. People just don't go out that late anymore. No, eat before, see the show. People make a virtue of having a table at six o 'clock. They get very excited, even if they haven't got to go to the theatre afterwards. So they can be home in bed for ten. What's happened to us? So you look back on that life, it must feel... It's very different. And because of this weekend, we've looked back quite substantially.

23:27Because I actually posted on my Instagram feed, Michael's Instagram feed, I posted some of the footage from our wedding in 1986, which was, my brother bless him, quite rudimentary. because video cameras were a very, very new thing. And the only reason we had one was that Richard Griffiths, the most wonderful actor of all time, who we love, who was Jack's godfather, had done a film abroad. I think he was in Hong Kong doing a film with Madonna and Sean Penn. And as a wedding present, he brought back for us a video camera. Wow. Which was a great big thing that you put on your shoulder with a huge battery pack.

24:02And I said to my brother, could you video just bits of our wedding? and I threw it at him. He said, well, how does it work? I said, well, there's an instruction book, Andrew. Get on with it. Anyway, so I've got this amazing footage. And you've had it transferred now. And I've had it transferred, so it's in the cloud. And I did a sort of montage of Nigel Hay, that's our best man, arriving late. But they're moving in normal, not like cine film where people moved like this. No, no, it's actually, yeah. So it's actual VT footage. It's just a bit fuzzy. Well, we had these huge master tapes from our wedding which went missing.

24:34I watched them only once. So you don't have them? No, I've been through everything. I've gone through boxes and boxes. Boxes, I thought they were in, VHS boxes, and they've disappeared. And they've got to be somewhere. Yeah. All I can think is maybe accidentally they've got taken to a charity shop or something. And somebody somewhere is going, who are these people? Why is Gabby Nolan in a wedding dress? Love it. And the guy who was our cameraman, was a cameraman from Sky who I'd worked with. And he'd just been on the British and Irish lines tour to do. there was a famous kind of documentary made of the 97 tour and then they decided to do the same thing again four years later when he got back his wife had left him a dear john letter and it was the day after that he was due to come up to scotland to film our wedding so he came up full of sadness and feeling like a wedding yeah and so there were quite a lot of you know in love actually where you know the video at the wedding is kind of like going kind of um focusing way too much on Kira.

25:32There were bits where he just goes off to a piece of heather in the distance and you can hear him almost crying. It's quite the piece but unfortunately I haven't got it. So let's talk a little bit about the changing, not just your professional life but as you're entering another change in life. Big change, yeah. With these four little people who've suddenly arrived. I imagine it's just the most joyous thing. It is joyous but interestingly I find it I find the responsibility of somebody else's children albeit that they're connected to me I find it overwhelming you know if I've got you know any of them overnight or for the weekend or when I had the two little girls that I had Peggy and Elsie for the weekend I find it overwhelming the the responsibility of looking after your children's children I love it are you good at following their rules um fortunately my daughter is quite relaxed and her husband quite relaxed so and Peggy is quite a character as indeed is her son Woody so I'm quite a strict grandmother, I do insist on manners very big on that as is Michael so you know there's a lot of I'm not hearing the right word here I need the P word, I'm not hearing it and then what do we say?

26:46We say thank you well done. How old are they? So Peggy's five Woody is two and a half, nearly three, Elsie's two and a half and then Billy is twelve weeks and Billy's had they've had quite a journey with Billy because he's had dreadful reflux. So I've been doing the odd night overnight for them. Now that again, when you're in a silent house and they're asleep and you're thinking you don't really sleep, you catnap because you think I've got to feed the baby, I've got to be on it. But how lovely that you're getting to spend so much time with them. And they're all quite close to you in proximity.

27:22They are. There's something very special. So having been an actress just tailed off a bit I then retrained as a doula postnatal doula so I did that for 10 years there's something really special particularly with your own children and your daughters-in-law about the middle of the night when it's silent and it's dark and you think we're the only people up in the whole world that moment when they're breastfeeding and you're just there just supporting them and just keeping them company and waiting to take the baby back to settle the baby so they they can go back to sleep. It's, it's absolutely magical.

27:56And you clearly have a good relationship, not just obviously with Molly, but with the mothers of, which brings me to why I introduced myself to you. That's, that was what we said before the podcast started. That was going to be the theme of today. The theme. I'm here to reposition mother, mother's in law, because I feel mothers in law get a really bad rap. We all think of, what's he called? Frank, not Frank Spencer. No, Les Dawson. Les Dawson. Les Dawson. With his mother in law jokes. And that pervades to this day. People, it's an easy target, the mother-in-law joke. And don't get me wrong, I realise that, you know, some people do have tricky relationships with their in-laws.

28:34I've just been very lucky. I get on very well with all my in-law children. And actually, I get on really well with all the in-law parents as well, which is a joy. Yeah, that's like bringing new people into your family. Exactly. It's such a lovely thing. Exactly. Especially if you like them, that's even better. It's even better. exactly exactly i'm not saying that we all live in each other's pockets but you know we have a shared human being in common and it's just better if you get on and this would have been i suppose you know many generations ago we would have been very close in terms of you live on this street i live on the street this road and it would have been so easy to pop in and out of each other's lives and oh i'll scoop all the kids up today from school or i'll do you know it's much harder for people now isn't it in terms of geography because people get scattered all over the place and i do think if you're physically close to somebody then being a mother-in-law can be such a helpful role to play can't it just i'll pop in for an hour if you need to go get your hair done yeah you know i'll have a i've got two hours yeah you can go do that and that's how i think you could start to really build trust and a lovely relationship absolutely i mean one has to be there is a line to be trodden with advice which can very easily bleed into criticism or be perceived as criticism and I'm very sensitive to that I think as having worked as a doula for 10 years you know new mums are very vulnerable particularly and you are right in the center of somebody a time in people's lives when you know they are at their most vulnerable so you have to be quite careful and you know I respect that I offer advice I would never say this is what you should be doing I will always say have you thought about maybe do they come to you now for advice I think they do because of my 10 years of experience and having brought them up i'm not saying that i'm the sage and that i don't know it all and and things change of course you know i mean in my day i put jack to sleep on his tummy which of course that changed at the time and we had the back to sleep campaign thanks to ann diamond and that has of course cut cut death substantially so of course you know things do change um and in terms of i remember when ruby and lois were born this is 20 coming up 21 years ago it was the contented little baby book that was the all the rage at the time yeah um gina gina ford was the yes she was quite strict and there were and then there was the other end of the spectrum i was sent two books from two different people one was the gina ford and one was called the continuum concept i know the continuum concept yes i have friends who did that have been more different yes and i sat there full of hormones with two tiny babies thinking what and then realizing somewhere in the middle it is where we need to be yeah i've always been a middle ground person always always always i've always taken the middle quote you know it's middle ground and it and it's about you know taking bits of things and melding it together i feel i remember trying to have a routine with them because i thought with two i need to have some idea of when they're going to get fed and you know and going to my parents house and they're about six weeks old and my mom is a mother of four and um and my dad was there and um she said and I said I'm just going to go put the babies down and my dad said oh this is lovely you can have an evening because they go to bed when you were little you guys were just up all the time and my mum looked horrified because basically he just criticised and she said well I kind of liked free range children so I could see at this point I realised like you say both sides have got to respect that there are different experiences and that's the advice I give to my children is that particularly with little ones particularly the two's three year olds I said, even if you don't agree in front of them, you have to be consistent and you take it up with them later.

32:17So one thing Michael always did is he always backed me up. He might say to me later, don't think you made the right decision there. Then we would talk about it. You're singing from our hymn sheet. You literally have to be consistent. And you can go and kind of argue it out behind closed doors. And then obviously we're right. But later on, a few hours later, but they need to see that unification, don't they? They do. otherwise they can learn that you can play each other off yes and very very early doors they can yeah that as well so it's a role you've it sounds like the the dueling experience as well you have taken to very naturally it's become a big part of your i love them i love and i love being slightly um outrageous with them as well so peggy who's very into dressing up and that and to a degree elsie she's she's definitely peggy and elsie very much joined at the hip on that one um you know i I love buying them outrageous clothing and sequins are involved.

33:12Of course they are again. Although of course, you know, Roxy being a model, Elsie is the best dressed child in town. But, you know, Peggy spends our whole, we had a bit of a Mexican standoff the other day because I'd said I'd buy them, they love dressing up. And I took them to the sort of dressing up shop near us in Putney. And she really, really wanted this yet another princess dress. And I said, I'm really sorry. ID Tech is more than just the original and most trusted tech camp for kids ages 7 to 17. ID Tech is where kids find their people. The engineering and creating people. The fire-breathing, shell-spinning BattleBots people.

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34:17Pegs, they just don't have it in your size. They've only got a nine-year-old. It's going to be too big for you. Let's find something else. Anyway, we then wandered through the shop and there was nothing really there. And then I came across this Cleopatra outfit. I said, Peggy, I have found the outfit for you. And she looked at it and she went... it's all right, but I mean, who is Claire? What is Claire Partridge? I said, look, I mean, you're talking about princesses. This woman was a queen. I sold it to her in the end and back she came and she put it on and had a little snake headband. Amazing.

34:51She loved it. And then you can go back and watch some kind of Egyptian movie. Exactly. Introducing to Elizabeth Taylor. I said, Elizabeth Taylor, one of the most beautiful women in the world, was Claire Partridge. How gorgeous to have that connection at such a young age because they will grow up understanding that this is a you know this this is a big blended kind of and i mean that in the sense of you know you are important to them and you give them something that maybe their parents don't give them and their parents equally can rely on you to live that as well and that trust with the the other partners that are not your children is vital in that and and not playing off other you know you see that sometimes in families don't you where there's one one section don't get on as well with this one they feel that this one has more attention or this one gets more hours so how do you make sure that well that is a slight problem because of course jack and roxy live a little bit further away than us so geographically it's it you know i have to sort of as it were make a plan with them yeah whereas with molly and barney they're both around the corner so it's like oh could you pop over for half an hour well i can do that with jack and roxy but it just needs a bit more notice you know popping to notting hill is not easy from putney because it could take me an hour to get there so it's just diarizing it's It's diarising, and I do try to tap in every week with them and say, right, when's a good time to come and see Al Spelz?

36:09And it does make me think as well. I mean, sometimes it's a lifestyle, a life choice. You can't always determine these things. But it was one of the reasons why, well, Kenny was keen to start having children a bit younger because he's not younger, but we were in our 20s when we started because we tried to start, because his dad was quite old when he'd had him, and he always felt like, you know, he would like his dad was 50 when he had him. Oh, right, okay. So we're into Michael Whitehall territory. Yeah, and then his dad ended up dying when he was 19. So he was always, I think he had this fear of like missing out on his children's lives.

36:40But equally, I was quite excited because even at that age, before I'd had my own children, I wanted to be a grandma who could do stuff. And that's my physical motivation. You know, I work out. I'm not working out right now because I want to get in these trousers. I'm working out because I want to be able to physically do things with my grandchildren. Well, that's why I now work out. So I also had, so I played hockey up until the age of 57. Wow. I played for the Bank of England ladies. Second eleven is where I ended up. I was in the first eleven. I ended up in the second eleven and I had a horrible knee injury in about twenty eighteen.

37:13I got a torn meniscus in my knee. It was a really bad tear. And I've got a friend who's a really, really top, top sports knee surgeon. And he said he looked at the scans and he said. Chances are, if I go in there, I'm going to take it out and then your bone on bone. And so if you can live with it, if you can strengthen the knee and live with it, that's going to be better for you. But it has put paid to my running situation. So what do you do? So I do a lot of weights. I've got an amazing new PT. And the new PT, that's an interesting story because I went to boarding school when I was 12. I went to boarding school because my mother was busy re-qualifying.

37:50So I went into a state boarding school, which is one of those weird hybrids that nobody ever knows about. so it's a state school but it has a boarding house attached to it well in fact they actually had quite a big boarding department, it was down in Kent so off I went and I died and gone to heaven because there was a lot of sport, a lot of drama, a lot of music just threw yourself into all the extracurricular yeah exactly but I was in a dormitory of 12 girls at that point, two of whom well one died just after we left school she was killed in a car crash and then one we've lost touch with but the ten of us have remained friends since 1973 that's and we have obviously now it's all done on whatsapp yeah anyway very sadly one of them died just before christmas and i had the great good fortune to be i went i was going down to see my brother and i popped in on her for the afternoon and as it turned out this was literally just a week before she died we had an afternoon together where we went through the group talked about everyone talked about their strengths their weaknesses He says, we had a really fabulous afternoon.

38:56But one of the things that I did do is that her son has opened a gym in Putney. Because when his mum was taken ill, he thought, I want her to see me have my business. He's in his early 30s. And he thought, rather than buying a house, I'm going to get my business up and running so mum can see it. So I said to her when he first did it, I said, don't you worry about Harry. I'm going to go and use his gym in Putney. Weirdly, he'd opened it in Putney. so I went to use his gym and he is the most amazing trainer I've ever had PT he's amazing he's so good and he's now got me on a whole new program so I do a lot of weights I do a lot of mobility I do a lot of body weight stuff which I mean who knew that you don't actually need weight yeah yeah he's amazing and he's obviously younger guy yeah what I love about that is that he's educated himself about what to do with a woman of your age it's not just all about kind of 25 year on Instagram fitness.

39:51No, absolutely. For a younger person. And that's so smart because actually, you know, it's more likely you're going to be able to have more PT sessions when you're a little bit older. His oldest client is a woman of 84. Wow. Beryl. Isn't that amazing? Yeah. One of my accounts that I follow on Instagram is a woman who is in her 70s now who only started weights in her 60s and she was quite overweight before she was an American woman. Yeah. I get served all her stuff because I've obviously looked at too many of her accounts but it's so inspiring she's dramatically changed yeah not just her physique she needed to lose weight she was a heavy woman and she looks incredible and she's just so healthy and smiley now compared to the woman that they you know they do a lot of before and afters because her daughter is her trainer and i think the point of this is that you can at any point change things yeah you can it's never too late yeah well i for me losing sport competitive sport the hockey was like a grief because I have always played team sports and I used to love we played in the Surrey League so Saturday was me getting in a car with a load of people going to play a game in some godforsaken corner of Surrey and I absolutely loved it and I it was like a grief and I couldn't do it anymore so I thought okay I need to find something to fill that and what was the age range of the team uh so again we had there's a very uh interesting picture that I took on one of the games we were playing there's a pitch under the west way yeah no white city yeah and it was a it was a slightly wet Saturday afternoon we were playing I can't remember the team that we were playing we were having a bad week because we couldn't get a team out we had eight players and there were four mothers with four daughters and we've got a picture of four mothers with four daughters our back played up until she was 75 she couldn't move much but she had timing people would run towards her and think right I've got this she'd just stick her stick out and get the ball off them Avril she was called she was amazing I know the camaraderie as as well as the physical benefits of playing in a team sport I think is not to be underestimated because it can be quite lonely getting older and looking after grandchildren if you haven't got a community yeah you know you don't want to be just at home with the children and not with other other adults but if we're talking specifically about this period of life do you so absolutely I think you've got to be out there doing stuff whatever it may be and in fact harry at his gym in putney the endeavor collective so named because he does a lot of class work so now i do one pt session on my own and i do a class because he runs classes throughout the day so i never know who's going to be there because it's just a you know sign up on the day and do it and it's different again it's different exercises and i go off and do one of those classes at sort of midday i'll do one and is Michael into uh no not so much big on exercise no not so much no no it's amazing it's your thing yeah but you're doing all the right things and food wise and diet has that changed I had to change Michael's diet because when I met him he basically uh lived off what what used to be known as the bung in the ovens and if you remember to take the cardboard wrapper off it that was always about a plus that was when you met that was when we met I'd soon changed that He had one or two, shall we say, dietary issues.

43:04I said, that's because you don't eat any vegetables or any fruit. You're going to change that. So we eat quite healthily, actually. And have your kids adopted the cooking way? God, they are far better than I am. I mean, they are amazing. They're very adventurous, particularly the two boys who are real foodies. Yeah. They love cooking and they love cooking. I mean, at Christmas, they decided for Boxing Day, they were going to do omelette Arnold Bennett do you know about omelette Arnold Bennett it's basically an omelette with smoked haddock in it and then it's got a like a keggewe well it's more like an omelette with a bechamel sauce I think it's not bechamel maybe a hollandaise on the top I mean this was a morning's production every single implement used they weren't happy with my oven Jack sat there with the phone with the torch on because he couldn't see it properly it was delicious don't get me wrong but it was an operation production yeah obviously you know jack's career has been phenomenally successful when he started out and he he told you this is what he wanted to do or was it always inevitable to you that he was i think it was well the problem was because michael was an agent his mantra to the to the children was don't be an actor don't be an actor don't be an actor because as you so rightly said earlier in this conversation there is a lot of rejection there's a lot of actors that never work and there's a lot of actors that get to be very successful and then they're striving to stay there which is a pressure all of its own so Jack was sort of fed this don't be an actor he was then taken to the Edinburgh Festival by a friend of his mother aged 16, 17 and I remember him calling us and saying oh my god I've found my spiritual home I literally I just didn't even know this existed came back wrote a sketch show with a couple of mates and then went up to Edinburgh the following year to perform it as he left having done his A-levels and who knew he was clearly quite talented and he got spotted and that was it I mean we had nothing to do with any of this success at all because apart from anything else it was a completely different end of the business to us but was it inevitable that He had a performing talent or he had something in him.

45:22Well, he was very artistic. He was he's an amazing artist. And we thought he was going to go down that route. He did a foundation course, which he then actually left because of the comedy career. But we thought he was going to go to art school because his painting and drawing is spectacular. So he's clearly creative. And obviously writes all of his shows as well. Yes. I mean, the spelling is interesting. But he doesn't have to get that marked. exactly so there's a lot of that going on um did you feel protective though as well i do you know what i i i'm a great believer my parents did the same for me because i said i want to be an actress and most of the people at the school i was at which was as i said a state boarding school it was a technica grammar school so it was it was a competitive entry were horrified that i didn't want to go to university you know you've you've done all this you've done all this you've got to go to university i said i don't want to go to university i want to go to drama school so i'm a great believer in people following their dreams and having the opportunity to do that jack did in fact go to university to do history of art yeah he went to manchester for a year yeah yeah and then of course the comedy career really took off to the point where did that decision when he told you i'm just i've got to leave or was it inevitable that he was going to have to leave because of he i think it was sort of inevitable he picked up an agent quite a six you know quite a big agent by then i think michael realized that this was not the same as an acting career because you can generate your own work because you're writing your own work and there's clubs everywhere etc and I had said to him when he um got his a-level results he tried for Cambridge because he was interested in footlights of course by then I think they smelt that there was no work going to be done and he was only really going to the foot it's quite smart there so I said to him because he had the choice of um Kings London or Manchester I said Jack if you really want to be a comedian go north because i spent my very early career touring so you name the theater i've probably played it and um because i did about three years so i said go north because there's a whole world up there that you should know about because if you want to do comedy that's your training and he said okay i'll go to manchester then and he spent his year in manchester when all his mates were going out to get lit he would say i'll join you later i'm just going to go to Liverpool or Bolton or Leeds or do a quick gig and then I'll come back.

47:47So he, I mean, that posh voice in Liverpool on a Saturday night, if you can survive that where everyone thinks they're a better comic than you are, you can survive anything. But what he's done by going north as well, which was great advice, as well as learning about a whole world that he wouldn't have been exposed to because his life was predominantly in the south, that was such a great learning ground because those kind of comedy clubs of the north are going to be a totally different experience to him aren't they and probably honed that comedy that he's known for in terms of pointing and shining a light on his privilege instead of trying to morph into something he wasn't yeah absolutely and there was a moment at the very very beginning of his career when he used to come out and say oh yeah what's that what and michael said what is that voice and he said well i can't survive with a posh voice and michael said you have to be true to yourself otherwise do not do not saddle yourself with that and so he took that so he takes advice from michael he does but they but not representing him at the beginning did michael find that hard at all but no i think he felt that it was very much a landscape that wasn't his landscape and allowed him to still be his father absolutely absolutely and i think that's important that he was he's very and even now he will send scripts to michael and say can you ever look at it oh you know michael may say actually i don't like this at all and jack will disregard that and go and do it or he may say okay yep fair enough but at least there is another there's another eye on things that he's doing which is nice it's albeit an older eye but it's it's a sage eye on it yeah and that i think is as how you protect that that father relationship because you're obviously the it feels like the center of this family and kind of bring people together and make sure that it's it keeps working what's michael's role would you say that michael's world is very i mean he's quite old-fashioned he's quite sort of patriarchal you know he is very much sits at the head of the family i mean for instance with the grandchildren who he adores got about sort of 20 minute 20 minute windows are just what he needs you know any more than that and he'll take himself off does it can you see a softness that maybe he didn't believe yeah i've got a picture this was yesterday so we've got the oldest member of the family and the youngest member of the family and i think you can tell just by the picture he's he's I mean in the most beautiful way pride isn't it absolutely gorgeous what a beautiful baby doesn't look colicky there well it's refluxy that means the milk comes back up a little bit of reflux it's not pleasant is it but he is there's a definite soft well you I think are definitely reframing the in-law so yes in-laws The other mother's in-law, fantastic.

50:37And I like to think that I'm doing okay as a mother-in-law. Happy to be the butt of jokes. But I think that we should all be kinder to our mother's in-law. Yeah. That's my feeling. Yeah, and I think it's very, I think there's different dynamics with girls and guys as well, isn't there? Very different. Very, very different. I remember when I had my children, because obviously my brothers had had children before me. my mother said oh at last some children i can get my hands on because there is very much there is a big difference between you know sons children and daughters children but fortunately i have two very generous daughters-in-law who are very happy to share i think my my takeaway from all of this in so many things in life and i like to think this is what i've done is it takes a village as you all so rightly said be that the girls i shared a dormitory with be it the grandchildren be it my own children be it just friends i think it does take a village yeah and we need to look out for each other it's much more enjoyable to do it with a with a co-collaborative yeah and it doesn't matter who those people are that they might not be blood relatives it might be somebody that you've met who becomes very important to you that helps you along the way and you'll help them i i totally agree with you i had a very good friend called jane and she's now the mother of four at the time she was mother of two when I had Reuben and Lois and she was one of those incredibly natural mothers or at least maybe she just read all the books and just seemed to be a really natural mother yeah but I knew she'd have an answer for everything so I'd ring up and say Reuben hasn't pooed for three days or you know and when I wrote my memoir I wrote about her as a thank you saying that one day um I'll write a book called Just Ask Jane because I love everything was like yeah I remember coming home one night she'd insisted that Kenny and I go out for dinner and she was gonna even even though she had two children of her own, she was going to come round and babysit with her husband.

52:24And I came in and she said, I hope you don't mind. She said, well, I think the tog in their sleep suits my, well, she thought it was a bit too light and that's when they were waking up. And she said, well, they just, yeah. And I said, I don't mind. I'm thrilled. Yeah, and I think that's the thing as well, isn't it? That people sometimes think that you're overstepping, you know, am I going to overstep the boundary? But actually, all we want is a bit more sleep to make sure they're feeding and sleep. Yeah, and I think that those kinds of friends are invaluable. And mothers-in-law are invaluable.

52:53I had an amazing sister-in-law too who's a doctor. She was a GP, married to my brother, GP. And she had a baby four months before I did. So I just basically did what she did. And I would ask her everything. And now I have, she now has produced two doctors who are married to doctors. Wow. And have children. Wow. So we now have a WhatsApp group, which is called Baby Matters. And I put, everybody I know who has a baby, I put them on this WhatsApp group. And they ask the doctors. And they're fine with that. It's an online village. Yeah, they're sweet. Yeah. And they pile in. One of them is actually a colorectal surgeon.

53:27She's got two children married to my nephew, who's a GP. And occasionally he'll chip in and say, I think. But also, going back to what you were saying before about sometimes geographically, it's not possible to have these relationships virtually. This is the beauty of technology, that you can have those kinds of groups, can't you, and feel connected. Yeah, we would have been living in the same streets as our mothers, our sisters, our aunts, cousins. they all would have been accessible and we don't have that now that's why i worked as a postnatal doula because so many of my clients that i had did not have a mother not some of them their mothers had died but a lot of them the mothers were working because we all have careers now and that is a bit of a pinch point for me now that you know somebody will say can you do this again no i'm doing recording the podcast with your father i can't so is the wittering white horse wittering white horse is is that does that go in seasons it goes in 15 yeah so we do 15 episodes and 15 bonus episodes and then we have a little break to live a bit of life and then start again and you start with every episode with a with a theme that you think or does it just tangentially emails come in the night before from the producer who doesn't like me to over prepare but it's basically us wittering about our life so it's it's whatever's happened that week it's brilliant and what a great way to get you get your content michael comes alive too when he's in front of that microphone which is i think that's what's keeping him you know engaged and engaging well that's that's also so important which is something that you clearly are as well um i feel like i've had so much of your time in a week that is huge in your family's calendar and the wedding the wedding of the year the wedding of the century is coming up this weekend um and of course we all know um i think it was pretty much live filmed his uh stag do it was pretty much yeah yeah that's out the way which is good.

55:12I did the hen do. Did you? Where was the hen do? I mean, that was not a thing in my day. We didn't, you know, you were lucky to go. Where did you go? We went to a karaoke bar in Drury Lane. Who knew there was such a thing underneath the new London theatre full of hen do's all trying to sing. And was it fun? Rather badly. It was great fun. And then we went to Magic Mike. Ah, of course we did. Yes. How many of you were there? I think there was probably about 30 of us organised by Roxy's sister. Brilliant. It was a brilliant night. oh that's lovely yeah and nice to do it in one place like this yeah i don't know if they're still going on these huge trips when i was getting married the hen do's started to go a bit crazy i mean yeah my children seem to be away a lot either on a hen do stag do or the wedding the destination wedding you know it's expensive well these grandchildren will keep coming to stay while these yeah it is expensive it is i just want to do what say one more thing too which is very important because I did my research before I listened to various of your episodes one of which was Tom Parker Bowles I just want to say one word well two words three words actually because it's so literally I almost dropped the phone when I was listening to it butterscotch angel delight because I referenced it the other day to Mark Wogan on the podcast did you he said what's your guilty pleasure from your childhood and I said butterscotch angel delight with a flake crumbled into it yeah and that was obviously referenced by Tom yeah and we talked about um then we went off piste and talked about Blumange and all sorts but those yeah they were in the packets yes and very easy I think can you even get those packets you can you can I'm here to tell you that Molly and I had a moment the other day do you still do you still go Molly and I actually bought one the other day it was actually really synthetic it's quite synthetic and toxic but they didn't at the Thai tastes like that.

56:57No, it tasted delicious. Blumange, I quite like Blumange. I make a Blumange now, which is essentially corn flour with a bit of flavouring in it. It used to be a standard school dessert. Yeah, Blumange. Blumange, didn't it? Yeah. With jelly. Butterscotch angel delight. Maybe that will be on the menu for the wedding non-breakfast at the weekend. Who knows? Who knows? I'm pretty sure it won't. But it'll be an amazing event. And I'm sure it really shed a few tears. Do you know what? When Molly got married, being my only daughter, I thought I'm going to be a mess. But do you know what? I didn't cry because I was so happy.

57:32The whole day was just joyous. And I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And I was so happy for her. Yeah. That I didn't cry. Well, let's see what. The only time I cried is when I'm not going to say who, but she knows who she is. Vomited all over the marquee. Oh. Very unexpectedly. So I had to spend quite a lot of time clearing that up. I take it that wasn't a stomach bug. It wasn't. No. No, somebody might have gone overboard. Her husband said, oh, I've never seen her like this. I said, no, neither have I. Somebody you know quite well. It was, yeah. And then I had to spend, because we had the recovery lunch in the Marquis the following morning.

58:08This was quite late on. And I thought, oh, no, you can't have that. You know, the sort of caterers and everything had disappeared. So I had to deal with that. No, not fun. So I got to the after party quite late. And I hope the dress goes down very well. I'm sure it will. Thank you very much. Red sequins are involved. Ruby sequins are involved. Does the weather play a part in whether or not you need to? Do you know what? I have not dared look at the weather forecast. I'm just going with it. I think if you have a wedding at this time of year, you can expect anything. My birthday's in April. It can be 75 degrees or it can be 2 and howling it out.

58:40So the morning that we got married, April the 12th, i.e. yesterday, it snowed. I'd picked a yellow theme because my parents' house was full of daffodils and I'd got a yellow and white marquee. Not one daffodil was out. it snowed the morning of the wedding to the point that I had to ring the marquee company and say we need heaters so they then arrived with those big jet heaters because it was so cold but 40 years on we live to tell the tale absolutely and the warmth and love from your marriage has created a wonderful family so congratulations on that and thank you it was fate when we ended up at that event together and actually I just also wanted to say I know they sponsor your podcast the Madison and loving the Madison.

59:24Yeah, it's great, isn't it? What a lovely lunch to launch it as well, wasn't it? Gorgeous, yeah. But it is lovely, isn't it? I think Michelle Pfeiffer is stunning. And it's so nice to see. She's beautiful anyway, but to see an older woman carrying a show like that, I think it's amazing. But also, there's a lot of themes going on in that show. Yeah, which I think, if you haven't, you might have heard that it is advertising on the podcast, but if you haven't watched it, definitely go. It's stunning, yeah. an extra advert for the Madison hello thank you so much Hilary I'm not sure that we've covered the theme of the podcast no I think we have late midpoint I think this is an area that we haven't really dug into very often so I'm delighted when you said that to me I thought yes let's do it do you still have a mother-in-law?

1:00:15I do my mum's 75 but my mother-in-law is 94 so they're very different but she still comes down and has Christmas with us and she still goes out for a two mile walk every day with her dog my kind of woman so she's been a very much big part of our lives even though she lives in Scotland she might be listening she's a very good mother she's a wonderful mother thank you so much for having me and the Wittering Whitehalls if you need advice it will not surprise you to learn that my advice and Michael's advice very different. There's something for everyone there. There is. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

1:01:21Mind shows that talk about health and fitness. Booking sponsorships through their platform was a breeze. And just like that, my app was in their ears during their morning run. Sounds like a smart move, Russell. How's business looking now? Sweat is pouring, and so are the installs. Spread the word about your business with podcast ads on Acast. Start today at go.acast.com slash advertise.