Patricia Hodge

We have a really wonderful Rosebud for you today, with the great actress, Patricia Hodge. In this conversation, Patricia talks to Gyles about her childhood, spent in the biggest hotel in Grimsby, observing the comings and goings of the guests, the local dockers and fishermen, and the occasional glimpses of glamour and celebrity that passed through the town. She talks about the bold and inventive move which led to her being noticed as a performer at school, and got her started in school plays. She talks about training as an actor at LAMDA, about what she looks for in a co-star, and about her love of Julie Andrews. She talks about friendship, and her long marriage. Patricia is one of the best, most talented, and most stylish actors working in Britain today and we think you'll agree that this conversation encapsulates some of her real class, intelligence and wisdom. Our huge thanks to Patricia Hodge for her company, energy and time. Enjoy this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:11Speaker 02

  You must remember this. A kiss is just a kiss. But Rosebud, well, that's really satisfying. That lasts. I mean, a kiss, it comes, it goes, and who knows where it leads. But Rosebud, well, I hope you know, is going to lead to an interesting hour with an unusual person who has a remarkable story to tell. Today's no exception. Cue the music.

• 1:55Speaker 02

  Hello again. This is Gyles Brandreth here again with another very special guest. Yes, again, because this is Rosebud. And we like to introduce you to people whose faces and names may be familiar, but about whom you don't know maybe as much as you would like. Well, the person I'm introducing today is one of my favorite people. I've known her for a very long time, and I love her very much. She's a brilliant actress. It's Patricia Hodge, known on screen. Well, I first, I think, saw her on screen playing Phyllida Erskine Brown in Rumpole of the Bailey in the late 1970s. She went on doing that for years. Then, of course, Jemima Shaw in the Jemima Shaw Investigate series. Then, of course, people loved her

• 2:41Speaker 02

  when she played Penny in Miranda for quite a few years, playing, of course, Miranda Hart's mum. And currently, she is Mrs. Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small. She's a brilliant actress. She's also a wonderful singer. I have heard her sing in cabaret, and I would say she is perhaps the most exciting of her kind cabaret singer that I know. She's a wonderful actress onstage, on screen. She's been a friend of mine for, I suppose, half a century. We first met through my childhood friend, Simon Cadell. They appeared together onstage in a show about Noel Card and Gertrude Lawrence. Anyway, that was then, this is now. I've known her and her family for a long time. I knew and liked very much her husband,

• 3:26Speaker 02

  who died in 2016, 10 years ago, with dementia. She's going to talk about that in this conversation, which I think will surprise you because the beautiful persona of Patricia Hodge that you see on television and on the big screen is one thing. It's always stylish. She is such a perfectionist as an artist. She really knows her craft. She delivers brilliantly. But she's often cast as a certain type of person. She isn't that type of person. She is one of the warmest, but also most interesting people I know. And her telling her story of her unexpected upbringing, her career, and her marriage,

• 4:11Speaker 02

  I think you will find fascinating, entertaining, and ultimately, very moving. This is indeed a special Rosebud with the great Patricia Hodge.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Let's begin with your name. It's Patricia Hodge on the billboard. It's Patricia Ann Hodge. Is it Pat? Is it Trish? Is it Patricia? Is it Hodge? Is it Patricia Ann? What do you like? Why you call these names?

• 4:49Speaker 03

  It's all of the above. Really, what happened? I was called Patricia until I was 10. And then I went to the grammar school, and from day one, they called me Pat, and I thought it was rather grown up. And then I grew out of being called Pat because Pat Hodge is not the best sound in the world. It has a lack of fluency. So then, when I went to drama school, I was known as Trish from day one. And to complicate it even more, there are people that also call me Trisha. Then, when I was phoning people, I didn't know what they knew me as. So I started to say, oh, it's Hodge. And so a lot of people call me Hodge. But even that, there's Hodgelet, there's Hodgey. Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  I quite like Hodgelet. Yeah. It may be. We'll begin with Patricia.

• 5:38Speaker 03

  I think that's the safe one.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, but then we're getting a bit firm. It'll be Hodge. And then when we're getting cheeky, it'll be Hodgelet. The Ann? Where does that come from?

• 5:47Speaker 03

  Oh, just because, you know, my parents. That's the sort of middle name that you gave people in 1946.

• 5:53Speaker 02

  And 1946 is the year. My gosh, we're celebrating a special birthday. So it is.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  A bit later in the year, Giles, not just yet.

• 6:01Speaker 02

  The 20th of September.

• 6:02Speaker 03

  29th.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  29th of September, 1946.

• 6:07Speaker 03

  That's right. Micklemus Day.

• 6:08Speaker 02

  Perfect. That's when you were born. But what I want to know, Patricia, is what is your very first memory?

• 6:17Speaker 03

  That's a fairly easy one. I would take you back to a large red brick house. It was a large Victorian house in St. Peters Avenue in Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire, which, after the war, my father and my mother's sister's husband, so my uncle, were both demobbed from the Royal Air Force and looked and didn't know what to do. And my very wise grandfather, who I never knew because he died the year before I was born, but he said, people will always need to eat and drink. And so they bought this old house for flumpens and converted it themselves into a hotel, small hotel.

• 7:02Speaker 03

  And my first, my earliest memory of being in that hotel and being in my cot in my parents' room. I never had my own room there because there was no, there was no space. And hearing, "Put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon", which was the fashionable song of the time.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  How does it go? 1946, this is a famous song?

• 7:24Speaker 03

  Put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon. And my father used to sing it.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  Lovely. So this would be about 1947, 48?

• 7:34Speaker 03

  Well, I doubt 47. It would be 48 slash 49. So I was probably two or two, three, something like that.

• 7:42Speaker 02

  So who are these parents of yours? Give us your father first. Who was he? What was his name? What did he do before the RAF, etc.?

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Well, he was called Eric. He was brought up in Southport. He, I know, left school at 16 and went to evening school to learn a bit more and joined the RAF very young and ended up in Palestine before the war. He was there for about four or five years.

• 8:05Speaker 02

  So when was he born?

• 8:07Speaker 03

  1916.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  Ah.

• 8:10Speaker 03

  And the Royal Air Force became his career. And then, of course, you know, the war happened. But I have many, many photographs of him out in what was then Palestine.

• 8:21Speaker 02

  So he joined as a young boy?

• 8:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Fresh from school, he joined the RAF?

• 8:25Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 8:26Speaker 02

  And that was the making of him, was it?

• 8:28Speaker 03

  Yes. I don't think he had the most illustrious career in the Royal Air Force. No, I don't think he got anything beyond Flight Lieutenant.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  But he, you know, he did war service the whole other way through the war. And that's how he met my mother because he was stationed in Immingham, which is just right by Grimsby and Cleethorpes. And they were, you know, it was a dance. It was one of those.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  What was her name?

• 8:55Speaker 03

  Her name is Marion Phillips.

• 8:58Speaker 03

  Uh, she was the daughter of Percy Phillips and Edith Phillips. And they um were, you know, my grandmother's born in eighteen ninety-three. And they brought up their family in Cleethorpes.

• 9:15Speaker 02

  But your grandparents lived there, you didn't live there.

• 9:17Speaker 03

  No, no, well, I did for a while because my grandmother was on her own for a long time. And when my parents, the, the, the hotel I've just told you about in Cleethorpes, um, they ran that for a few years, but then my uncle decided he wanted to go back into the Royal Air Force. He'd loved force, life in the forces. And my father, instead of buying it off him, which obviously he should have done, actually then went to work for a la- local catering company for a while. And I don't think he enjoyed that very much. And they heard that Hewitt Brothers, who were the local brewers, who owned all the inns and the hotels and everything in the area, were looking for new hotel managers.

• 9:56Speaker 03

  So they applied and they got accepted to train properly, to run bigger places. And I remember them coming to my grandmother's and they said, we've, we've been accepted. The only thing is, we've got to have six months training and we're not allowed to have the children with us. Will you have the children? So we lived there with my grandmother for six months. So, you know, I was doing, um, I was doing that lovely, um, inheritance tracks, the BBC inheritance tracks, not long ago. And my inheritance track, and it, it was a Christmas one, so it was, it was very particular.

• 10:36Speaker 03

  But my inheritance, inheritance track was the Debussy um dolly, no, foray, sorry, the foray dolly. Because that used to introduce Listen With Mother.

• 10:46Speaker 02

  Oh, yes, hum it. I know what you mean.

• 10:54Speaker 03

  That one.

• 10:54Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  And uh every day on her old Bakelite

• 10:59Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 11:00Speaker 03

  radio, I would, I would listen to that. And there was the room in which I listened to it and used to rock my, my doll to it.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  So we're talking about rather a lovely childhood.

• 11:11Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 11:11Speaker 02

  Before we get to the detail of that childhood, your parents, you say, met on the dance floor?

• 11:16Speaker 03

  I think so. They, I think they met at a, you know, it was an RAF, all the, all the lads at the RAF needed entertaining and all the local.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  And how old were they at the time they got together?

• 11:24Speaker 03

  My mother was twenty-three when she got married. My father was twenty-seven. He was four years old.

• 11:30Speaker 02

  And what, what was your mother like as a person? What was her personality?

• 11:35Speaker 03

  She was very vivacious.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 11:39Speaker 03

  Much more than I am, I would say. She was um a looker.

• 11:46Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Uh, she was always very, she was very artistic. She, i- if the war hadn't happened, she would have gone to art school. But because of the war, she couldn't. So she went to work for the telephone exchange and ended up in Chester, funnily enough. That's another place that we, and she was there for quite a, I think she was there for at least a year, if not two during the war.

• 12:12Speaker 02

  Putting calls through.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, putting calls, putting through, exactly. She was a telephone operator. Because, you know, you had to do things for the, the war effort. Um.

• 12:22Speaker 02

  She was glamorous. I imagine at that period, was she somebody who smoked when she was younger?

• 12:26Speaker 03

  Um, yes, she smoked. I mean, I, I knew her as a smoker. Both my parents were. Um, ultimately killed my father. Well, yes, they did, but, well, I think my father probably um leant into being a bit more indulgent. My mother was never, but they, but if you run a hotel, that's, you know.

• 12:47Speaker 02

  But depict her, if you were playing her, what notes would you give to yourself about how to play your mother?

• 12:52Speaker 03

  Oh, God. I think walking into a room and, you know, immediately sort of engaging with everybody, very bright and breezy and very, um, yeah. Very positive, very, very positive.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  And did men have an eye for her? Was she?

• 13:11Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 13:12Speaker 02

  And did that ever a problem for her? Or did she handle it well? Or did she give into it?

• 13:17Speaker 03

  She loved every moment of it. I don't know how my father handled it, but, well, I don't know.

• 13:22Speaker 02

  Was it a bit, well, I mean, be, be serious for a moment. Uh, was it a bit of an issue for her? I mean, for him?

• 13:27Speaker 03

  Well, they were never going to tell me, were they? Um.

• 13:30Speaker 02

  Did you ever observe it?

• 13:34Speaker 03

  I think I knew that there were, um, there, there were probably infidelities that went on, but on both sides, but it's not anything that I ever engaged with. And I look back and think, good for them.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  But overall, were they contented people?

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, well, they, they, they had an enduring, well, forty-four years. But my father died, actually sadly, a bit too early, at the age of seventy-two. But then, you know, he'd, um, he died as a result of a lot of smoking and too much, too much drink, I think.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  I'm really asking, did they do better than rub along together?

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Well, they, they were, they were partners in business, you have to remember that. And I think they did very, very well, if you think about it. And it.

• 14:20Speaker 02

  Running hotels.

• 14:21Speaker 03

  Running, and they, there was, you know, the flagship hotel of, of Grimsby, they got promoted very quickly. Once they'd done this training, I think we had about six months in a, in a hotel that was on the, we call the Cliff Hotel. It doesn't exist now, but uh on the seafront in Cleethorpes. And within six months, they were promoted to the biggest hotel in Grimsby, which is where all the, um, no, any celebrity visiting Grimsby would stay there.

• 14:49Speaker 02

  And Grimsby in those days is an important place.

• 14:52Speaker 03

  It was the biggest, no, the busiest, should I say, the busiest fishing port in the world.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  What? Grimsby was once the busiest fishing port in the world, on planet earth, this was the busiest fishing port.

• 15:04Speaker 03

  That's what I was always told.

• 15:06Speaker 02

  How extraordinary. And your parents managed but did not own?

• 15:09Speaker 03

  No, they didn't own.

• 15:10Speaker 02

  The largest hotel.

• 15:11Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 15:12Speaker 02

  So anyone who came to Grimsby, uh, stayed there.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Stayed at the hotel.

• 15:15Speaker 02

  And so can you name names of the sort of people who were there?

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Well, um, uh, gosh, out of a clutch, um, Katie Boyle, if you remember. There's a lovely story, which I'll tell you about her in a minute. Um, Violet Carson, when, when, when Coronation Street, yes, when Coronation Street had just started. And I always remember going in, and it was the wonder, you know, this, this was where the, the whole world of theatre opened up to me. The wonder of somebody who was so different in real life from what they were on the screen. And she, she was beautifully made up and her hair beautifully coiffed and things. And I, I'd seen, I saw the very first episode of Coronation Street.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  Hundred and fifty years.

• 15:55Speaker 03

  And I even remember some of the lines from it. So it was extraordinary for me to see Ina Sharples sitting there. And she spoke absolutely beautifully like this to me. And she said, you, you enjoy, you enjoy? And I said, yes, yes. She said, now, I'm going to tell you something.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  I don't just wear one hairnet, I wear three. Because otherwise the camera wouldn't be able to pick up that I was wearing, because of course, you know, it was fuzzy old black and white television. And she told me these one or two secrets and I remember being full of awe and wonder um at this whole marvellous thing called theatre and the acting profession. Then we had people like the Manfred Mann, pop group, still with us, and Paul Jones was having it, yes.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  Oh, she was so good looking. He still is pretty good looking.

• 16:44Speaker 03

  And my sister ended, I mean, my sister always boasts about how she ended up sitting on his knee for a while. But there, but then, here's the irony, that of course, many years later, uh, I played the lead in a show called Pippin in the West End, directed by Bob Fosse. And Paul Jones played Pippin and I played his lover in it. And I'll tell you, uh, rewind to Katie Boyle, who, for people that don't know, was a big, very glamorous presenter, wasn't she?

• 17:12Speaker 02

  She was so glamorous. Famously, she presented the Eurovision Song Contest.

• 17:16Speaker 03

  And she spoke about eight languages.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  She did, and she had a pretty lively love life.

• 17:21Speaker 03

  Oh, yes.

• 17:22Speaker 02

  She was remarkable. Eventually married Peter Saunders, the man who owned the Mastrum.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  The Mastrum man.

• 17:26Speaker 02

  And she advertised K M soap.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 17:30Speaker 02

  But she was so beautiful, so glamorous, so delightful.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  So she would always tell the story, man, goodness, I mean, I think if my parents had known, they'd have been very cross. But of course, it was the days when people had autograph books and didn't take selfies. And we knew that she was staying and that unless we got her autograph that morning, that she would have moved out by the time we came back from school. So my sister and I went and knocked on her bedroom door. And this, she opened it, she was in a, you know, what would they would call then a penoir, a negligee, whatever. And she said hello, and we just said, could, could we have your autograph, please? And she obliged. She, she said, of course, which was jolly nice of her. Anyway, cut.

• 18:15Speaker 03

  I was doing, when Michael Codron bought the Vaudeville Theatre from Peter Saunders, I was doing a Michael Frayn play. And of course, Peter and Katie were invited to the first night because it was the first time Peter hadn't opened the and they, you know, it was a courtesy thing, they invited him. And delivered to the stage door was a little, little bowl of African violets with a little note saying, this time I am the devoted fan, from Katie. And honestly, I think it's one of the most moving things that ever happened to me in my life. It was so sweet.

• 18:50Speaker 02

  Very special person. I went to her funeral. And on one side of the church were a whole range of people, all seemed to come from the Philippines. And they did. They were people who'd been her carers in the last fifteen years of her life because she lived a long time and wasn't at all well in her last years. So one half of the church was full of people from the Philippines who'd looked after her. The other half of the church was men, very elegant looking men in their seventies, eighties, nineties. And there was one who was over a hundred. These were Katie's gentlemen admirers. It was fascinating. She was, she was wonderful.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 02

  Let's nail your childhood now, your early childhood. You and a sister, you're the only two children.

• 19:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Your parents who are in business together.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 19:37Speaker 02

  She is the hostess, the glamorous one. Uh, he is more, he's more shy. How do we?

• 19:44Speaker 03

  He was, he was a very, very sweet man, my, my father.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  The staff always adored him because he was very fair, very reasonable. Yes, I think, I think the balance was very good and he was very diligent. And the thing, I, I, you know, we, people say, where, where does work ethic come from? And I think a lot of it comes from your parents. And you have to remember, they worked seven days a week, fifty weeks of the year. Every single day and evening. I think the, probably a Sunday night was the nearest they got to putting their feet up. And when these two weeks that we had as holiday came up, they could not leave the hotel until the stockbrokers had been in and had done a complete stocktake in case, well, well, of course, they, it was, you know, part of the,

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:35Speaker 03

  The, the man.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  Because they were managing the hotel, they weren't owning it. So they were.

• 20:40Speaker 03

  And they had to be, had to be, I mean, you know, you were sort of guilty until proven innocent. That they had to look and see that all the books balanced and unless they did, we were not allowed to leave the premises. So my poor father had this whole thing that he had to go through. I mean, they were lovely. The stocktakers were lovely. It wasn't an unpleasant, but you, you, you could not go until. And we used to sit and wait with the car all loaded up, ready for the holiday. And then he would finally leave the building and get in the car and we'd drive down to Dover and get on the cross channel ferry. And he would drive to wherever we were going because my, my cousins lived abroad for a while. And so we would meet up with them and, you know, wherever.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  Can you remember your first foreign holiday, where you went then?

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Uh, yes, the very first one was to Dinard.

• 21:28Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 21:29Speaker 03

  In Brittany.

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Um, a little hotel there. And I think, I think it's one, we went on something called Silver City Airways that for a short while.

• 21:43Speaker 02

  I remember them.

• 21:44Speaker 03

  Took the car on the plane.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  Oh, I don't remember that.

• 21:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  You went to somewhere like the Lidd and drove on to the aeroplane.

• 21:51Speaker 03

  That's it.

• 21:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, those are the days.

• 21:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Oh, so your childhood.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Ferryfield Airport.

• 21:58Speaker 02

  Ferryfield.

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Now, why do I remember that? That's because we're talking about it.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  So you were brought up in a hotel.

• 22:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:05Speaker 02

  What's it like being a little girl in a hotel?

• 22:10Speaker 03

  Well, of course, it, it gives you, um, uh, it, it gives you a much bigger perspective on life. And I've reflected on this a bit, that because I saw so much of human life there. And, um, we talk about, we talk about the class system in this country. And there it was because the, the hotel had been built during Victorian Albert's reign. And they had come and opened this whole wonderful development in Grimmsby because of the fishing industry. Called, it was the whole, everything was royal. So there was the Victoria Dock, there was the Albert Dock. There were the Royal Victoria Gardens, whatever.

• 22:54Speaker 03

  And this was the Royal Hotel and it was right by the dock gates. So my sister and I had a bedroom.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Which you shared.

• 23:02Speaker 03

  Which, well, we shared some of the time. It depends whether we were getting on or not. There were two bedrooms. Sometimes we said we wanted to be together. Sometimes we wanted to be miles apart. But immediately below was the, the street that went to the dock gates. So every morning we were woken by the dockers in their clogs, scraping their clogs along the pavement to show their passes at the dock gates. And then also what you have to know is down, down below us was a door to something called the Vaults Bar, which was an old Victorian mirrored, you know, that old etched glass or all of that with the big beer pumps and everything. Run by a guy called George who had no teeth, mainly because they'd all been punched out.

• 23:45Speaker 03

  And I think the one time I was, they always kept me well away, you can't go in there. But there was usually blood on the floor. Let's, because the, the skippers used to come off with their pockets stuffed with cash. And they'd fall straight into this Vaults Bar. And I, I mean, it was, you know, it was rough. And then if you came around the front, then there was the lounge bar where ladies used to put their hats on in the evening and would sit and have, um,

• 24:15Speaker 03

  a Dubonnet and lemonade or something. And the plate, there, there were draughts and cards and all of that stuff. And all the drinks had a cherry on top. And then you went upstairs to the cocktail bar where all the, the elite went.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  And you were allowed, you know, to run around the hotel? Did you become?

• 24:35Speaker 03

  Sort of, yes. Yes, no, we knew all the staff. They were very, I mean, I think, I think people were very tolerant of us. We were probably pretty well behaved, except where my cousins stayed. When we used to do this very elaborate game of hide and seek. And it was a huge hotel. So you can imagine, it was the best game.

• 24:54Speaker 02

  Many rooms.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  Oh, oh, yes. I think there were, I think there were about fifty-four bedrooms. And but three, there was a banqueting, there was a whole ballroom.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  So this is a big business.

• 25:04Speaker 03

  A couple of banqueting rooms. It was big. I mean, if I showed you a photograph.

• 25:09Speaker 03

  So it was, must have been built about eighteen forty, I think. And then what had happened during the war, it had been requisitioned by the Navy. And it was called Beaver Three. It was a naval base because of its strategic position. And when my parents took it over, the, the brewery had only just got it back a couple of years before. And it obviously had to spend a lot of money reverting it, but the top floor still hadn't been done when we moved in. And I remember being taken up there and the, the walls were full of scribblings by the naval officers and all kinds of charts and, you know, relics of the war.

• 25:45Speaker 02

  So this is quite, I mean, I very much as a child associated hotels with romance in the broader sense. Agatha Christie, novel set in hotels. I read a book called The Confessions of Felix Krul by Thomas Mann, which has a waiter in a hotel who gets up to all sorts of things. Eloise at the Plaza Hotel in New York. Do you remember those books?

• 26:07Speaker 03

  I didn't.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Oh, they were lovely books. Anyway, the romance of hotel life.

• 26:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 26:11Speaker 02

  Is that where you began to have your romantic theatrical longings? Is that the origin of it?

• 26:17Speaker 03

  Well.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  The ballroom?

• 26:19Speaker 03

  Well, the ballroom was with the, I mean, I used to put on shows in the ballroom. If you've got a space like that and you have this sort of, goodness knows where, you know, this performing thing, but I was always, I was passionate about dancing. I mean, that was my entry really.

• 26:35Speaker 02

  There's no.

• 26:36Speaker 03

  That I went to ballet.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  The grandparents.

• 26:38Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, absolutely. No. My mother and my sis, and her sister were, my grandparents believed in education in all its sense. So they played the piano early. And they did singing and they went to ballet and so on. So of course they passed all, they did all that with us. So I was sent to piano from the age of six. And I had to beg to go to ballet classes, but I started that at the age of nine, I think.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  And they could afford this, even though they didn't own the hotel, they were reasonably, you were comfortable.

• 27:08Speaker 03

  Everything they had, they spent on us.

• 27:11Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  They did. They, I mean, they never owned a house until they retired. And then they could only afford a little sort of two up, two down.

• 27:21Speaker 02

  So their income, though okay.

• 27:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:24Speaker 02

  Was entirely devoted to the girls having.

• 27:26Speaker 03

  And, and my mother always dressed beautifully. She was always very, you know, her artistic, she, and she, she used to, as, that's the other thing. That my father was the one employed. My mother had no employment at all.

• 27:42Speaker 02

  So she was.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  She was there.

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Garde.

• 27:44Speaker 03

  She worked for nothing.

• 27:45Speaker 02

  She was the landlord's wife, as it were.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  She was, she was. But because she was so, she used to do all the flower arrangements. And she'd get paid a little bit for doing all of those. The flowers all over the hotel she did. And she used to, as a, as a sideline also, there was a local department store called Petrol's. And they asked her, in the days before photography became a thing, to do the, the line drawings of the fashion for the next season. And she would, you know, she would do all the, she would be given the outfits and then she'd have to draw them.

• 28:16Speaker 02

  So they were getting the plus one for free?

• 28:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were. They were. Yeah.

• 28:31Speaker 04

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• 30:14Speaker 02

  But they were, they were busy, they were happy, they were getting on with it. You were conscious. Were, were they almost distant to you? Because they were working all the time and you were...

• 30:23Speaker 03

  Well, we were, I mean, I think, yes, I think they were incredibly loving parents. There's no question. We were very secure. But we didn't have the attention from them that a lot of people did. And therefore, in the evenings, we were safe. We were flat at the top of the place. And, but we would be left up there on our own. And of course, there was nobody invigilating homework or anything. And so although we both went to the local grammar school, I think we did not perform to the level that we should have done. Because, you know, I mean, unless you're an extremely bookish child and my head was always, you know, in creating a dance or, you know, doing...

• 31:07Speaker 02

  And why do you think your head was? Why were you using the ballroom to put on your own shows? What, where does this come from?

• 31:14Speaker 03

  I think I was so caught by anything, by drama on television, by... We had a, on the pier in Cleethorpes, for many years, there was something called the East Coast Dance Festival, which was, as I remember, I think it was in August. And I was absolutely, I was addicted to it. I took part in it a lot, but I used to go and, and watch the dancing. And there were, there were all kind, you know, there was everything from soloists to groups to ballet. It was, it was a wonderful thing and I used to do my own marking of it. And I was just, how can one know? It's just, that's the thing that catches you.

• 31:54Speaker 02

  And who as performers were your heroines and heroes at the time that you'd seen on television?

• 31:58Speaker 03

  Well, um, obviously people that ran children's television until a certain age. But the very significant thing that happened, my mother obviously caught, cottoned on to the fact I was caught by performing arts. And she took me with another friend of hers who had a daughter one weekend to London. This is where my mother was so good. She was always, always the next thing, you know, it was always, life was exciting. It was exciting and it would always, there'd be always be something to look forward to. And she was very, you know, we're going to do this. And I, I think that's such a lovely thing to have. And she took, they, they took us to London.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  And London was like the Emerald City to me. And she took us to see a show called Where the Rainbow Ends.

• 32:49Speaker 02

  Oh, at the Scala Theatre.

• 32:51Speaker 03

  Well, it was, then it went to the Victoria Palace when I saw it. And Anton Dolan was in it, playing St. George.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  It included a pageant, really, of all of English history and life.

• 33:02Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 33:03Speaker 02

  It was a celebration of, well, of nationhood.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  Yes, of nationhood, absolutely. With, with this fairy story about these children that lose their parents and find them at the end of the rainbow and their quest.

• 33:16Speaker 02

  So the romance of that

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:18Speaker 02

  just was inside you?

• 33:19Speaker 03

  Was inside. And I looked at the program and it said, children from the Italia Conti Stage School. And I thought, oh, I didn't know the way, I didn't know children could be on stage. I didn't know, oh, so then, then I said, this is where I want to go. I want to go to this school. And my parents both said, don't be so ridiculous. You're not going to go there. You won't learn anything.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  You're in Grimsby and T-Sops anyway.

• 33:37Speaker 03

  Exactly, exactly. What you, you can't go. And so I had to, but that, that was the goal. And so really, my whole quest to go to drama school began with that at the age of 10. But, uh, and then I started to get into school plays, but through my own endeavors. Because again, you know, schools used to judge you on your academic performance. Because I was not performing to the best of my ability, for reasons I've told you. It was always the, the clever ones that were put into school plays. And so a couple of friends of mine and I got together and we wrote a review. And we rehearsed it after school and we got given detentions for staying in school too long.

• 34:19Speaker 03

  However, we wrote this review and it was the early days of commercial television. And we put adverts into it, we took off the adverts. And we asked, went to the headmistress and said, can we perform this to the school at the end of term? She said, certainly not. But she said, what you can do, she said, we'll, we'll let you do it to the next door classroom. So we had to push all the desks back and we did this review to the next door class. But, and these are two people that I have continued to know all my life. The two main English teachers in the school came and stood at the back to watch us. And the next term, our names were on a blackboard saying, please see me.

• 35:01Speaker 03

  And they, they called us in and they said, we thought you'd like to audition for the school play.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  This is very moving.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Well, and therefore I went on knowing them all my life because that's where it changed.

• 35:14Speaker 02

  But it's interesting how a child can create her own life. You and your friends, by doing this review, actually changed and made the rest of your life.

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, certainly did, certainly did for me.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  And the two children coming, the two teachers coming in to support you, them doing that, marvelous.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  Just before we get into all of that, as a little girl, you obviously had the dolls. You loved the dolls. Can you remember your favorite doll, what she was called?

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Yes. It was, there was a new thing that came out called Beauty Skin, which was a doll, they still had the sort of plastic head, but the, the body was covered in this, it was a sort of rubber, but it was very soft and it was, so the baby was squidgy rather than the hard dolls that had existed. And I begged to have one for Christmas. I was longing and I think I'd, that's right. I'd been, when my parents were doing all this learning, I think we were allowed to go and see them one day. And there was a little American girl staying in this particular hotel. It was one that they were doing relief work in. And she had this doll and it had come from America. And they hadn't quite arrived, but anyway, I got this doll for Christmas.

• 36:24Speaker 03

  And I called her Elizabeth because it was the Queen's name. And so I thought, if it's the Queen's name, it must be the most beautiful name in the universe.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  You're a sweet child. I love you very much. Who was your best friend outside of the family, outside of your sister? When you were a little girl?

• 36:45Speaker 03

  Well, my, my cousin, Richard, who had been born only 11 months after me. We were, he, he was, you know, he was the person I cared deepest about. And Rosemary, his sister, we were very close to those two.

• 37:04Speaker 02

  Give me, before we get to you at school, give me your best and worst adventure in hotel life as a girl before you left home in the hotel years.

• 37:14Speaker 03

  Well, apart from, you know, ogling the, um, the celebrities that came. Now, one of those was Billy Cotton, Billy Cotton Band Show.

• 37:24Speaker 02

  Oh, the, the father of Billy Cotton, the television executive.

• 37:28Speaker 03

  His father.

• 37:29Speaker 02

  Wakey, wakey.

• 37:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, ba da dee dee. Somebody stole my girl, wasn't it? That was, that was his signature tune. And he, at the time, was as off these band leaders were. Their lead singer was their girlfriend. And he had, now, what was her name? Doreen, somebody? Anyway, they arrived at the hotel and I remember standing on the upper landing and looking over, there's quite a big staircase. And they were coming up the stairs and she was wearing a fur coat and diamond earrings and all that. And I thought, oh, that's the life for me.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  Because he was an unlikely prospect as a lover, because he was a, a round man with, with owl type glasses.

• 38:06Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  He wasn't necessarily a catch in that department.

• 38:09Speaker 03

  No, well, you know.

• 38:10Speaker 02

  But he had a band.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  And Katie would say to you about Peter Saunders, but I always remember her saying to me, you know, he's not, not the best looking man, but she said, he's very nice.

• 38:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, that counts for a lot.

• 38:23Speaker 03

  Which counts for a lot. So that was the sort of, those were highlights, really. And...

• 38:30Speaker 02

  A bad moment? Any bad experiences? Any frightening customers being chased along mystery corridors in the hotel?

• 38:38Speaker 03

  No, I think, I think if I'm being really honest, this gets a bit dark, but there was one porter that worked for us who behaved improperly to my sister and I. And we've, we've talked about it since. It didn't get, he, he did improper, he, you know, behaved like he was your best uncle, but then things were going on, you know.

• 39:04Speaker 02

  But you coped?

• 39:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 39:06Speaker 02

  Actually.

• 39:06Speaker 03

  Yes, and it hasn't, has it destroyed my life? Absolutely not. No, you look back at it and say, well, that's what's happened.

• 39:11Speaker 02

  Was he, was he found out and sacked and moved on?

• 39:14Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yes, absolutely, absolutely. But yeah, there were, there were the odd things like that.

• 39:20Speaker 02

  But it's, I'm, really what I'm getting at is I think it's quite strange being brought up in a hotel.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:24Speaker 02

  Because you're meeting, well, as you say, you see all classes, but also you're seeing the grown up world all around you.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  You, well, being an observer of human behavior, human. And I would, you know, sometimes hide behind a curtain and see the brides. There were a lot of weddings that happened and see beautiful brides and... Um, it it was, it was a, you know, it was a, an existence very rich.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  When your school, the grammar school, was at a girl's school?

• 39:53Speaker 03

  It was a girl's school then, yeah.

• 39:55Speaker 02

  When did boys come into your life? Can you remember your first?

• 39:59Speaker 03

  Well, probably too late, probably too late. I I was at the, I was at the grammar school until I was, I was always a year ahead of, because my birthday at the end of September. At that point, the cutoff was on October the first, so I only got in by two days. So I was always a year, more or less a year younger than almost everybody else. So I did the eleven plus when I was ten and I did O levels when I was fifteen. And by this time, I think the limitations of living in a hotel, I had no neighbourhood near. I couldn't go and knock on the door of a friend two doors away. Everything had to be at a distance. And I'd, I was very glad that I got into the school play.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Um, and I remember the headmistress who later, later sort of claimed me a lot, but she stopped me in the car and said, well, Patricia, we've, we found something you really can do, which was backhanded compliment, but she did later.

• 40:57Speaker 02

  What, what, what was the play? What was the part?

• 40:58Speaker 03

  Well, the play was, it's something that's never performed, Lady Precious' Dream.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  Oh, Chinese play?

• 41:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  Ah, indeed. And you had the look for it and the demeanour. You probably wouldn't be allowed to play it now.

• 41:11Speaker 03

  I played a character called Silverstream, there was Goldenstream, which was played by an older girl, Silverstream. And.

• 41:19Speaker 02

  His Swing is the name of the author, something like that?

• 41:22Speaker 03

  That's it, that's it.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  Gosh, I haven't seen that. Isn't memory extraordinary?

• 41:26Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  So you say you came late to boys?

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Uh, so I came late to boys because then what I was going to say was then I did actually beg to go away to school. A lot of my friends from there were at boarding schools. And so I just went to do A levels to a wonderful school um in Northwood in Middlesex.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  Oh, a long way away from.

• 41:48Speaker 03

  Called, yes, well, it was a boarding, yes, and I had the best two years of my life there. It was wonderful and those are friends.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  How define the best two years of my life?

• 41:59Speaker 03

  Well, well, listen, at that point, I mean, certainly, and then I would say that was, that was a real game changer because we were a particularly wonderful year. And if I say to you that we're all of us still the best of friends and we get together fre- as frequently as we can, even at our age, um we're all devoted to each other. We were so, I was so lucky to land on that particular set of girls.

• 42:26Speaker 02

  What was the essence of the friendship? Why was it such fun?

• 42:29Speaker 03

  I think it was just, you know, we all had a shared sense of humour. And of course they were marvellous on plays and so I did loads of stuff there. They, you know, they really allowed me to um to uh survive.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  And we're getting to the first boyfriend, the first.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, so, so, sorry.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  First crush, the first inklings of.

• 42:51Speaker 03

  Um, well, it, it took, it took a while, it took quite a long time um for me. I went out with people, but there was, I felt I was doing it because that was what you did, but none of them particularly interested me.

• 43:07Speaker 02

  There was no stirrings, no feeling of.

• 43:09Speaker 03

  No, it really happened and I, I won't, I can't name the person, but I was at, when I eventually got to Lambda, because I, when I left school, everybody said, don't be so ridiculous, you're not going to be an actress. So again, I was stopped and I was only seventeen, so I thought, well, I better do something, it shuts everybody up. And I always loved children, so I thought, well, I'll train to be a, an infant teacher, which I did for three years and then I taught for a year.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Well, that's a commitment. This is four years of your life.

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. But I was able to do drama as a main subject at the college. Um, and then if you didn't do a year's probation, then you weren't fully qualified. So I did that, but in that year, it happened that a girl who'd been um at the college with me was going out with a, a boy at a neighbouring college who got into RADA and he helped me to do my, to, to know how to go about applying for drama school. So I got into Lambda in that year.

• 44:05Speaker 02

  London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  To which I'm devoted still.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  And can you remember your audition pieces?

• 44:11Speaker 03

  Yes, I can. I did, only because they were suggested to me. I mean, I didn't know where to look. Um, if you can believe this, I did a, a bit of Martha from Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

• 44:23Speaker 02

  Was a tough one.

• 44:23Speaker 03

  Very strange. And I did um some Rosalind.

• 44:27Speaker 02

  From As You Like It?

• 44:28Speaker 03

  From As You Like It. Um.

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Actually, they're two good ones.

• 44:32Speaker 03

  Rosalind's Speech to Phoebe and Why I Pray You, Who Might Be Your Mother That You Insult, Exult, and All at Once Over the Wretched, that one. Um, so those were the two, and then I, I sang, uh, I think I sang Wouldn't It Be Lovely, which was, you know.

• 44:48Speaker 02

  Why not, from My Velvet?

• 44:50Speaker 03

  Exactly. And i- if you ask me, who was my inspiration for many, many, well, in fact, it's never gone away. Um, from the first moment I saw her singing something on a Christmas show was our friend Julie Andrews, who I just thought was the most, and fortunately I got to know her, I mean, later on.

• 45:12Speaker 02

  Uh, well, tell us about her. What, I mean, she is and was impeccable in the way that you are often impeccable. And, well, an aim for perfection and indeed purity of voice. How did you get to know her and what is your feeling about her?

• 45:28Speaker 03

  Um, I got to know her because we had a mutual friend. Um, and uh we were introduced through the mutual friend, but what had happened was I'd done a film called Betrayal, which was just coming out and Julie and Blake Edwards, her husband, her very brilliant director husband, uh happened to be in London. And they always were avid film buffs, of course, you know, it's the way the West Coast runs. And he saw me in Betrayal and said, oh my god, I, this is just what I need for a film he was making with um James Garner and Bruce Willis.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  And so I went over to LA and played this role in the film. What, once you're over there on the West Coast, then they, they embrace you, you know, they're so, and so within a day of arriving, it was come over on Sunday night, we're having supper, we watch a movie and um, and so I spent quite, quite a bit of time. And what would I say about her? I think I feel everything the same that I always did since I first saw her at the age of eleven. She's absolutely the most enchanting and lovely person you could ever, ever wish to meet.

• 46:46Speaker 02

  Yes, and I do think that there are aspects of her performance, the, the clarity, the perfection, the purity, all of that, that you think is important to, to do. You've, you've emulated her in some ways. She's been a role model?

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Well, maybe, yes. I, I mean, you, you never want to copy somebody, I think subliminally, that there's a degree of that, maybe. Um, I think we're, you know, we're, we're different.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  I don't want the name of this first uh boyfriend. What I'm wanting to get from you, because I can see you at the hotel, I can see you with your dolls, I can see you, I want to know the stirrings in you. If you can describe for us

• 47:29Speaker 02

  the loveliness, the excitement, why was it special, your first, having been out on dates and thought, oh, this is not very interesting. I can do better than this. What happened and why was it special?

• 47:41Speaker 03

  Well, it was um somebody I was at Lambda with, but he was two years older and um

• 47:50Speaker 03

  uh, and it was, you know, just one of those things that, when you're not looking for it. And he asked me out and I just remember sitting over the dinner table and just in that moment falling in love.

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Hmm, hmm, and.

• 48:07Speaker 03

  And I thought, oh my god, that's what it is.

• 48:09Speaker 02

  Good. And as an actress, you're on screen, how do you, having had that experience, how do you recreate that so it's credible when we are watching it?

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Well, I think it, it, it never leaves you there, does it?

• 48:24Speaker 02

  So do you rethink it in your head at that moment?

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Yes, yes, yeah.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Good. Did that out of interest?

• 48:31Speaker 03

  Providing, providing you getting the right thing back.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Ah, and, and did you in that instance?

• 48:36Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 48:37Speaker 02

  So it was a two-way?

• 48:38Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, no, no, no, no, it was, it, it was. I mean, ultimately it didn't work out, but it was, you know, it was, uh, yes, it, it was a major sort of experience in, in my life.

• 48:50Speaker 02

  And Lambda was a major experience. You had good time?

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Wonderful.

• 48:54Speaker 02

  What was your best moment of the Lambda years and your worst?

• 48:59Speaker 03

  Probably my worst was, I think I was about halfway through the second year. And there was a sort of hint that they didn't feel that they were getting anywhere with me. And that, you know, maybe they'd done all they could. And that, you know, that was very good. It was very, very good that I had that because it was a shock. And I thought, God, I better, you know, step up. But there were, there was one particular member of staff who, who said, if you lose her, you lose me as well. And I think that was a seismic change for me.

• 49:37Speaker 02

  What weren't you doing that you then had to do?

• 49:38Speaker 03

  Oh, I think I just was not, I was just not opening up enough, you know, I was, there was a

• 49:44Speaker 02

  You were containing yourself.

• 49:45Speaker 03

  Yes, there was an inhibition. Yeah, yeah. Which I think, to a certain extent, I lost a lot of it by the time I left Lambda. But the time that it changed more was when about, let me get this right, about three years after I'd left. And I'd done things in the West End by that time and so on. But I was asked to do a play at the Bush Theatre by a lovely director called Claude Watham, who'd done a lot in television.

• 50:13Speaker 02

  This is a small theatre in Shepherd's Bush.

• 50:15Speaker 03

  Very small, very immersive theatre in Shepherd's Bush. But when you've got the audience sitting as close as you are to me, which is, listener, about just over a metre, you can't lie. You can't, you can't present, you have to be. And that was a major game changer for me.

• 50:35Speaker 02

  You can't present, you have to be.

• 50:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  That is the essence of acting, is it?

• 50:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, presentation has, presentation has a

• 50:45Speaker 02

  You're doing a huge show at Drury Lane.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 50:47Speaker 02

  And it's a big musical, you've got to present your number.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely. So it, that, but inside all that, you have to completely give yourself over. And, and that, you know, that, that was, anyway, but I had a wonderful time at Lambda. So you asked me, my worst moment, best moment? Oh, there's some good moments. I, I don't know really. There were several, several highs.

• 51:14Speaker 02

  But was there a moment when you thought, yes, I can do it? I'm not going to go back to teaching. And I think once you'd worked in a fish finger factory, I'm not

• 51:23Speaker 03

  That was way back.

• 51:23Speaker 02

  That was a sort of holiday job, was it?

• 51:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 51:25Speaker 02

  But I, that, I'm not going back to teaching. This is me, I can do it. When was the moment in your head you thought?

• 51:33Speaker 03

  It was grad, it was gradually, it was, I think Clive Swift, the actor Clive Swift, directed me in a piece called The Duenna.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 51:45Speaker 03

  And he was terrifically supportive to me. I mean, he really, he made me believe something that I suppose I hadn't felt until then. And then that was added to later. We did a, a musical that was sort of written for us by the head of the music department there. But I, I had a part in that and I had a particular number to do. And there were some very grown up people in the profession that came to it. And for years afterwards were so supportive to me and said, we always singled you out. We knew, which is a lovely, you know.

• 54:17Speaker 02

  I think you've had the most wonderful golden career in many ways. I'm sure there've been times when you haven't been working, but to me, you always seemed to be working. I mention your name to people and they say two, two things in particular. You'll guess what they are, can you guess what they are that people say? I've asked the last few days, saying Patricia Hodge. They have said, depending, I suppose, on their age, either Rumpole of the Bailey.

• 54:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:37Speaker 02

  Which is a long time ago now.

• 54:39Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 54:40Speaker 02

  And Miranda.

• 54:42Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:42Speaker 02

  Which you played Miranda's mum. So I suppose that's obvious stuff.

• 54:45Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:46Speaker 02

  For you, if you want to put in a time capsule so that people can, years from now, they say, oh, Hodge, what she put in this time capsule of her, what she loved doing most? Either because the experience was great or she thinks she delivered most. What's in your time capsule?

• 55:01Speaker 03

  Well, obviously, the film I mentioned, Betrayal, because it was the most brilliant Harold Pinter script. And because I was working with two, subsequent Oscar winners, Jeremy Irons and Ben Kingsley. That was an extraordinary experience. I thought Hotel Dulac was very special, actually. And, you know, Irene Handel, who became, she died not too long afterwards, but we, we became, she sort of reminded me a lot of my grandmother and we became good friends from that.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  I think, you know, it's, it's things that you make very special relationships with because you've worked together well. And that then endures into, into life. I mean, there was a musical I did many years ago called The Mitford Girls.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 56:01Speaker 03

  About the six Mitford sisters.

• 56:02Speaker 02

  Directed by Ned Shering?

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Ned Shering and Carol Brown.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  Oh, Carol Brown, what a character she was.

• 56:06Speaker 03

  Oh, extraordinary, extraordinary. But she was a dear, she, ultimately, she was a dear person, but she was, she was quite formidable. We did that at Chichester and then we brought it into the West End. And again, you know, the, the six of us, and one has just died. We've just lost one of our dear, but we've all called each other sister ever since. And remained the best, and we had a wonderful time.

• 56:34Speaker 02

  Keeping in touch with people, keeping, what is the trick of friendship?

• 56:42Speaker 03

  Love.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  So, speaking of love, you get married. Obviously not to the first guy.

• 56:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Charming as he was, there we are. There was that feeling that, in the, yes, which you evoked so beautifully. Tell me about the moment you met your husband and how quickly it was that you felt their love.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  Well, he would always say, when people said, how did you meet? He would always say, we met in church, which was true. The third year that I was at Lambda, the head of music was also, he was, he was very committed to a church in West Hampstead. And he decided he wanted to create a choir for the church. So he asked some of us that he knew were of musical, had a musical ability to be in the choir. And so he also, one of his oldest friends was somebody he'd known since childhood. And they'd been in a, in a little band they formed together. And then they were the Royal Academy of Music together. And that was Peter. And he came to see the concert we did because

• 57:49Speaker 02

  And he was a music publisher, Peter?

• 57:50Speaker 03

  No, he was a symphonic trumpet player and played with all the major orchestras. And then ultimately he went into musical management. So he used to produce orchestras for the West End, for television and film themes and so on. But he, we met because I was singing in this choir concert and he came to see it. But, I mean, that was nothing more than fleeting, getting there. And then we cut to about, I don't know, 18 months later. And I was doing a show in Shrewsbury Avenue. And he was, he had done the orchestra for Jesus Christ Superstar, which was just opening. And then we met in that very famous, the Coach and Horses pub.

• 58:31Speaker 02

  Oh, yes.

• 58:32Speaker 03

  Just behind the, the Palace Theatre. Where a lot of, I was there after my show one night and he was in, that's where, that's where we met again.

• 58:42Speaker 02

  And you were together for a long time?

• 58:44Speaker 03

  We were married for, well, we were together for about 44 years, rather like my parents. We, we were married for just, he died just before our Ruby wedding.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh, and he was frail at the end, wasn't he?

• 58:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. He was very, he was very ill for the last few years, yeah.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  And was, was that like being a widow but alive? Or was it a satisfying experience in the sense that you were able to be caring and therefore could repay some of the love?

• 59:16Speaker 03

  It was very difficult in this circumstance because his demise was, it, it, it had very difficult personality consequences. And so it became very, very challenging.

• 59:32Speaker 02

  So it's a kind of dementia where your nature changes?

• 59:35Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  And you are not the person you were.

• 59:36Speaker 03

  Well, he

• 59:37Speaker 02

  Some other elements of you.

• 59:38Speaker 03

  He was, but it was, it was the worst possible version. And so it was beyond, I mean, I tried for, you know, as long as I could. But it became impossible to cope with. Yeah. So, no, I'd never, I mean, I hate the word widowhood, really. I don't think I've ever wanted to subscribe to it.

• 1:00:04Speaker 03

  Uh, I just had to learn to be more singular.

• 1:00:09Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:00:09Speaker 03

  Over a period of time.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  And you have two sons.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  I have two sons.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  And that helped.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  Enormously.

• 1:00:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, and so are you in a good place now, do you think?

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:00:20Speaker 02

  You feel you're in a good place?

• 1:00:21Speaker 03

  Oh, yes, I do. And I think, yes, I don't think I've ever. No, that's not true. There was a time, I think particularly latterly, when he was so ill, that I was in a bad place. Yeah. But mostly, I think I'm, I hope I'm a happy person.

• 1:00:39Speaker 02

  And are you in a good place because of

• 1:00:43Speaker 02

  all the friendships you have and the love of that and your work? Or have you sought therapy? Is the church important to you? Have they been other things that have helped you?

• 1:00:53Speaker 03

  Definitely. When I was in a very bad place, the person that I was dealing with for him was a psychiatrist. And she was an extraordinary and wonderful woman. And thank goodness I was referred to her. And she was there essentially to help with him. But she was also helping me. And she said, I want you to go. Because obviously psychiatry is a different thing from therapy. And she said, I would like you to go to a therapist. And it needs to be somebody who's near you, so you don't have far to travel, and leave it with me. And then she gave me the name of somebody. And I started going to this person.

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  And it's been one of the most

• 1:01:46Speaker 03

  rewarding things of my life. And I have kept it up ever since.

• 1:01:53Speaker 02

  Well, we've almost reached the end. I tell you, speaking of love, we haven't touched upon our joint friendship with Simon Cadell.

• 1:02:00Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Because one of the things I love about you is your singing voice.

• 1:02:05Speaker 03

  Well, I think you're

• 1:02:06Speaker 02

  You know that.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  You're probably in a minority.

• 1:02:08Speaker 02

  No, I'm not. There's a moment I remember of you appearing at Pizza on the Park. And you began singing outside of the room. And I'm going to cry even if I try to evoke it. I don't know if it was a Noel Card number or a Cole Porter number.

• 1:02:21Speaker 03

  I'll tell you what it was.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:02:22Speaker 03

  It was where are the songs we sung? Which is coward. When love in our hearts was young. Where in the limbo of the swiftly passing years are all our hopes and dreams and fears?

• 1:02:42Speaker 02

  Well, strange how potent cheap music is. Because offstage you begin singing this. And it's still in my head as a very special moment.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  Well.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Anyway, that was you alone. I think that was you, it was a solo night of you at the piano. But you and Simon did a Noel and Gertie show. What I'm leading up to is what do you look for in your kind of favorite other actor to work with? What is it you are looking for? You're quite particular, because I've known you over many years. And sometimes you have reservations about other people in the play.

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  And they will have reservations about me.

• 1:03:19Speaker 02

  They might, they might. I won't tell you if they did, or do. But what are you looking for? What makes the chemistry, what makes it work for you?

• 1:03:29Speaker 03

  It's always difficult to define, but I would say

• 1:03:34Speaker 03

  it's enormously helpful if you work with people that think in a similar way. And that sounds unaccommodating. But I do think there's a difference between actors and performers. And the two do cross over. But there are some people that are much more driven by showing off, let's say, wanting to catch the, having a love affair with the audience. And I find that more difficult if their energy goes, because it leaves you beached up on stage. So really, it's people, it's people that will commit to the business of engaging with you.

• 1:04:16Speaker 02

  It's very difficult to do both. One of the few people I think who could do both was Donald Sindon.

• 1:04:20Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  Who could both be present.

• 1:04:21Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:04:22Speaker 02

  And also, out of the corner of his eye, can, I mean, it's a most unusual gift.

• 1:04:26Speaker 03

  Yes, yes. And it's such a fine line to tread.

• 1:04:29Speaker 02

  If you can do that.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  But he was wonderful.

• 1:04:31Speaker 02

  Well, I think you're wonderful. We're reaching the end of the road now. Four quick questions. A moment, particularly from your earlier years, of joy. When I say joy to you, what suddenly comes into your head, a moment of joy?

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  Gosh. I think probably that I was always put in for a lot of festivals and things. First speaking festivals, piano festivals, dance festivals. That's how Lincolnshire runs. It has nothing professional. It's as good as, you know, whatever they create themselves. And there were, you know, I was, I had, I used to get incredibly nervous, sick with nerves. But I still went ahead with it. So I think that gives you a bravado, doesn't it? It gives you courage, it gives you courage. And the odd occasion when I did win a prize was a good moment. There was some validity in that.

• 1:05:26Speaker 02

  You've got to pick one moment.

• 1:05:27Speaker 03

  I've got to pick one moment

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  that gave me joy. Oh, I think

• 1:05:35Speaker 03

  having my two children.

• 1:05:37Speaker 02

  That's a generalization. Of course, it's given you joy. I'm looking for a specific moment that you ate a peach. Maybe, maybe that first moment, the thing that you've expressed to me that summed up joy was your description of sitting at the table with the first proper boyfriend and thinking, I'm in love. That's, I'm looking for a specific moment, only because actors can only give us, you've only got that one shot. You've got to tell us there. You can't say generally, oh, well, this is joy. So I'm wanting you,

• 1:06:12Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:06:13Speaker 02

  Hodge, to come up with a moment of joy, if you can.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  It's quite personal this, but I, I think

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  I would have to say

• 1:06:29Speaker 03

  that having been through a lot of issues with having children, the moment that I sat with my, my doctor said,

• 1:06:41Speaker 03

  just come with me and we'll, and he did a pregnancy test there and then.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  Yes, of course, because.

• 1:06:47Speaker 03

  And the moment, and he was chatting to me. He did this, and he, again, to this day, is a great friend, he and his wife.

• 1:06:53Speaker 02

  Because you didn't have children in your forties.

• 1:06:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And so that was a long journey. And he made me on that, and, you know, I'd been through IVF, I'd been through everything. And then suddenly, out of the blue. And it was strange, because my father was dying at the time. So there was one life going. And then suddenly, this, it was almost, it was sort of magical. And he just said, come with me, follow me, and I want to go to a particular place. So we went to a totally different building and everything. And he sat, and he was just chatting away to me. And it was, it was the way that he did, he was in the middle of a sentence about something else. And in the middle of this sentence, he said, and you're pregnant.

• 1:07:36Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Well, forgive me, but it was worth pursuing. Remember the wonderful line from Winter's Tale? I met with things dying and thou with things newborn.

• 1:07:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:07:48Speaker 02

  So the moment of sadness, I'm guessing is going to be the death of one or other of both of your parents. Or maybe not, or maybe Peter. Or just a moment of sadness, the one that comes into your head.

• 1:08:01Speaker 03

  They were each very different.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:08:03Speaker 03

  My, my, I was filming at the time my father died. But we sort of knew there was no chance of saving him. I think I would say to you, now, this is very strange, but the one that really kicked me in the gut was my mother. Even though she was ninety, even though we knew that she hadn't got, you know, the illness she had. But I had an experience after that that was, I'd never experienced before. This, and I do think that the death of a mother has a very particular. And if I say it kicked in the gut, I felt physically

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  it was just like nothing I'd ever,

• 1:08:48Speaker 03

  nothing I'd ever experienced.

• 1:08:51Speaker 03

  With Peter, I think I, I let out a cry that came from somewhere, very deep. So.

• 1:09:01Speaker 02

  Okay. Finally, what a fascinating person you are. How gifted you are, how lucky I am to know you. What's life, as you approach incredibly your eightieth birthday, Hodge?

• 1:09:14Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 1:09:14Speaker 02

  People will be adjusting the set. It can't be, it's not possible. I mean, honestly, you're sensational. What has life taught you?

• 1:09:25Speaker 03

  That, you know, that, I'm sorry, it's that old saying, it's not where you start, it's where you finish.

• 1:09:34Speaker 03

  And too many people say, I've just come from there, I only had this, which is, which is an important story. But we all of us have stories, we all of us do. And there are very privileged people I know who've made nothing of their lives, and very privileged people who make everything of their lives. And I think it's, you know, it's within all of us. We are the architects of our own

• 1:09:59Speaker 03

  life.

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  We can do it against a lot of odds. We can.

• 1:10:08Speaker 03

  Whatever that may be.

• 1:10:12Speaker 03

  And it's strangely, I find, although it's always within you,

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  it's not particularly, it's lovely to look back. It's not particularly helpful because you are the person you are now. And you have to live in the moment and deal with what's, what's there. And I think when I went through a very, very, very bad time, and I was doing a show, a musical. And I just kept thinking, I would go on stage. And I got through the scene. And I'd come off and think, right, just get through the next scene. And then just get through the next scene. And just get through the next scene. And that's it, just put one step in front of the other. And keep moving forward.

• 1:10:59Speaker 02

  It's not where you start, it's where you finish.

• 1:11:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:11:02Speaker 02

  Thank you for sharing your stories and finishing up here. You're just the best, Hodge. Okay, we'll stop now, and then I can burst into tears, we can have a hug. Thank you so much, Patricia.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  Thank you. What a joy for me.

• 1:11:20Speaker 02

  Oh, my thanks there to Patricia Hodge for, for me, a very special conversation. By the way, if there are actresses, actors, authors, anybody you think we should be having as a guest on Rosebud, particularly people like Patricia Hodge, who are known for having one sort of persona in public, but you've perhaps wondered, what actually are they really like? What is their background? What is the real person like? Just drop us a line and we'll see if we can persuade them to come on to the podcast. You get hold of us simply by writing to on email, [email protected]. And people are getting in touch. Oh, look, Harriet Jane, the producer, she chooses which emails we read, and I think she thought, oh

• 1:12:03Speaker 02

  yes, today I'm going to cast a pearl before the swine that is Brandreth, because this is from somebody called Alex Pearl. Let's see what Alex Pearl has to say. Dear Giles and Harriet, having recently endured surgery—oh, this is interesting—having recently endured surgery, I'd like to thank you for providing me with the perfect antidote while recuperating in bed. But please don't make me chuckle too much, it hurts. Your Dreams podcast, in which The Wizard of Oz features, reminded me of my earliest childhood memory, which remains lucid and is rather dreamlike. At a very young age, I have a very clear memory of being taken by my mother during a particularly wet and miserable afternoon to the local cinema,

• 1:12:46Speaker 02

  the ABC in Ilford High Street—this is in England. My mother used to love the cinema, and this would have been the first of many such visits. The film screened was The Wizard of Oz, starring a very young Julie Garland. On taking our seats and being treated to the wonderful opening scenes of the storm, something really quite extraordinary happened. The real heavens opened up, and torrential rain hammered down with such force that within minutes—and just as the little wooden cabin on the big screen was being uprooted by the storm and tossed into the air—it began to rain, quite literally, through the light fittings in the ceiling. As a young boy of five years of age, it must have seemed all

• 1:13:29Speaker 02

  rather marvellous, until of course, this indoor rain caused those sitting beneath it to put up their umbrellas and obscure the view. This surreal state of affairs was not to last for long. The film ground to a halt and the lights came on. In retrospect, I don't know how the lights didn't fuse with all that rainwater cascading through their housings. The dishevelled manager of this rundown flea pit eventually appeared from nowhere, and like a startled hare caught in the headlights of an oncoming car, made some kind of half-hearted apology to the audience, and asked us, in no uncertain terms, to leave the auditorium and collect a refund from front of house. As it happens, I've never

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  got round to seeing The Wizard of Oz, even though both of my children have. But from that inauspicious introduction to the cinema, the bug for sitting in the pitch dark and being mesmerised by moving images has taken hold. Warmest regards, Alex Pearl. What a wonderful childhood recollection, Alex. Being in the cinema, The Wizard of Oz, the storm on screen—as I recall, that's the black and white sequence at the beginning of the movie, and the storm is taking place and suddenly rain is falling on your head, but not raindrops keep falling—no, a torrential downpour from the ceiling of the cinema. Extraordinary! Well, in some ways it was a washout, but in other ways it's something that's given

• 1:14:53Speaker 02

  you, well, something to remember all your life. But you must now get round to seeing The Wizard of Oz. It is one of, in my view, the greatest films ever made. Pity they weren't showing Singing in the Rain that day. All right, that's it from me, Gyles Brandreth, and from Patricia Hodge, and from our producer, the great Harriet Jane, and from Alec Adell, whose father, Simon, of course, worked with Patricia Hodge. It's Alec who edits these special episodes that we also have featuring on YouTube. It's fun, I think, listening to Rosebud, and it's fun but in a different way, watching Rosebud. Maybe try both. If you do, whatever you listen, if you've enjoyed

• 1:15:35Speaker 02

  it, please leave a comment, because that helps spread the word, spread the message, because we love people listening to Rosebud. It's because of you that we do it. Thanks so much for being with us. If you want to join us on Sunday, you want to be a member of the Rosebud family, that's easily done. It costs, I think, a fiver plus VAT a month, and you get ad-free listening, and you get bonus episodes every Sunday, and possibly other little features as well. To do that, you simply go to patreon.com/rosebud—that's P-A-T-R-E-O-N dot com forward slash rosebud, and you'll find all the details there. That's what we do every Sunday. But we are back, for everybody, next Tuesday. I'll be here with Harriet. I'm not sure what we've got in store for you. Will it be another interview?

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Will it be my diaries? I hope it'll be fun, whatever it is. And then next Friday—well, I think we've got a very, very special guest next Friday. Oh, thank you too for all the people from Australia who got in touch when we had Geoffrey Rush on last Friday. I said our first Oscar-winning Australian, which he was. And a lot of you have come up with interesting other Australian ideas. We may get to Australia. If not, whenever they are anywhere we are near, we will hope to catch more Australians for Rosebud. It's a global podcast, you're part of it. In fact, you're the essence of it. I'm Gyles Brandreth. Thanks, Patricia Hodge. Thank you for listening. Until next time, bye. Oh, and cue the music.

• 1:17:49Speaker 02

  Rosebud is a Plain Jane production, produced by Harriet Jane, hosted by me, Gyles Brandreth, with music by Phil Leopard, and recorded this week at the JW Marriott Grosvenor House in London's Park Lane. Room service.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

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