* * *
At least my farewell came at the end of recording. (David Tennant’s took place a while before he left Cardiff.) We all piled down to the Kensington Hilton to let our hair down and party. Brian was there, and so many faces from the last few years. Usually there’s a whipround when someone leaves, so I’d been asked if I wanted anything in particular. ‘Oh, yes,’ I said. ‘I’d love some silver picture frames to put people’s pictures in.’ Just as well, because I posed for so many photos that night – I didn’t want to forget anyone. I remember a little boy turning up and taking loads of snaps as well. Years later he sent them to me on a disc. He’s not so little any more!
The frames were just what I wanted but there was something quite special still to come. George Gallaccio handed me a small box and said, ‘It’s in case you ever want to come back.’
Inside was a key to the TARDIS!
‘Oh, George, that’s so sweet.’
‘Everyone should have access to the TARDIS, Lis.’
After the Hilton the party carried on at Tom’s house. He was with gorgeous Marianne Ford at the time – they were such a brilliant couple. Whenever we had to go to functions for the BBC he liked her to come along and look after him. He really loved that. So, I’d met her many times, although this was the first time I’d ever seen their house. When we arrived I gasped. The garden was absolutely festooned with fairy lights. It was quite magical.
‘What do you think?’ Tom asked proudly.
I said, ‘Tom, it’s beautiful. Do you always have these lights on?’
‘Of course I bloody don’t,’ he scowled. ‘I put them up for you!’
* * *
So that was that. Three years, eighteen serials, eighty half-hour episodes. Without trying, I’d accidentally become the longest-serving companion – just pipping Katy’s record. (I think Frazer Hines had appeared in more episodes, but over a shorter period.) These stats matter to some people but I was oblivious. The only statistic I cared about was the number of empty days that lay ahead of me.
Tangiers, here I come …
Chapter Twelve
Bippetyboo, Bippetyboo
WAKING UP that first day as a free woman was sensational. Not because I was released from the shackles of a three-year job; it was just amazing to have the whole day ahead of me and absolutely no plans. There were no calls for costume fittings; no one phoning to say a new script was in the post – I had nothing to learn and nowhere to be.
Absolute bliss.
Once I’d been on Nationwide and the Daily Mail had plastered me across their cover – and Clive James wrote in the Observer that I was one of the ‘five best things’ on television! – offers of work really did start to flood in. Some of them had nice pay cheques attached as well; they put the BBC to shame. Nothing really leapt out at me, though. Most were looking for ‘another Sarah Jane Smith’. Some of them were established sci-fi projects, others were launches. The one thing they had in common, though, was that they didn’t float my boat. I’ve done Sarah Jane, I’ve put her to bed, I thought.
You hear people say they need to put some distance between themselves and their past. Most don’t mean it literally. But I did – I put two thousand miles between us.
Brian and I had been hankering for a holiday to Tangiers for what seemed like forever. Not only was it exotic and otherworldly to Europeans (especially back in 1976 when different cultures were still defined by geographical boundaries) – and not only would we enjoy weather Brits can only dream of, there was another factor, even more important: it was accessible by road. Post-Toronto, that was important.
I know bus journeys are anathema to some people but Brian and I love them. You get a completely different view of the world. It’s also cheap and you’re pitched in close proximity to your partner for hours at a time. When you lead the lifestyles we do, that chance to be with one another is priceless.
* * *
No one would leave something as powerful as Who today without an exit plan. You’d have offers lined up. Before David Tennant said goodbye to me on Bannerman Road for the final time, his forthcoming schedule was packed. But did I have a plan? Of course not, no strategy! No twelve-step programme to world domination, which is pathetic, I admit. Career suicide, really. My agent has to take a share of that blame as well – sorry, Todd! He should have been steering me a bit more. I wouldn’t have appreciated it at the time, but you might have thought he’d be shaking me to accept some of those offers. After all, if you can’t rely on an agent to exploit a situation, what’s the world coming to?
But there you go. We can’t go back, and if I had been a little bit more switched-on perhaps I wouldn’t still be enjoying Sarah Jane so much now. So, as the song goes, no regrets – life’s too short.
By the time we returned from Africa I was raring to go. Right, I thought, what offers have we got?
And that’s how I ended up on a train to Liverpool.
Looking back it was almost certainly the wrong call. If I’d wanted to do theatre there were probably better roles from a ‘career’ perspective than Mooney and His Caravans. I only agreed because it was at the Playhouse and Brian was going to be in it as well. That was enough for me. I didn’t think ‘progression’, I just thought, That would be nice.
In other words, it wasn’t David Tennant’s Hamlet. This certainly wasn’t a ‘vehicle’ for me. If anything, I was hiding from my past.
But it was great to get back to my roots. Mum and Dad put us up, of course, and they were prouder than ever when there was a bit of interest from the Liverpool Echo, who ran a nice piece along the lines of ‘Local Girl Makes Good’. You know the sort of thing. I think they were even more impressed when they heard about the queue of autograph hunters waiting outside the theatre for me each night.
And there were other bits of work in my other old stomping ground, Manchester. Brian and I recorded A Bitter Almond for BBC Radio’s Afternoon Theatre segment over there. We also did Post Mortem for Thirty-Minute Theatre. They were both great parts but for me, the thrill was working once again with my husband.
Speaking of Brian, I have been asked how he felt being the less famous and, probably, less well-paid half of our relationship. I don’t know if it ever bothered him that to the wider public I was doing better than he was for those three years – I never gave it a thought. I was probably bringing home more money than him during my Who years, but then he’d been the breadwinner all the time I was out of work and he was in the West End. And it’s always been like that – you just pray one of you is working. Ideally both, ideally together, but one will do so long as someone is paying the bills. Remember, we had barely fifty pence between us when he bought my engagement ring in Manchester. It was always, ‘Thank God one of us has got a job’.
It’s true that Brian wasn’t as recognisable in the street as I was – he’s never been so readily associated with a single character or show. On the other hand, he never got the snide ‘it’s only kids’ telly’ comments that occasionally came my way. Yes, you knew you were popular; yes, you were in the Radio Times a lot, but even then, just looking at how they wrote about the show you weren’t allowed to forget it was ‘only a children’s programme’. Even the BBC never let us forget.
More radio followed. Laura and the Angel and The Hilton Boy were both for BBC Radio. After Mooney at Liverpool we did Saturday, Sunday, Monday and The Lion in Winter. I have to say, I loved being back in rehearsals, working towards that opening night, learning the new play by day, performing the old one by night, and changing every three weeks. And knowing that no bugger was going to ask me to go on the book was an incredible release.