The next morning we had to fly over to the actual oil rig. The Sikorsky was being checked over so we took another helicopter. If the other one had looked too big, this thing was so small it looked like it would be blown down by the first big gust. Somehow I was persuaded on and we made it out to the rig, safe and sound.
Or so I thought.
The moment I stepped out onto that platform in the middle of the North Sea the director announced, ‘Congratulations, Lis. You are officially the first woman in history to set foot on one of these!’
I also discovered that according to old seafaring lore, it was considered bad luck if a woman boarded a vessel. I’m not one for superstitions but when I heard the helicopter we’d arrived in had somehow damaged its rotor on landing, I began to think there might be something in it. There was no way to fix it there, so we were stuck unless another one came out for us. When that chopper arrived, our bird was hogging the single landing spot so, for ten frightening minutes, our pilot had to take off with his damaged rotors and hover just long enough for the other one to put down and deliver the replacement parts. It was terrifying to watch.
Especially knowing that everyone on the rig was blaming me!
Despite their reservations, people were very kind. The food on the rig was delicious but, more importantly, I got a series of insightful interviews with some terrific characters. They took me right down to the bottom of the rig, which was even more nerve-wracking than being in the air. Every so often I get flashbacks of clinging to a post as the waves crashed around – and wonder how the hell they persuaded me!
It was such a release to just be myself for the cameras – even if you never quite do the ‘real’ you – and not to rehearse every last detail and learn pages of lines. Working without a script, using your wits, is very liberating. (Perhaps a little too liberating. I thought it hysterical to find myself talking to a man called Rex about shipping wrecks. I couldn’t say his name enough. ‘Now, Rex, can you tell me about these wrecks, Rex?’ Very unprofessional!)
As soon as we were back on terra firma I declared, ‘Right, I’m obviously jinxed. No more flying.’ So, while everyone else flew down to the Scilly Isles for our next recording date, I took the sleeper train to Penzance and then a boat. The director was worried I might run off so he sent someone with me! The train was rattling so much we didn’t sleep a wink, so we both arrived a day late and miserable through lack of sleep. I’m sure they loved me!
* * *
It was while we were staying with my folks during the Playhouse run that I got quite the strangest message.
Mum had taken the call. ‘Elisabeth,’ she said, ‘a man called Frank Kilbride wants to talk to you about landscape gardening, I think. He kept mentioning stepping stones.’
‘OK …’
Gingerly I picked up the phone. I’d barely got ‘hello’ out before I was deluged by a breathy torrent of words in the thickest Yorkshire accent. I managed to pick the odd one out. Yep, he definitely said ‘stepping stones’, but it was nothing to do with gardening. Frank Kilbride was a producer – Stepping Stones was his programme for pre-schoolers.
‘And I thought you would be perfect for it,’ he said, ‘with that lovely, warm personality.’
Now, this was before my Merry-Go-Round had aired. Somehow he’d decided I could front a children’s show. I don’t know if it was seeing me on Swap Shop or Nationwide, or if he was just taking a punt because I didn’t appear to be working (out of telly, out of mind), but he was right – I was looking for something. And after a quick chat with him over at Yorkshire Television a few days later, I’d found it.
To say time was scarce on Stepping Stones was an understatement. The frenzied whirl of studio days at Who seemed positively luxurious by comparison. I don’t think I’d received a single script before I boarded my train up to Leeds – and I was due to record the first of five episodes that afternoon!
It was chaotic but I had a good vibe about this project, right from the off. Frank was a sweetie and had sorted me out with a local landlady, May Brown, who ran a dear little guesthouse on the York Road opposite the Tadcaster Road racecourse. I had the best front room, bacon sandwiches when I got in, meals on a tray in my room if I wanted. Perfect.
Frank’s mind was always whirring. It seemed like I’d barely arrived when I began receiving calls from the local press. At first I thought, Wow, they really support their local programme-makers. Then as soon as I did the interviews I realised they just wanted to know the inside scoop on a former Who girl. Bear in mind I was still amazed every time an autograph hunter popped up, I genuinely didn’t think the media would still be interested in what I was up to a couple of years down the line. Luckily for Stepping Stones, Frank was cannier than that.
It says a lot for Frank’s priorities that after coming up trumps in sorting me out with beautiful May and stirring up press interest, he then completely omitted to mention my co-star on the show.
I got to the studio for the first time and I heard a familiar voice.
‘Hello, chuck, how are you? Are you going to join us?’
Keith Barron was already a highly respected actor at the time. For years, he’d worked solidly on serials and one-offs and also had a decent list of film credits to his name (and would pop up in Who during Peter Davison’s era, a few years later). Quite why he’d chosen to present this show was unclear – maybe his agent was even less sharp than mine! – but I was suddenly glad that he had. From his opening ‘Hello, chuck’, I felt completely at home – but I still hadn’t seen a word of script!
Somehow in two-and-a-half days we managed to film five episodes! Arrive in the morning, rehearse, record, lunch, then another rehearsal, another recording session. Bang, bang, bang! Then it was off to the bar for a drink and back to May Brown’s. I liked my routine but Frank, typically, worried about me being alone.
‘Come on, Lis,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you back in my car to meet the family. We’ll have a nice bit of Yorkshire ham.’ So I’d meet his wife and children every time I went up and then he’d drive me back to York Road. Frank was such a chatterer and bundle of energy and so thoughtful that you felt like you were out on a jolly every night.
We had very little time in the studio but Frank made that fun as well. Always talking, always on the move, up and down those gantry steps all day … You couldn’t go five minutes without him popping out to call encouragement or improvements, or just laughing. I think his energy must have been rubbed off on the First, because he had a nervous arm. You didn’t know if he was flagging a horse down or telling you to start. His arm would be going nineteen to the dozen and Keith and I would be staring at each other: ‘Was that a cue? Was that a cue?’
I had such fun working with Keith. On one of our first episodes we were kneeling down next to a table that had a toy train set on it. As the train chuffed round and round its track we had to sing: ‘Bippetyboo, bippetyboo, I’m on a train, I’m off to loo.’ Then ‘zipperty zoo, zipperty zoo’, and so on: it was simple but silly.
The First gave one of his funny cues, then I started singing, but all I heard from Keith was ‘bippety – whooooh!’ I looked round and he’d disappeared under the track!