One of the main things that Heather and I have done together is buy houses and restore them. You can’t do things like that when you have children. You either have to have houses or children. Unless you’re exceedingly wealthy. People have always said, ‘Oh, you must be sensationally rich to have all those houses!’ Actually, no: I’ve never made exorbitant amounts of money, but I have always bought cheaply — and wisely.
The first house was a 300-year-old farmhouse with eighteen olive trees in Tuscany, which we bought in 1973 for 12,500 Italian lira. For our second holiday together (our first was on the Isle of Skye; I was desperate to get into Heather’s bunk on the overnight sleeper but it proved impossible: they’re not generous, width-wise), Heather and I went to Rome. My mother’s favourite au pair, Francesca, had become an air hostess and she invited Heather and me to stay in her apartment while she was away flying for a couple of weeks. It was in a lively part of the city and we had the place to ourselves. Rome was gorgeous; we walked everywhere, never tiring of the buildings, the statues, the noise, the life of the city. The Vatican offended me; I stood there, thinking how wrong it was that so much money should be spent on all that gilt and lavish decoration, while there were so many poor Catholics in the world. I rejected the Holy City but I loved everything else about Italy and the Italians.
I came into a bit of money when Mummy died. I said to Heather and our friend Peter Lavery: ‘Let’s go and buy a house.’ She thought it was insane but fun, and while Peter couldn’t join our Tuscan house-hunting trip, he was in — sight unseen. I’d researched Tuscan places for sale and we took the night train to Italy. We stayed in a cheap hotel in Siena and took buses to the surrounding villages. Once established in the village cafe, we asked people if they knew of a good property. We had several exciting rides in the back of Fiat 500s, and eventually found the farmhouse of our dreams. We met an American architect, William Broadhead. I gave him power of attorney, so he could complete the contratto. He was in charge of all restoration and La Casella, Montisi, has been the joy of our lives ever since. William died two years ago; he was one of the most honourable men I’ve ever known, and his perfect taste and honesty made such a difference to our lives.
Then, I was on a roll… I was happily living in my rented flat in Gloucester Terrace when, one day, Peter told me that he’d seen a nice house just around the corner from where he was living in Clapham, and suggested that I should have a look at it. I said, ‘Well, I’m not living south of the river!’ (I have a silly habit of making knee-jerk and somewhat dogmatic statements which are rapidly proved wrong. For example, ‘I am not going to have a German car’; the first car I had was a Volkswagen Beetle.) I went to see this house in Clapham and I loved it immediately and I bought it. You see, I can change my mind.
It’s a Victorian semi-detached house, built in 1856, with a big bay window and steps up to the front door. In those days it wasn’t smart at all; it was rather run-down, but I loved its big, spacious rooms and garden. I had asked Jan Taylor’s husband (I’d done a puppet show with her) to come along and view the house with me. He was in property, and he said, ‘It’s a good house, Miriam.’ The asking price was £21,500 (for a four-storey house), which he said was not bad. I decided to buy it. I went to the estate agent in Streatham and put in an offer. The agent said, ‘I ought to tell you, that a chap is coming to see it with his surveyor this afternoon, and he’s told me that if the surveyor’s report is OK, he’s going to pay the full asking price.’
‘Well, in that case, I’m going to buy it now,’ I replied. The estate agent was a bit taken aback and said, ‘But you haven’t had a survey done!’ I said, ‘I don’t care. I can tell it’s OK, because my mother used to buy houses.’ I knew the things that you look for, cracks and all that, and it looked sound to me. He said, ‘But you haven’t checked!’ I told him that I was buying it. Luckily, Halifax gave me a mortgage, and the sale went through. I gave him the 10 per cent deposit cheque there and then.
The house was in quite a bad state: the basement (where I’m living now) had been condemned by Lambeth Council, but I didn’t have the money to do it up. I installed five or six friends in the house, all happily paying £2 a week. Every Friday, I would go and collect the rent in cash, which I put into a pot to save up for the building work.
In the basement flat next door were Mr and Mrs Smith, a couple who’d lived there since the war. One day, when I was collecting the rent, Mrs Smith was in her garden. She called out, ‘Mirian [she never could say ‘Miriam’], I want to talk to you, come over here.’ I went over to her side of the wall, ‘Listen, this is a nice road. We don’t have rubbish on this street, Mirian.’ ‘No. I’m well aware of that,’ I replied. ‘Well, those friends of yours. ’ and she paused for effect.
‘Well, let me tell you something,’ she said, ‘cos I don’t think you know this! The other day I was out doing the weeding ’ere in the front garden, and I ’appened to look across into your front windows there — the big bay window up there.’ She pointed up at my house. ‘You’d never guess what I saw… well, it was them two in there [pause], stark naked [pause], eatin’ marmalade.’ I gasped with horror, as I realised that that was expected. I don’t know if it was straight out of the jar, but Mrs Smith must have had a very good look to know it was marmalade and not jam. ‘Well, we can’t have that in this street. I mean, people in the nood? I don’t want to see nothing like that again,’ she concluded, folding her arms in outrage. ‘I quite agree, Mrs Smith. I’m so sorry, and I will tell them about it,’ I said, reassuringly.
I told my friends, ‘Please don’t eat marmalade naked in the front window, because Mrs Smith doesn’t like it.’ And they never did it again.
After two years I’d saved up enough money, and everybody moved out so I could get the place fixed up. At the time, I was doing a lot of voice-overs. One day, in the studio voicing the Manikin cigar ad, I was talking to Terry Donovan. ‘I’ve bought a house but it’s in a rough old state. I’m going to need a lot of building work.’
‘Oh, I’m a builder,’ Terry said.
‘What do you mean, you’re a builder? You’re a famous photographer and a director of commercials!’
‘I’ve got a firm with all me old mates,’ he said. ‘I’ll do your place up for you. We’re good, we are.’
It was a funny linking of the two worlds. Terry had a Rolls-Royce, so he gave me a lift over to Clapham in his Roller, which now, of course, are commonplace in the street, but they weren’t then. Terry had a good look over the property and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s a nice house. You done well there, Miriam. I’ll sort it out for you, no worry’. He added, ‘I’ll get my man Slim to come over. Slim does all the estimates for me.’
A few days later, Slim turned up. He was devastatingly handsome, charismatic, a gorgeous bit of rough, probably a crim. If I’d been straight I’d have sucked him off like a shot. Slim carefully inspected the house from top to bottom and agreed that it needed a lot of work. New staircase, complete central heating and rewiring and replumbing. He named a figure and we shook hands on it there and then. Terry and his team did a fantastic job — they were honourable, decent, hard-working and reasonable.
I kept in touch with Slim over the years. Once, when I hadn’t been paid for a voice-over job and was owed several thousand pounds, I asked Slim if he would come round to see this advertising chap with me and encourage him to cough up.
He said, ‘Yeah, that’s meat and drink to me. That’s easy.’