Can't Stand Up for Sitting Down (23 page)

After a
very heated argument, there was no alternative but to go for it, so I did, very
gingerly and managed to reach my hole without falling and sliding on my arse
into the audience. However, I felt like a right nana stuck in my little cavity
doing stand-up, and was glad to escape the venue that night.

Our first daughter Maisie
was born in 2001 at our local NHS hospital. Like our wedding, we strove to keep
it quiet, although I did get a nice bunch of flowers from a tabloid newspaper
congratulating me on the birth of my child — a week before it actually
happened.

There
then ensued the adjustment that needs to be made when a new baby comes into the
house, and I’m sure I was no different from any other woman who has just given
birth — almost comatose with tiredness, anxious and feeling like I lived in a
parallel universe to everyone else. But we humans are an adaptable species and
we cope because we have to.

I took
six months off, then went back to a much reduced workload for a bit, which I
still found hard. Being away from home for any length of time was a strain, so
I tried to stay close enough to get back pretty quickly.

I
realised fairly early on that as a woman with a baby in a buggy, one becomes
all but invisible and I savoured being able to walk around, visit friends and
wander through our local park with virtually no hassle at all. It was great.
Tempted as I was to see if I could get away with it, I never had a crack at
shoplifting.

Our second daughter Eliza
was born in 2002, and despite our newly gained experience, it was a challenge
coping with a baby and a toddler a year and a half apart. However, despite a
lack of sleep, an increase in irritability and nights stretching to the length
of a week, it was so lovely I didn’t care.

Our
daughters are now seven and nine, and happy at their local schools. It is
slightly strange for them, I think, that I have a recognisable face, but they
seem very pragmatic about it and handle the approaches I get from strangers
with an admirable aplomb.

The Girls

I have a simple philosophy
when it comes to my children: I keep them out of the limelight. When I see
reality shows on TV with celebrities’ children in them, I feel rather sorry for
the kids. It’s not their choice to be there in front of a camera. I was very
impressed, for example, when the oldest Osbourne daughter chose not to take
part in the reality show about Sharon, Ozzy Jack and Kelly It’s certainly
worked for her. I don’t even know her name and have no idea what she looks
like.

I am
constantly invited to events with the children, such as film premières, and it
all looks so generous, exciting and fun. But, to use a hoary old cliché, there
really is ‘no such thing as a free lunch’ and in payment for you having a
lovely free day out, the press and the organisation entertaining you demand a
piece of your life. And that means photos of the children and an encroachment
into your family that I’m not prepared to countenance. When they’re older and
have more of an idea about things, they may berate me for this, but at the
moment I feel I’m doing the right thing.

So that
was a rather long-winded way of telling you that I am not going to furnish you
with every personal detail of my daughters’ development. I kept diaries during
the first year of their lives and looking back through them, I realise what
hard work it was, how tired I was, and also how anxious I was a lot of the
time. I felt I was floundering about with not nearly as much knowledge as I
needed. And because families are so far-flung these days, one cannot rely on
the extended family in the way one used to be able to, and that goes for on-tap
advice and support. Also, given that I was one of the dreaded ‘older mothers’,
that inevitably meant that my own parents were not quite as sprightly as they
would have been, had I been a bit younger. And because they live miles away
they weren’t on hand to take a turn round the park or do a bit of babysitting.

But I’m
sure the first few years of our kids’ lives were no different for us than for
any other couples with young children. My diaries repeat over and over again
that I was exhausted, up three or four times a night and ignorant of the right
things to do:

E bought Maisie a
Sex Pistols T-shirt that was pooed on within minutes.

Completely forgot
about my bloody
Nursing Times
column.

Maisie blocked
up, can’t sleep, she’s bloody exhausted. Me too.

Trying to think
of ideas for novel, head feels like muzzy sponge in which ideas cannot
germinate.

Trying to write,
but head full of mashed potato because I am a mother.

Ordered pizza
again.

Eliza up till 4. Me
desperate to close my eyes, she desperate to play.

Bloody awful
headache.

Midwife came
round. So pleased to see her … like a cross between the AA and a lifeboat.

Heard a story
about a woman leaving her baby in car seat on roof of car and driving off. (It
was OK, she stopped in time.) Feel I could have managed that in my
semi-comatose state.

Sounds a bit grim, doesn’t
it? But, of course, babies are designed to be so delightful that you just cope
and it does get easier as they grow older. I remember asking a friend what her
well-earned holiday in Spain with her toddler was like, only to be told, ‘I
spent two weeks following her up and down some treacherous stone steps.’

I can
easily identify with that. Once babies become mobile, you find yourself
following them every minute of the day as accidents lie in wait round every
corner. Then that gets easier too, once they realise that sticking their head
down the toilet or playing in the knife drawer will only bring tears.

I spent
a lot of time in the park with the girls, which is an odd mixture of stressful
and a bit boring, if I’m honest. They never want to leave! Even if you go with
a friend, it’s odds on their child will want to play right up the other end of
the playground so you don’t get much of a chance for adult conversation. Having
said all that, I would have done an ‘old woman who lived in a shoe’ and had
loads of kids if I wasn’t so advanced in years.

As the
kids approached school age the outside world began to encroach on them and it
dawned slowly that I was slightly different from other mums. I can never forget
Maisie coming home from school one day and asking me, ‘Are you Jo Brand?’ ‘What
makes you say that?’ I asked. ‘Everyone says you are,’ she replied — and I had
to admit I was.

I don’t really have
typical days, but just recently at the beginning of this year I had so much to
stuff into each day that I wondered if I was going to cope. Not only was I
filming
Getting On,
the NHS comedy series, but I was also doing a
programme called
Book Club
for Channel Four as well as trying to help
the Labour Party shore up their potential vote, which was descending faster
than a scary ride at Alton Towers.

One
particular day — 8 February 2010, nearly finished me off …

5.30 a.m.
I wander round in a semi-coma trying to remember what I need to
take for filming
Getting On.
Everyone is still asleep as I attempt to
find some clothes that don’t look as if I’ve just slept in them. I also need
two sets of posh clothes for the
Book Club
on Channel Four, which I am
filming after
Getting On
this evening. Look in posh clothes wardrobe and
am forced to pick out some tops which I hate, as all of the others are either
not clean or gathering dust in the dry cleaner’s which I very rarely get to
because I forget I’ve dropped stuff in there. Find something hideous and stuff
it in a bag knowing that the charming wardrobe woman, Mia, at
Book Club
will
run an iron over them for me.

As far
as clothes for me to wear that day are concerned, so I don’t have to turn up on
the
Getting On
set with just my pants on, I plump for the least creased
stuff on a mountainous pile. Leave the house at 6 a.m. in just about an alert
enough state to drive. For this second series,
Getting On
is filmed in a
deserted hospital in Plaistow in the East End of London, which involves going
through the dreaded Blackwall Tunnel under the river.

The
Blackwall Tunnel has the accolade of being jammed from five thirty in the
morning till nine at night. I regret having to move our filming base from the
previous hospital in Wandsworth, which was a lovely twenty-minute nip from
home, whereas this journey takes an hour or even more at this time of the
morning. I put the radio on and while in handy jam near my house, pour out very
strong coffee from my sad old-lady flask to continue my alertness. Also have a
back-up can of Red Bull if necessary.

I
always drive myself everywhere as I like driving, I know all the routes round
London better than a cabbie, I can have the radio on a station I like and,
misanthrope that I am, I don’t have to talk to anyone because I am miserable
and half dead in the morning and this doesn’t sit well with a cheery driver
who’s been up two hours more than me and is keen to chat. I flick about on the
radio between Chris Evans’ show on Radio 2 and Radio 4, when a report about
either business/finance or Europe comes on and sends me back to Chris as I’m
likely to drop off to sleep again.

6 a.m.
I drive through a silent Peckham and Greenwich and head towards the
Blackwall Tunnel. Oh, what a surprise — there’s a traffic jam up ahead of me.
We queue up to the lights for about 200 yards while I try to answer some texts
from yesterday that I’ve forgotten about. A man behind beeps me because I
haven’t edged up twelve feet when the traffic has moved. Crawl onto the A2 and
start heading towards the Tunnel. Not my favourite journey this, and I always
find myself fantasising about water coming in or a fire when I’m down there,
and look for secret doors I could escape out of. It’s so long too. Seems to
take ages to get through. Once on the other side, at least I am heading against
the flow of the rush-hour traffic. It only takes me ten minutes to get to the
hospital from here. I pull into a parking space, say hello to the security guy
and head in ten minutes early.

One of
the marvels of filming is the breakfasts. As I come into the communal area I
see, as usual, a veritable Roman-eat-till-you-explode feast of sausages,
scrambled egg, beans, toast, mushrooms — the full English — and manage to grab
a couple of sausages before I am hauled into make-up by Christine the make-up
woman.

My
make-up routine for Kim, the slobby, jaded nurse I play is mercifully short,
because we are trying to make the series as naturalistic as possible, so I just
have a tiny bit of foundation and some eyebrows, and then I’m ready for action.
Gathering more sausages en route, I make my way to the set, which is a perfect
replica of a ward in a downmarket, slightly under-funded NHS hospital.

8 a.m
. The first scene is a nice little one where I have to smoke in the
toilet and speak to my husband ‘Dave’ on the phone. The toilet’s reasonably big
but not massive, and I am plonked rather uncomfortably on the edge of it so
they can get me into shot. Also, it’s absolutely bloody freezing, especially as
I have a thin cotton nurse’s dress and some alluring popsox on and have to
pretend I’m in an overheated hospital. Everyone else seems to be wearing
outdoor coats and jackets, the bastards.

Rather
gloriously we have to do several retakes, which means several fags, a nice
little break. Peter (Capaldi), the director and the cameramen Casper and Gary,
a right cheeky pair, are located just outside the lay with Doug the delightful
sound man, and we have a good laugh as I try and blow smoke out of the tiny
open window. It’s amazing how long these things take and I suppose half an hour
later we finish and everyone moves onto the next scene.