1. Chris Biggins
2. Kate O’Mara
3. Dr Liam Fox
4. James Corden
5. Elton John
6. Carrie Fisher
7. David Essex
8. Kenneth Branagh
9. Christine Keeler
10. The Queen
I once drove Chris Biggins round Trafalgar Square in my mini whilst he opened the window and shouted, ‘Help. I’m being kidnapped’. Kate O’Mara once drove me home when I was in tears, nursing a bunch of red roses a cheating boyfriend had sent me and she told me to shove them up his arse. Dr Liam Fox told me to put a plaster on my daughter’s chicken pox spot. (I’m so pleased he went into politics.) I told James Corden in Costas that a TV Sit Com featuring a girl from Cardiff called Stacey and a boy from Essex called Gavin would never work. I stood right next to Elton John one Saturday night when he played the song by that name back to front from the top of his piano at the Shaw Theatre. Carrie Fisher loved a boy whose best friend once loved me. The Queen asked me how the weather had been that summer in Regent’s Park but she didn’t wait for a reply. I told Kenneth Branagh that I couldn’t hear a syllable of the dialogue in ‘Another Country’ from the back of the stalls and I’m sure he cannot recollect. And no, alas, I did never film those scenes on the beach and on a roller coaster in the film ‘That’ll Be the Day’ with the gorgeous David Essex as the Central School of Screech and Trauma wouldn’t let me go and collect my Equity Card on the Isle of Wight. But that was all another country.
PS I once served tea to Christine Keeler
Spread your Lovely Words and Not the Virus.
An Anthology entitled ‘When This is All Over …’ in aid of the Rennie Grove Hospice Care which is a charity providing specialist nursing care and support for adults and children with a life-limiting illness.
Please send me any poems (Haiku? Limericks? Clerihew? Sonnets? Freestyle?) fiction or creative non-fiction up to 200 words for the anthology. Do write about your thoughts, wishes, hopes, reflections, experiences at this time: what is happening in your world and what is happening to the world out there. Submissions free and from all ages welcome to info@janmoranneil.co.uk
There is no limit to submissions and published successes are welcome too. The closing date for now is September 30th. I’ve had submissions from 9 to 90 year olds and from Dublin, Spain, South Africa, USA, Holland, New Zealand and Birmingham.
Also, give me one sentence describing yourself and where you come from.
I love your cobbled street journey through the rich and famous you’ve bumped into on your journey through life. Nothing is ever wasted. I’m going to take a cul-de-sac excursion on this theme for some flash fiction for the Tortive Theatre project (Google it). I was shortlisted twice last month … this may be my chance for a victory. David Essex … who’d have thought he was the odd one out? Not me.
David Putnam cast me in two scenes with him in ‘That’ll be the Day’ and with no screen audition. He
had seen me in ‘Zigger Zagger’. But I had just started at Central and I was too honest about the offer with
£20 and an Equity Card.
Can’t match any of that but I did once fly into Rome only to be told by an Italian customs man that Rome was closed because the Pope was dead.
Best holiday I ever had.