ANIMAL HOUSE
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Having spent 17 years at a manor house in Sussex with 16.5 acres where I ran an animal sanctuary, I moved to this lovely four-bedroom house three years ago. The living room’s beautiful in summer so I write in here – everyone who comes to see me ends up in here. I didn’t want to leave the sanctuary but it became too costly for me. I’ve still got a few animals here though, including parrots, canaries, a cat and a tortoise.
TOP DOG
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This is Igor, the most wonderful dog in the world. He looks like an Irish wolfhound, but God knows what he actually is. When he was six weeks old, a woman took him to a river to throw him in but she was spotted, and a week later I rescued him from a dog’s home. He does everything he’s told, and he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. He’s 13 now and won’t live much longer – I’m dreading the day when I lose him.
MARK MY WORDS
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I bought this wood and wicker hen in a posh shop millions of years ago and it inspired me to put a porcelain hen on the Boswell dinner table in Bread. I went to the filming of all my shows and never allowed any ad-libbing – if they wanted to change a line they had to ask. But some funny things happened. One actor was holding his cap as we mulled an outdoor scene over on Bread and a passer-by put a coin in it thinking he was a beggar!
LOVELY LINDA
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Linda McCartney was a close friend of mine. We shared a passion for animals, and she and Paul were in an episode of Bread once. She had a bright pink Mini which looked like a sweet, and we had fun riding round in that. She used to make little gifts of all sorts of things, and one day she gave me this lovely card of a photo she’d taken of The Beatles. Linda and I planned to do so many things, but her death in 1998 put an end to that.
BEST BIRD
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This is one of my scripts, typed up for me as I’ve always written longhand. The first one I sold to TV was The Liver Birds in 1969. It was just the right time for a sitcom about two Liverpool girls and it was a huge success. When Polly James left after four series we all worried as she was brilliant – she was small and cheeky and knew exactly how to say things. Elizabeth Estensen who replaced her never quite reached that epitome of fun.
AYE AYE SKIPPER!
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About 20 years ago I was walking along a street in Liverpool when I saw a little leg sticking out of a skip. I never usually look in skips, but I thought, ‘What the heck can that be?’ It belonged to this toy dog. I picked it up and thought, ‘You poor little darling!’ I’ve had it ever since. It has such a lovely face. It must be ancient; it’s nothing like the toys of today. I’ve said to my sons, ‘When I die, don’t you dare throw him out!’