Category: Photography

Born in Wales in 1954, Helen Lederer is a standup comic, actor and author. Raised in south-east London, she broke into the alternative comedy scene in the 1980s as a regular at the Comedy Store. Lederer went on to appear in Britain’s seminal sitcoms – The Young Ones, Bottom, One Foot in the Grave, French and Saunders and Absolutely Fabulous. She has written the books Coping with Helen Lederer, Single Minding, and the novels Finger Food and Losing It. She has a daughter, Hannah, with her first husband, the former editor of the Observer Roger Alton. Her memoir, Not That I’m Bitter, is out now.

This was for the cover of Coping with Helen Lederer, a self-help parody written before people were doing self-help parodies. Inspired by Easy Entertaining, a book from the 1980s by Jane Asher, the image was my attempt to be the perfect hostess. I’m holding a tray of canapes including Weetabix, some kind of red jus, and Liquorice Allsorts on a skewer. There was one version of the photo, taken in a draughtier moment, in which a nipple was very much visible through the shirt.

When this was taken, I don’t think I had started on slimming pills – but I would have discovered them quite soon after, as I realised you could get them easily from your GP. My appearance has never been my selling point; the way I look is not conventional. But when you’re young, as I was here, there’s something fundamentally attractive about you. That’s not to say I was looking in the mirror at the time going, “Phwoar! Look at me!” I knew I was not normal-looking, whatever that is.

The shoot took place on Old Compton Street, Soho, in the flat of Roger Planer, brother of Nigel. We had created Coping together, along with the writer Richard McBrien. That whole period felt like the beginning of a new stage of my life; a peak in which I started to make things happen for myself. I had a book out, I was in a play with the famous actor Denis Quilley. I was living the dream. Then I met a man.

A man named Roger – a different Roger – came along to the book launch of Coping, which took place in a brightly lit room in the Groucho Club. I felt slightly hysterical that night; almost in disbelief that here we were, with an actual book to promote. In spite of the hysteria, I knew when I was introduced to Roger that I’d marry him. But also divorce him. The divorce part I knew about, because in junior school, my friend Mary James had looked at the number of creases in my thumb and gravely confirmed I would both marry and divorce the same man when I grew up. Mary was very prophetic: I got pregnant, married and separated, all of which took me 18 months.

There was sadness when we broke up, but honestly, I just got on with it. I had no other choice; there was a certain war-like spirit to being a single mum in the 90s. It wasn’t really spoken about. At the time, Ben Elton was doing political and observational stuff. Comics were expected to talk about Thatcher, and none appeared to be talking about breastfeeding or dating after marriage. Or nappy bags. All that unsexy stuff I put into my 1991 show Hysteria and the book Single Minding.

Did becoming a mum hold me back? There was an immediate disinterest from agents and producers at my motherhood status, without it actually being said. And practically speaking, it was often hard. There was one play I was offered – a tour with Les Dennis. I wanted to do it and said yes, but when the time came closer I couldn’t manage the thought of being away from Hannah.

I was very used to feeling slightly out of sync with the rest of the industry. Because I went to drama school when I was 27, I’ve always been about three years older than my more successful contemporaries. Did it make me feel like an outsider? I wasn’t ever part of a group, even though I performed with many. Self-starting, doing it alone, was something I always did.

Before comedy, I had a stint at trying to be a social worker – I wanted to try to be useful, and to earn some money. Then, a few years before this was taken, I did a postgraduate year at drama school. After that, I knew I had to pursue performing. I was happy at drama school – that was a big deal for me, as I don’t really do happiness; it’s not generally my thing. For an anxious person, I had such confidence in what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go. I was committed and excited about the world of comedy. It wasn’t success that I was chasing, and being in showbiz wasn’t even part of it. It was just trying to get the job done, find new projects and to keep working.

I’m always in heaven when I’m playing with a group of other people; nice people. Meeting Rik [Mayall] in Edinburgh in the early 1980s, I recognised how special he was. Similarly, I knew Ab Fab was different straight away, partly from the way the top BBC people behaved to the “principals”. Its appeal was in the genius of Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley and the rest of the cast, but it was also great timing – we needed a caricature that mirrored the PR world and the excess of the era. The TV show Happy Families with Ben Elton and Dawn French was another nice memory. Everyone went off to get their own series, apart from me. But that’s OK, because we were filming near Alton Towers and we got to go on a big dipper.

In spite of being on those TV series, I’ve never felt famous. Naked Video [the BBC Scotland sketch show that ran from 1986 to 1991] was the only experience I had of people writing fan letters to me. I actually couldn’t read them – I had to get a friend to answer them for me as I found it too weird. I wasn’t sure what to write back.

For a while I felt part of something. But in my 40s, I sulked a lot. I tried to get comedy scripts accepted and had good agents to promote me, but it would often lead to more meetings and then finally a “no”. I allowed myself to be very disheartened for a while. I thought having a sitcom would be inevitable – and so did the other people around me – which didn’t help.

For a lot of my life I have been at war with myself. Now I am in my 60s, I’d like to think I am a bit wiser. I still feel a big responsibility to be authentic and true, and I just keep trying. When things go wrong, I’m that mix of being very strong and very frail, but as I’ve had more experience, I know that nothing can be that bad. If I go into a room I know I can work it. It has taken me this long to have that confidence – I certainly didn’t have that with Coping.

The culmination of the mistakes and the rejection messages left on answer machines over the decades have built me up to know that all things pass. There’s always hope, there’s always another idea. There’s always a laugh round the corner.

Born in Donegal in 1961, Daniel O’Donnell is a singer and TV personality known as “Wee Daniel” to his legion of dedicated fans. His career has spanned four decades: first touring with his sister, the Irish country music star Margo, and then as a solo artist. His debut, The Boy from Donegal, was released in 1984, and he has since achieved 16 Top 10 albums with singles such as What Ever Happened to Old Fashioned Love, Footsteps and Crush on You. Through the Years – The Very Best of Daniel O’Donnell is out now.

Our nextdoor neighbour, Annie McGarvey, recorded the whole of our family’s childhood on a box camera she bought using cocoa coupons in 1937. She took this photograph outside her thatched house on the day of my first holy communion. I was seven.

The suit was something I enjoyed wearing – it had been passed down to me after both of my brothers had worn it at their communions. My only other memories from that day were that I walked home with Diana Quickhead, a girl whose family came up every summer from Belfast, and was able to buy a block of ice-cream from the post office, as a treat.

My first communion wasn’t a big celebration as my father had died the August before, and my mother was still grieving. She went to the church, but there was no big party for me afterwards. I was too young to be affected by my father’s death, whereas my brothers, who were 19 and 10, felt greatly impacted. It didn’t last for ever, however: my mother was a very strong woman and after a while she gathered herself. I learned that it’s just the way life is – everybody manages. You deal the cards out and play them as they are.

My childhood was spent in Kincasslagh in Donegal, a lovely part of Ireland. It was right beside the beach, so our summers were spent playing there. Maybe it’s my romantic, rose-tinted glasses, but the days felt endless and the weather was always good. The village had a pub, a post office and two shops, one of which I worked in from the age of nine. There were not a lot of houses in Kincasslagh – only 40 or 50 people lived there – so our family knew everybody. Was I a well-behaved boy? I was good enough, not much of a bother.

Growing up, there was always music around, on the radio or on TV. I don’t remember a time in my life when I wasn’t singing. I started when I was aged two, and by the time I eventually went to college, that ambition was so strong in my mind that I wasn’t able to settle. I knew that I wanted to try to pursue music instead.

My sister Margaret was – and still is – a professional singer who had a great career. It was Christmas of 1980 when I said to her that I’d like to perform with her. That was a brave thing to do, because there was a chance that it might not have worked out. When you’re young you can afford to take chances, and I am glad I did. I travelled with her for two years, from 1981, before starting my own group in 1983. That was the beginning of where we are now.

At the beginning of my solo career, I was playing to small crowds – 10 or 20 people at most. At the end of 1985 I thought about giving up because I didn’t think it was going to take off. I said this to Mick Clerkin, who owned the label I had made my debut album with, Ritz Records. He felt that we should hang on, and he was right. By 1986, it was like somebody switched on a light. My career turned around and off we went. My shows were sold out on the door – the venues were full before I walked on stage.

Gaining recognition during the 80s and 90, a time when pop was very experimental, there were probably some people who considered my music as something from a bygone era. But I can’t do anything about that – people like what they like. There’s lots of music that I don’t particularly like, but there’s nothing wrong with it. In 1992, I was performing I Just Want to Dance With You on the same episode of Top of the Pops as the Shaman [performing Ebeneezer Goode]. We are at two ends of the spectrum, musically speaking, but it was amazing.

In 1992, I became very tired. I was doing too much and needed a break from performing. There was nothing obviously wrong with my vocal cords – I had no nodules, I didn’t need surgery – I just had to rest. For a time I worried that I wouldn’t recover, but I did. Doctors discovered I was very allergic to dust. I did a lot of dances at the time; and when people dance there’s dust rising, whether you see it or not. People smoked as well – so I realised that the whole environment, those kinds of shows, would not be good for me any more. After that I changed the types of rooms I booked; that experience elevated me to a different type of performer. I played sit-down venues and started to interact with the audience a little more, rather than just singing. I’ve never had any problems since.

The feeling of standing on stage and receiving applause is something I cannot describe. It’s amazing that people enjoy my music so much and my audience is a huge part of what I do. I used to host tea parties in Donegal, but they are irrelevant now – there’s no point talking about something nobody can go to. They outgrew their purpose – which was to meet people at my home – as too many people were coming. I still get to meet my fans, however. It’s something I have always enjoyed. When I was starting out I would step off the stage after singing and chat to whomever was there. As the audience grew, I just carried on.

I still live in Donegal, two and a half miles from where I was brought up. It’s the same place – filled with the same people I grew up with, and the same atmosphere, too. The pub is not as active as it used to be, and there’s only one shop. Everything changes with time, including me. Of course I have changed from a child of seven to a man of 62. Life makes you wiser and more aware. There’s an innocence to a child that you no longer have when you experience the world.

I wouldn’t want yesterday back, however. I’m very happy now, thank God. I am still touring but I don’t do nearly as much as I used to. When I am not working, I like to play a bit of golf and bridge, and I love spending time at home. In 1999 I met my wife, Majella, in Tenerife, and so we still go there quite a bit. Majella made my life much better then, and she still does now. Having somebody to share things with is something that you don’t know you’re missing until you find it. I’m much happier because of Majella; we have children and grandchildren, and they bring us so much joy.

That’s not to say I’ve ever felt lonely on the road. In fact, I don’t find anything about my career difficult, and there is nothing pressurising about what I do. I have no complaints whatsoever.