Tyrone Guthrie Centre

I thought it might be fun to post this because it is an incredibly great place to go if you are a writer/artist.  I love it!

Tyrone Guthrie Centre, copyright Victoria Mary Clarke 2006

 

There is a giant frog outside the kitchen window, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, where I have taken up residence.  On closer inspection, the frog is not a frog, it’s two frogs humping, in the rain.  At first, I am shocked.  But what could be more natural?  It is, after all Spring, a time when all of the natural world begins to show signs of creating new life. And where more natural for the frogs to be cavorting than at an artists retreat?  Artists are, after all, by nature creative and the urge to mate and procreate is the strongest creative urge that exists.

I have not come here to procreate, at least not deliberately at any rate.  I have come here to write a book in peace.  But as I contemplate the frogs, artistically, I wonder idly whether Sir Tyrone Guthrie, who set this place up, may have had other ideas in mind for the artistic inhabitants than simply the production of books and things.

Guthrie was himself a distinguished theatrical producer and director.  When he died in 1971, he bequeathed his house and grounds, on the edge of a lake, in the countryside of Monaghan to the people of Ireland (both North and South) so that artists and other creative persons could have a place to work that might be conducive to creativity.  Today, twenty five years since it first opened, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre has been a temporary home for thousands of artistic types, from the very famous to the not so famous, including novelists, poets, painters, film makers, and even the occasional very famous rock star.   Guthrie was undoubtedly a visionary and a great philanthropist, and it is an extremely clever scheme, whereby an artist, (if accepted), can come and live for a time in this, a fabulous country house, and be given a warm and tastefully furnished room, and a studio, in accordance with his or her needs.  Everything is provided, including delicious food, the likes of which cannot be found in most hotels, and a tranquil, beautiful setting to work in.

There is only one stipulation that Tyrone Guthrie made.  And it could be interpreted in the most innocent of ways.  In order to make sure that no-one feels left out, and that a ‘family atmosphere’ is created, it is mandatory that all of the artists eat dinner together, every night.  An innocent request, perhaps.  But being a visionary and a dramatist, it is possible that he unwittingly created the original ‘Big Brother’ house.

Of course there are no hidden cameras here.  And you don’t have to share a room, or even a shower.  But the stage is set for drama, every night when the artists make their way down to the dining room.  Because you never know who you might meet.  And whereas you might bump into strangers every day, in your normal life, here there is no getting away from them at dinner, every night.  There is, therefore, the potential for fights and feuds, for back biting and bitching, for artistic types (at their worst) are notoriously given to envy and to one upmanship.  But given the circumstances, there exists also not only the potential to make new friends, there is also the potential to find yourself seated next to  a person to whom you are sexually attracted.  And there is the potential to find yourself falling in love.

Of course not everyone comes here with romance in mind.    Many of the artists are married, after all.  But they come here without their friends, without their families, partners, pets or kids to distract them.  There is no television, or radio, there are no shops, or cinemas.  Even the mobile phones don’t work in the house, and if they are switched on, must be on silent.  There are, therefore, no outside distractions, except the staff, who are charm personified.  More than once, it is said, young artists and writers have been captivated by Valerie, the blonde and beautiful gardener.

Being of an artistic bent, the inmates here are by nature more imaginative, more sensitive, and more often than not, more given to inventing drama of one kind or another than normal people.  They simply can’t help it.  Which is why I find myself more than a little curious now about what might happen to me, while I am here.

I have heard stories, of course.  And I couldn’t help noticing that I have packed a slinky silk outfit and a pair of silver snakeskin stilettos, which is at odds with my desire to knuckle down and get my book finished, in a distraction free environment.  It was wild here, in the early days, according to Bernard Loughlin, who was the Centre’s first administrator.  ‘It wouldn’t be the place it is if there weren’t strange behaviour, naked swimming at dawn, carousing and sexual encounters of the more dubious sort.’  Whatever that means.  I have enquired of the present director, Sheila Pratschke, and she has diplomatically assured me that she never notices if that kind of thing goes on now.  Only if rules are broken does she intervene.  But she did also say that the only time she has had to throw people out was for unwelcome nocturnal visits to ladies’ rooms.

From what I can gather, this is a place to meet people when you are least expecting it.  One painter who has been coming here regularly since the early days tells me that she has met one husband here and one long term partner as well as having had numerous interesting encounters with members of the opposite sex.   One young man she met was sleeping with three different artists, simultaneously, but nobody seemed to mind.  And there have been several marriages between people who met here. Not to mention illicit affairs.

I have been here for nearly two weeks now, and it is not my first time coming here.  I first started coming here in my twenties.  At that time I was much too intimidated to make conversation, and could only listen.  That was  in the wilder days, when everyone walked the few miles to the Black Kesh pub after dinner, and when all night drinking sessions were customary.  Over the years, as I have grown less shy, I have joined in with walks in the woods, been rowing on the lake and participated in all kinds of lovely parties, recitations and all night Trivial Pursuit tournaments.  But never once in all that time has there been even the tiniest frisson of romance.  Whether it is my fault, or whether the fault lies with the talent, I don’t know, but that is the truth.

I am not disappointed, however.  I console myself with the thought that perhaps Tyrone Guthrie had no such intention for the place and that perhaps the shared dinners are simply a way to avoid the loneliness of an artistic life.  And a way to meet new friends and to share ideas.  Perhaps romantic encounters, however thrilling, would be a distraction from the really important work of writing books and painting pictures and things.  But if all of life is a stage, then the Tyrone Guthrie Centre particularly is so.  Which means that you absolutely never know what way the plot will twist and turn.  I have the silver stilettos, just in case.

www.tyroneguthrie.ie

How To Appear Posh

I wrote this to help anyone who has very little cash but would like to appear posh.  Copyright Victoria Mary Clarke 2010-

The royal family are great ones for scandal.  The late Queen Mum (allegedly) refused to purchase a telly for her castle in Scotland, and not only did she insist on a rented one (do they still rent tellys?) but the rented one was extremely old, and may even have been black and white and the VCR that went with it often didn’t work.  Truly shocking.

I regularly watch a programme called ‘How the Other Half Live’ in which very poor people are helped out financially by very rich people.  But never in any of the episodes have the poor people been without at least one proper colour telly, and none of them would still use a VCR, they would have a DVD player.

I am very fortunate to have a lot of posh friends, and having spent time staying in their houses, I can testify that the Queen Mum was not alone in her frugality.   Which begs the question, now that few of us can still afford the trappings of the nouveau riche,  perhaps it is about time we stopped trying to look rich and tried to seem posh instead?

I started out in life with the distinct advantage of having lived in houses with no heating, and collapsing roofs, while eating boiled eggs for lunch with Georgian silver spoons.  I could have been a contender.  But as soon as I left home and discovered central heating and my colour telly, my bourgeois bones revealed themselves, and now I am so spoiled I don’t stand a chance.  Being posh is an extreme challenge, on every level.

To begin with, one must entirely reverse the generally accepted notion that having nice, new, expensive things makes you socially superior.  One must drive the most clapped out car that one can find.  My friend Marina Guinness ( an ideal role model for this game) never fails to point out how modern my car is.  The height of luxury, she calls it.  I know that this is clearly not a compliment, and I cringe at my own bad taste, but I did really try.  I paid less than a grand for it and it’s a 1995 reg.  Everyone where I live in D4 drives 2010 models, and looks down their noses at me.  I snigger, because they will never, ever be posh.

But the car is only the tip of the iceberg.  A properly posh person should never, ever buy new furniture, carpets, curtains or appliances, or indeed anything new at all, (except perhaps very cheap biscuits).

New houses are a total give away.  If one has not inherited a crumbling mansion with no heating, one should rent the dampest, coldest, draughtiest, most cluttered and dusty house one can find, preferably with a few holes in the roof, and immediately acquire a wet dog.  All of this makes one sneeze and shiver and quickly die out, if one is a member of the lower orders.  Many’s the time that I have gone to bed in a posh house only to take the carpet off the floor during the night, for a bit of warmth.  At one house I was informed that they were turning on the hot water especially for my visit, although they wouldn’t be putting on the heating.  At another one the butler brought us three or four blankets for our knees while he served us afternoon tea in the library, which might as well have been the fridge.

Another aspect of posh-ness that I struggle with is clothing and general grooming.  I adore new clothes, especially expensive ones.  But for the very posh it is unthinkable to purchase new clothes. Princess Anne recently recycled a dress she wore twenty years ago, and all posh kids wear hand me downs, a thing that would mortify normal children.  The posh uniform is very easy.  For everyday wear, one should have old jeans and a jumper with a lot of holes in.  For parties, something that one found in the attic.

The more money one spends on make up, fake tan, high-lights and such like, the more common one will appear.  Being told you look frightfully glamorous (as I often am) is not good, although if you are Jasmine Guinness you are allowed red lipstick.   Sir Jack Leslie still wears all the suits he had made in his twenties. Unlike Sir Jack, I would not be able to fit into the clothes I had in my early twenties, because I am not sufficiently frugal with my portions.

The lifestyle of the very posh is undeniably challenging, but the benefits are enormous.  If you cultivate a nice loud, bored-sounding aristocratic monotone, you may begin to feel it a badge of honour to have lost the family home, and you will never, ever be ashamed of having last year’s handbag.

The only real stumbling block is the social niceties.  Posh people, unlike most of us, are careful with their cash, but they are exceptionally lavish with their compliments.  While you may be standing there wondering if your make up is smudged, they will be loudly announcing to everyone in earshot that you are simply the most charming person they ever met.  And sounding like they mean it.

And that’s not easy.

Paul Mc Cartney Wedding

 

I am very happy for Sir Paul, who was my favourite Beatle when I was a kid.  I spent hours in my room, gazing at pictures of him and Linda when I was small.  

This is a piece I wrote about his last wedding at Castle Leslie, to Heather Mills.  I was not actually invited to the wedding, but I got to stay in the village and afterwards when they were giving away the flowers I got enough lilies to fill my car.  Recently, I had the pleasure of actually meeting Sir Paul at Kate Moss’s wedding and he was extremely charming and also a very energetic dancer, far more energetic than me.  His new fiancee seems quite lovely too.

copyright Victoria Mary Clarke, 2002

 

There is a double rainbow in the sky over Castle Leslie, the magnificent mock-gothic mansion in Monaghan where ex-Beatle Sir Paul Mc Cartney, the world’s richest rock star, will marry Heather Mills.  A banner has been erected to welcome the happy couple.  Three hundred guests are expected to arrive and three enormous marquees have been erected on the thousand acre estate, in which to lavishly entertain them.  At the gates of the castle, two hundred and fifty reporters are competing to document the great event  and a huge crowd of fans yell and cheer as coaches roll in and out of the driveway.  Cries of ‘Celebrities arriving!  Mick Jagger coming!”fill the sleepy village street. The members of the Press snap to attention every single time, craning to see who’s coming and going.  Rain lashes mercilessly on a glamorous blonde television presenter, as she tries to say her piece to the camera and interested locals take pictures of her and wave.  One man has just cycled all the way from Monaghan town, six miles away, to be here for the action.  No-one has yet seen Bill Clinton or Bono, who are reportedly on their way, but Cliff Richard and Elton John were spotted asking for directions, earlier today.

Behind the gates, and beyond the hundred uniformed security guards, -who also handled Madonna’s wedding, -staff have been instructed not to talk to the press, ‘On pain of death.’  But last week  Sir John Leslie, the eighty five year old American born cousin of Winston Churchill and owner of the castle confided happily in the journalists, whilst taking his regular stroll in the village, confirming that the wedding will take place tomorrow and adding innocently that he has been told to keep it a secret.  This afternoon, Paul and Heather appeared at the gate, her in a  sweater and jeans, him in a grey cashmere pullover.  They looked relaxed and in love, holding hands and smiling.  A waiting fan handed Paul a copy of the McCartney family crest, confirming his connection with this part of Ireland, and he lifted a fist in salute. “As Uncle Jack has told you, the wedding will take place tomorrow, ”he told the crowd.  “But it’s a secret,” Heather added, laughing.  Paul explained that the wedding will be a family affair, “Just a bit of fun.”  The couple have announced that this will be their only media appearance .

But the excitement  is unstoppable in this tiny place.  Rumours of the opulence of the preparations for the feast are flying around the village.  It is now generally accepted that the guests will eat off solid gold plates and sit on white linen chairs, decorated with gold bows.  The plates and chairs have been flown in from England, as have the marquees, the flowers and the cakes.  One Irish Sunday newspaper attacked Mc Cartney for coming back to his roots and leaving his money in England.  But the Indian vegetarian buffet will be prepared by the castle’s own prize winning chef, Noel Mc Meel, who has cooked in the White House.  And as one local woman said, Glaslough has never been a tourist attraction and the Mc Cartney wedding will surely put it on the map.

Tonight, Paul and Heather will sleep in separate rooms.  The castle has fourteen fabulously eccentric bedrooms, each with it’s own theme, the grandest and most feminine being the Mauve Room, which was the bedroom of the original owner, Lady Constance Leslie.  Mick Jagger has slept in the Mauve room and Heather is expected to occupy it tonight.  Paul will most likely sleep in the Red Room, which is equally grand, if a little more masculine.  The haunted bedroom is Papa Jack’s room, it is not known who will sleep there.  None of the bedrooms have televisions or telephones and all have unusual antique toilets.  Most of the guests will have to be accommodated in the village, in the Pillar House hotel, where the landlady is remaining firmly tight-lipped about who is expected, but whoever does arrive tonight will definitely not get past the waiting crowd without being spotted and photographed.

Michael O Doherty Interview

I just came across this interview with Michael O Doherty, from 2002, which deserves to be here, because it is very funny.  Michael won the three top prizes at our last Speaking Supper (google Speaking Suppers if you dont know what I am talking about)

I am not sure if he still has the Ferrari, I think it is now an orange Lambo

copyright Victoria Mary Clarke, 2002

Michael O’Doherty doesn’t know who he would kiss, given the choice of absolutely anybody in the world.  Elle Mac Pherson, Helena Christiansen, Kate Moss, I offer him.  “Nahh.  Cigarette-breath,” he says.  He really can’t think of anybody.  But then, he says, this is an entirely hypothetical question and he doesn’t do abstract or hypothetical.  He’s a practical man and he doesn’t involve himself with anything that is beyond his control.  Michael O’ Doherty is a media magnate who lives in a Ringsend river-view apartment, with a CD player that comes on when you wave at it. He wears Armani suits, because “they’re  the best you can get” and he drives a red Ferrari.  He publishes “VIP” magazine, and  ‘TV NOW!” and he’s just launched ‘KISS’, Ireland’s first teen mag for girls.

Everyone else involved in creating ‘KISS’ was able to list the people they would most like to kiss, but not Michael.  He wouldn’t enjoy the kiss, he says, because it would be transient and there would be no future in it.  He doesn’t bungee jump, because he doesn’t need to know what it’s like and kissing one supermodel would be the same as kissing the next supermodel, he doesn’t need to know what that’s like either.

Being the publisher of celebrity-related publications, Michael should, I have decided, be a deeply shallow individual with a penchant for supermodels.  And an obsession with glitz, glamour and all things superficial. No, he says, because he is most definitely not a celebrity.  Definitely, categorically, absolutely not a celebrity.  Nor does he ever have any desire to be one.  The minute you think you are part of their world you are finished, he says.  Because then you start to enjoy the life and you can’t function as someone who’s documenting it.  And once you become part of it, you can’t put in the hours and do the work properly.

Can’t put in the hours?  I interrupt, incensed.  But surely celebrities work all the hours God sends them?

‘What do celebrities do before midday?  Quite seriously?”

They have things done to them, I remind him.  They have massages and they do yoga and meditate.

“Okay,” he concedes.  ‘Maybe they work long hours.  But a celebrity is only expected to perform for a few hours a day.  The job that I’m talking about, which is publishing, is a regular job.  The only difference between the job that I do and the jobs that other people do in things like banks is that I don’t work nine to five I work nine to nine.  And I work at weekends.”

I can attest to this, because I live next door to his office and the lights in there are always on. His car, a red Ferrari can be seen parked outside at 3am, even at weekends.  Despite this dedication to duty, in the greater scheme of things, neither he nor anybody who works for him remotely believes that what they do is important or life-changing.

“But having said that, we do provide a valuable service.  We make people happy.’

We argue heatedly about the merits of making people happy by feeding them a diet of glamour-obsessed trivia.  And agree to differ.  “KISS”, he points out, will have four different problem pages, which will tackle all kinds of things that teenage girls worry about.  Things like what to do if you vomit in his mouth or swallow your own snot.  Maybe he’s right, maybe he is providing a service.  But what is interesting about Michael is that whether or not he believes that he is serving the best interests of his readers, this isn’t what counts.

“All I care about is numbers.  What I enjoy is the idea of the public going out and buying the magazines, that, to me, is the success.  Because if somebody is willing to hand over money for it, it’s got to be good, as far as I’m concerned.”

By that definition of what’s good, I say, it doesn’t matter if something’s trashy, as long as it sells.

“Well, yes.  If VIP were a newspaper, at the very best it would be a mid-market tabloid.  It is by no means the broadsheet of Irish magazines.”

Publishing magazines has been his passion, ever since he was eighteen and he wrote his first ever article, for Trinity College’s “Piranha” magazine.  He was too shy to submit the article in person, so he slipped it under the door, one day.

“ And the next time the magazine came out, I saw my name in it. I had bought the magazine and I had hidden in a corner because I didn’t want anyone to see me looking for my own name.  And I remember to this day the buzz that I got from seeing my own article with my own name on it.  I do remember, also that they had cut and pasted it so that the second last paragraph and the last paragraph were in the wrong order!  The article ended on a pun, which was a brilliant ending and then suddenly there was another paragraph.  The guy’s name was Tim Horan, the guy who had stuck those two paragraphs in the wrong order and he will never be forgiven!”

Is this a metaphor for his life now?

“Absolutely not.  But I was aware that if I had put it together myself, it would have been right and that’s where the control thing clicked in.”

Is he a control freak?

‘Oh God, yeah.  Come on!  Of course I’m a control freak.”

Encouraged by his success, he wrote a second article and again stuck it under the door. But as he was doing it, the door opened and a man invited him in.

“ It was like a scene from a movie.  A door opens and this blinding light comes out and you walk into the space-ship.  There were type-writers and rulers and Pritt-stick and stuff, and I spent the whole weekend in there, helping out.  And I came away transfixed, and that was it.”

He left College in 1986 and freelanced for the Irish Press and the Sunday Tribune.  And set up a graphic design company.  Then he launched a nationwide student magazine called ‘Level Three”, which lasted 18 months.  And he lost money on every issue.

‘In the commercial world , you’ve got to make it pay.  And after that folded, I decided that the next thing I did would have to make money.  And that’s not an easy thing to do.”

In 1997, he and John Ryan re-launched Magill with Vincent Browne. The early issues sold over 40,000 copies and broke some serious stories. But after seven months Michael and John left the magazine. Michael sold his shares to Browne, purchasing the Ferrari with the proceeds. A gesture which, we can only imagine, must have cheered Browne’s famous social conscience.

And then, in June 1999,‘VIP” was born.  But that was John’s idea.

‘I can’t think of an original idea that I’ve had,” he says, and it’s difficult to tell of he’s joking.  ‘Stuff doesn’t come instinctively to me.  I can give the impression that it does, and that’ll do for most people.  But there’s nothing in life that you can’t learn.”

VIP remains the biggest selling monthly magazine in the country. A year later the pair launched TV Now! – another idea from John – which ambitiously took on the RTE Guide. After a difficult birth it has since become Ireland’s third highest selling magazine, shifting 35,000 copies a week .He and John worked together for three years and had a tempestuous relationship.  One that should have worked, because John was the ideas man and Michael  looked after the nuts and bolts.  But it didn’t work and John sold up last year and moved on to more unusual ventures.  They remain friends, he says, and if he won the lottery, he would seriously consider another joint venture.  With the lottery win, he could afford to do something that was risky and might not work.  He doesn’t like to take risks, especially if he can’t calculate the results.

‘I am not a creator in the way that John is, but I would remember everything that John said and I would be able to copy it.  You know paint-by-numbers?  The magazines are like paint-by-numbers and I’m brilliant at that.”

This, too, is difficult to believe.  After all this is the man who put Gerry Adams on the cover of VIP.  Which was, he admits, an inspired move for both parties.  The magazines, under his control are making money.  He’s careful with the money, though.  He doesn’t spend it, if he can avoid doing so.  And he doesn’t really have a life, outside of the magazine.

“Can we talk about my hobbies?  I recently agreed to be a judge for the Rose of Tralee, -which we sponsor-and I had to write a little biog, listing my hobbies and interests.   I put cars, golf and skiing.  And when I read it I thought God, I sound like a wanker.  But you know what? I realised that I haven’t been on a golf course in two years, and I haven’t been on a ski slope in four years.  And they are genuinely the things that I love to do in my free time.”

If he does spend money and appear to be flash, there’s always a practical side.  The Ferrari, for instance, is 18 years old.

“And if I sell it, I will get back the money that I paid for it, so it makes economic sense.  My stereo is expensive, but I won’t buy another one for ten years.  I have a few very good clothes.  They are expensive, but they last.”

Women must throw themselves at him, though?

“No, absolutely not.”

John Ryan was always the one that women were interested in, and Michael accepted that.  John, he says, has a presence that he simply doesn’t have.  Whereas John is six foot four, strawberry-blonde and well-built, Michael is Chaplinesque: slight, dapper and self-contained.  And he wouldn’t be interested in any woman who was attracted to him because of his magazines and his car.  Even Penelope Cruz, if he met her in Reynards, wouldn’t tempt him, if she wasn’t interested in him as a person.  Besides, he doesn’t have time for a serious commitment, like marriage, because he works all the time.  What would happen if he was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and only had six months to live?

“I would stop work immediately.  I do want to die having enjoyed something other than work.  But I wouldn’t enjoy myself because I can’t enjoy something if it has no future.”

And supposing I was a genie and could grant him any wish that he wanted?  He can’t think of one.  Not even World Peace?

‘It’s way too abstract.  I genuinely don’t know.  But I’ll tell you what I dream about.  All I ever dream about is the stuff I’ve messed up.  I have this recurring dream about a Leaving Cert History exam that I failed.  I have a mortal fear of not getting 100%  Of getting an F in publishing.”

Somehow, it doesn’t look like that’s about to happen.

Jonathan Guinness Yoga

Jonathan Guinness Yoga for Health copyright Victoria Mary Clarke 2010-(pictured above with his daughter Daphne)

Anyone who practices yoga will know that the headstand is not an easy posture to learn.  Most people are terrified of it, including me (and I’m a qualified yoga teacher.)  So it is with awe that I discover that the man I am chatting to at tea not only does a headstand every morning of his life, but can do one on this very kitchen table, if it is required.  Although he does worry that he might disturb the chocolate cake.

The man is Jonathan Guinness, 3d Baron Moyne, who recently celebrated his eightieth birthday.  Not for a moment would you think he is eighty.  He is handsome, with the brilliant blue eyes of his late mother Diana Mitford, and is possessed of a slim figure, dressed in casually stylish clothes and quite enviable posture.  I find myself flirting with him, and feeling pleased that he is giving more attention to me than to Jerry Hall, who is seated opposite us.

Being endlessly fascinated by people who can keep not only their health and vitality but also their looks, as they age, I interrogate him about his yoga practice.

Never having been athletic, he took up yoga after he and his late partner Shoe were given a free lesson at the Sivananda Centre in London in 1979.

‘We loved a freebie!’ he laughs.

Since then, apart from one brief period when he had Sciatica, he has practiced religiously, every morning immediately upon waking up, while still in his pyjamas.  I ask him how he found the will power to do the daily practice.

He says he simply made up his mind to do it.

‘ I just thought now is the time!  I was about to turn fifty, and I had got to do something to get fit.  I had already taught myself to stand on my head, from a book.’

There are many different styles of yoga, which can be very confusing for people.  Jonathan has tried most of them, including the Ashtanga style favoured by the likes of Madonna and Sting.

‘ I find that the actual format of the Sivananda session is the best.  Although there is a case for saying that Ayengar is more exact. In the year 2000, Shoe came across John Scott, who was a great Ashtanga teacher, so I had a week with him.  It was wonderful, really strenuous.  I incorporated some of it.  But I slipped back to my Sivananda routine pretty soon.’

It is a routine that he seldom varies.

‘I feel that one has to have a routine that incorporates most of the postures.  My favourite one is probably the Downward Dog.  I tend to pause on the Down Dog!’

We agree that people have days when they don’t feel like doing yoga.

‘ Shoe used to do yoga as well, but there were days she didn’t do it. I don’t expect too much of myself, but I do it every day, never leave it out.  I would feel terrible if I didn’t do it at all!’

He claims not to be very disciplined in general.

‘It just is such a good feeling.  I wake up every morning feeling really quite rough.  Then I do that and I am human again.”

He also incorporates breathing exercises and meditation into the daily routine.

‘The meditation techniques work, they really do.  When I do the Bastrika breathing, I suddenly get the feeling that you see in the pictures of yogis with flames coming up through them!”

There have been many noticeable benefits from the practice.

‘There is no question that it does help the circulation.  And above all it helps the mind,  it makes the mind clearer.

There is the same feeling as you have at sea when the waves stop and it becomes like a lake.  It is wonderful.  It is very good for you, I think. And I think compared to a lot of people I am happy.  I don’t get intense feelings of either happiness or depression, I am on a fairly even keel.  I can still have fun at my age, thank goodness!’

He is not sure if he believes, as the yogis do, in re-incarnation.  But he would like to.

‘Oh, I like life!  I don’t want to lose life forever!  So I would come back if I could.  I hope in reasonable shape!’

Has he always been very healthy?

‘I really mustn’t grumble.  I had appendicitis, which did nearly kill me, that was when I was about ten.  Otherwise I have been okay.

But there is a lot more to medicine and health than whether you live or die.  There is whether you are living well, and can get about easily.’

He watches his diet, but not too strictly.

‘Vegetarianism is not my thing, but I try to eat red meat only twice a week, and a fair amount of fish and quite often I will have the vegetarian option on a menu.  I do drink alcohol, but not terribly much.’

Jonathan keeps his mind busy.  He has written three books and is currently working on two more.  He has survived two wives and his late partner, and has fathered eight children.  He gets great pleasure out of his children he tells me.

‘It is so interesting seeing them grow up!  And to see how different they all are!’

He believes that yoga helps with relationships, as well as with the body.

‘I think that yoga practice helps one not to expect too much.  If you expect too much, you are not going to get it.  And somehow, if you can float off and meditate a bit, or do the postures, you get things into perspective.’

I ask if he would recommend yoga?

‘I would recommend it to anyone.  I would say to people just have a go, even if you think you wont be any good.

People like to be good at things.  But yoga is not competitive.  Don’t think about whether you are any good or not.  Set that competition aside for a bit, and take a rest from it!’

Jeremy Irons

Jeremy Irons interview, copyright Victoria Mary Clarke 2004

Jeremy Irons, who I am about to meet, is an Oscar winning actor, married to Sinead Cusack, daughter of Cyril. But a certain pink castle, in West Cork is what people in Ireland think of, when I mention his name.  Being a member of the Georgian Society and having a keen interest in architecture, I wrote to Jeremy, asking to be allowed to see his castle, but was politely refused on the grounds that it wasn’t ready yet. Perhaps, it occurs to me, this will be my chance to be invited in for tea.

Being a major star, Jeremy has a comprehensive website, full of fascinating facts. I know, for instance, that his name is not pronounced Eye-rons, but instead is pronounced aaahrrnns, like the metal.  And that if you look closely at his signet ring, you will see the letters JJI, which stand for Jeremy John Irons.  He drives an Audi A6 Quatro estate, because even though it’s ‘a nice bit of kit’, you can park it in the seedier parts of London.  He dreams of a Bentley, rides a BMW bike, and his very first car was a Morris Minor, which he bought for a fiver.

Having become utterly absorbed in Jeremy’s hobbies and interests,  I suddenly realise that I am late, and run the last stretch to the Dorchester where, panting, I am directed upstairs, to where there is a poster for ‘Being Julia’, Jeremy’s latest film. Annette Bening plays a stage actress who is married to an impresario, played by Jeremy. Julia is beginning to lose her looks, but is drawn into an affair with a man half her age.  Irons is sumptuous as her husband, discreetly ignoring her affair and politely allowing it to play it’s course, even going to far as to invite his young rival to stay with them in the country, prompting a crisis for his wife.

I am shown into the ‘waiting room’, and given tea.  The room is full of journalists.  I tell myself I am Hugh Grant, in ‘Notting Hill’, waiting to meet Julia Roberts, and pretend to be nonchalant, as I eavesdrop on the conversation. They bitch loudly about the various celebrities that they have had to wait for, over the years.  One woman waited six hours for Keanu Reeves, another four hours for Gareth Gates.  ‘Gareth Gates!’ she spits the name. I will be allowed precisely twenty minutes with Jeremy. Twenty minutes is the time it usually takes me to warm up. I panic, and start writing questions, furiously. I am reminded of the driving test and how I failed it three times.

I am escorted by a PR person, to a chair, in a corridor just outside the actual interview room.  Down the hall, I can see other PR people, all in black with clip-boards. I am on Death Row.  From inside, I can hear the famous voice.  And then finally I am in a room and Jeremy Irons is sitting opposite me, long, lean, butterscotch corduroy legs elegantly crossed, the famous dark eyes fixed on me, rolling a cheroot. We shake hands.  And open my mouth.  Words come out, of their own accord.

I tell him that I wrote to him about the castle.

‘Did I write back?’ he asks, lighting up the cheroot, langorously.  ‘We haven’t had anybody in, because even though we have been living in it for two years, it will never be quite ready.  And because it’s my home.  Because I love my privacy so much.’

‘Hang on a minute,’ I say.  ‘I’m interviewing you for a Sunday newspaper!’  He laughs.

‘I know!  But that doesn’t mean I have to let you into my home!’

The Knight of Glin once visited the castle, it transpires, when Jeremy was out.

‘He wrote me a wonderful letter, said it is the best restoration he has ever seen in Ireland.  I was thrilled with that!’

‘I remember the fuss about the paint,’ I say.  It turned out not to be pink, but a sort of rusty colour.

‘That was such bullshit!  The Times sent people to interview all my outraged neighbours and they couldn’t find any!  It was a story that stuck to me, all over the world, though.’

‘A good way to draw attention to yourself,’ I point out.

‘Yeah.  But we did a jazz riff on the medieval.  And the building demands what it demands.’

Another controversial story involved a campaign to prevent holiday homes being built in Castletownsend.

‘We managed to cut the number of houses by two thirds, which isn’t bad.  But I just hope it will be filled with at least some local people.’

There was also a scheme to bring underprivileged city children to stay at the castle.  This was thwarted by red tape.

‘I realised that I was in deep shit, if I was going to get city kids to come down.  Because suddenly things like fire escapes would have been needed and that would have completely spoilt the integrity of the place. But I have a little island as well, so there may be a way of using that for the kids.’

Jeremy once said that he became an actor to escape from the society that he was raised in.  He was born on the Isle of Wight, raised middle class English.  Class ridden and hierarchical.

‘Surely,’ I say ‘The society of actors must be more horrific?’

‘I don’t live in the society of actors,’ he says.  ‘I have a few friends, but very few who are actors.’

‘But your wife is an actor and so is your son,’  I point out.

‘It is true that he will go to drama school, yes.  ‘But I think actors are some of the nicest people,’ he says, charmingly.  ‘If you compare them with groups of doctors or groups of horse trainers or bank managers!’

‘But aren’t they quite vain and self obsessed?’

‘That is a danger, because we look at our own image all the time.  It is a danger, but the actors I work with are not vain.  Annette Bening, for instance.  Even though Warren (Beatty) is generally thought to be the inspiration behind the song ‘You’re So Vain’!’

I tell him that I think the celebrity system is the modern equivalent of ‘Upstairs Downstairs’.

‘Do you think so? In West Cork, it’s not like that.  My nature is fairly anarchic and I don’t like hierarchies.  That’s one of the reasons why I love West Cork, because I am just a person, even if I am a film actor.’

He has, he says, been known to sing in the local pubs.

‘I play my fiddle, as well.  Very badly.  Irish fiddle, I can’t get my head around.  It’s very fast.  And the rythms are very difficult for an Anglo to get!’

But he’s not a full blooded Anglo, he assures me.

‘There is a lot of me that is Celtic.  My great grandmother was born just behind Sandymount Strand.  And when I first went to West Cork, I though ‘I am home!”

He’s very careful, he says, not to throw his weight about in Cork. He doesn’t mind being told to butt out.

WE discuss the impact on the Irish psyche of having been booted about by the English.  I remind him that we did our share of booting about. We talk about Grace O Malley, the Pirate Queen.

‘I think the famine left an imprint on the Irish psyche,’ he says.  ‘My wife is a much more intellectual person than I am.  But just listening to the way I talk sometimes makes her feel upset.’

‘Because you have a plummy accent?’

‘Yeah.  Which, of course, means nothing.’

Jeremy and Sinead married in 1978.  They had both worked in London, in theatres that backed onto each other.

‘We met at a birthday party and we have been together for nearly thirty years.’

In all of that time, only a rumour of trouble, when Jeremy was photographed kissing someone outside a London club.  But the couple are still very happy together.

‘  What makes the marriage work?’  I ask.

‘I don’t know.  I think through respect for each other and deep affection.  What makes a marriage work?  Not giving up!’

They are both competitive.

‘        But we cope with it pretty well. And we know the true nature of celebrity, which is meaningless!’

In ‘Damage’ and in ‘Lolita’ and now this new film, a middle aged person becomes attracted to a much younger one.  A co-incidence, he assures me.

‘I think it is a trap that many men fall into.  And women.  You just have to look around you,’ he says.

‘  But one of the great things about making movies is that you are able to explore situations without the messiness of actually doing them!  It enables you to lead a normal life, without all that drama and without messing up the things you really value.’

‘What would you do if your wife did fall in love with a twenty year old?’ I ask.

‘One never knows. But you have to decide what you want in life and if something comes along that could disrupt that, you try to ride it out.’

‘Would you forgive?’

‘I don’t think there is any point in going on with anything unless you do forgive.’

The PR arrives to boot me out.  I leave, but not without an invitation for the Georgian Society to make a field trip to the pink castle.  And, lets face it, somewhat charmed by an older gent.

 

Jilly Cooper

Jilly Cooper interview, copyright Victoria Mary Clarke, 2003

 

The fabulous Jilly Cooper sits down opposite me, resplendent in pinks and lilacs, and eyes my drink with the utmost suspicion.

‘What’s that?”she says, with a conspiratorial twinkle.

It’s an energy drink, I reply, earnestly.  With strawberries and bananas and honey.

‘Nothing at all alcoholic?” she enquires, incredulously.

No, nothing alcoholic,  I assure her.  Won’t you have some?

“Good Gawd no.  Absolutely not,” she looks quite repulsed at the notion.  She’s having a glass of white wine which she pushes to one side.  ‘Ahym aawffffff the drink, eeeectually.  Part of the Cabbage Soup diet.  Lawst a stone already, it’s maaaahvellous.”  All of this said in a gorgeous Rutshire accent, with the air of a schoolgirl discussing pop gossip.

I appraise her trimness, appreciatively.  And sympathise.  That can’t be pleasant.  It’s not half as disgusting as it sounds, she says.  And surprisingly easy to do.  She had worried that there would be this dreadful stench of boiled cabbage, like  at boarding school, but actually it’s a vegetable soup, which you eat twice a day and then for dinner you eat normally.  I’m half tempted to go down the road of comparing fad diets, but decide that we can find better things to talk about.  She looks fabulous on the cabbage soup, I tell her and very fit.  It must be working.  But surely she doesn’t need to diet?

“Oh, I was getting decidedly porky,’ she says.  ‘I must have weighed nearly ten stone.”

I myself weigh more than ten stone, but I decide not to mention it.  And we push on, settling comfortably into armchairs, in her bedroom.  She tells me I couldn’t possible be thirty -seven and I tell her that she couldn’t possibly be over sixty.  Her complexion is what was once known as ‘Peaches and Cream”.  She giggles.  Jilly Cooper is a delightful giggler.  Absolutely wicked, you can tell.  Despite being an old age pensioner, now.  There’s a knock at the door, and a maid appears with a sky blue linen suit, beautifully pressed.  The girl hands over the garment and disappears.  Jilly runs after her.

‘Come back!  Where do you think you’re going?’  A tip must be found immediately, she says, rummaging in her handbag, because ironing like that must be appreciated.

‘Isn’t that the absolute best ironing you’ve ever seen?’ Jilly asks, holding it up for me to inspect.  It most certainly comes close, I agree.  But it’s not the best I’ve seen.  We discuss hotel laundries, momentarily and then I insist on switching on my tape machine.

‘Oh, how boring, ‘ Jilly sighs.  ‘I do wish we could just chat.’

We can just chat, I say.  Only I’ve got to record something.  Or I won’t have a story.  To cheer her up I tell her about the Jilly Cooper Nude site that I found on the internet.

“Do I look good?”she asks.  “That’s wonderful.  It’s such a pity that I haven’t got the internet.”

I’ve read that she doesn’t use a computer, but sticks to a manual typewriter, instead.

‘It’s so wet of me, I know it’s wet of me.  But I have this typewriter called Monica that I bought for the Tory Party Conference.  And it’s typed all the books, since ‘Riders” and it never goes wrong.”

“Riders” was Jilly’s  first novel, which  was famously lost when she took it out to lunch and left it on a bus.  If she’d had a laptop, there would have been a back-up copy and the course of history would have been altered.  But who knows?  Perhaps the original ‘Riders” wasn’t as thrilling as the one she eventually published and perhaps the timing was wrong.  Whether it was fated or merely an accident, ‘Riders” was a number one bestseller when it did appear and so were all her other books.  She has now sold more than eleven million books in the UK alone and if you just think of all the airports and train stations all over the world where Jilly Cooper novels change hands, you can imagine how many she must have sold in total.  The formula never fails, because it’s as mercurial, eccentric and impossibly stylish  as Jilly herself.  Oh, and unlike  almost all her competitors in the Romantic Fiction genre, Jilly’s hysterically funny.  And raucously ribald.  Even I am shocked by her sex scenes and of course I’m dying to ask if they are thoroughly well researched.   But we’re still talking about typewriters.

‘I know I reeeeeeallllly  should get a computer,” she’s saying.

If something’s working, don’t fix it, I say, truthfully.

‘I’ll tell you a good tip,” she leans forward conspiratorially.

What? I ask, expecting a sex tip for girls from one who knows.

‘Irish watercolours are going to be the next big thing, according to all the London dealers.  Go and get some.”

I mention that my fathers, both of them, trade in paintings.  She wants to know all about my paternal peculiarities,  because in ‘Pandora”which is her latest novel, a character called  Emerald, who is adopted, searches out her real parents, with unusual consequences.  I explain that I met my real father when I was thirty, for the first time.  She says I should write a novel.  I say I’m trying.  We discuss Charles Saatchi and whether or not he’s attractive.  She’s been researching the art world extensively and Charles Saatchi is the best known and most important collector of Brit Art.  Nigella Lawson, his girlfriend, is, she tells me, absolutely divine.  A really, really, really nice person.  Yentob, who interviewed Saatchi for the Channel Four documentary of which we are speaking, is sex on hairy legs.

‘You wouldn’t believe that, would you?’ she giggles.  No, I concur.  I wouldn’t.  What makes a man sexy?  Jilly’s heros are generally unrealistically handsome  and much too good in bed to be believable.

“I’ve always had a thing about beauty, ever since I was a fat little fourteen year old.  I think it helps the story along, if the characters are beautiful.  But what makes a man sexy?  I think that some men have a way with horses, and can make them relax.  And some men have a way with women and can make them relax.  But sexy men can be quite unpredictable, some of them.  Leo, my husband is unpredictable.  You are never quite sure what sort of mood he will be in.  I think that’s quite interesting, don’t you?”

Leo, her husband must be something special.  They met when she was eight, at a party and he impressed her by throwing a jelly at another kid.  They got married in 1961 and have been married ever since.  Her first non-fiction book was about how to stay married, and did rather well.  I am tempted to read it, I say.

“What sort of men do you like?” she asks me

All sorts, I say.

“Irish men are sexy, because they have wonderful voices.  Don’t you think?  And they’re very funny. Gabriel Byrne is very attractive and Henry Mountcharles.  And Desmond Guinness, all the Guinnesses.  Everyone talks about Irish charm as if it was a sort of connivance, but actually it’s just a desire to please, don’t you think?”

I’m not sure.  It’s possible, I say.

“Do you know who is a lovely man?  Pierce Brosnan.  A wonderful thing happened to me at a Polo match.  I was sitting with my son Felix when suddenly this apparition walked by, touched my shoulder and said ‘Love your stuff,’ and drifted on.  Can you imagine?  Oh, I didn’t recover for weeks, months, even!”

I am most impressed with her girlish enthusiasm for the opposite sex, I say, maybe that’s what keeps her so young?

“Of course I’m ancient now,” she sighs, dreamily. “ So there’s no possibility of  anything, but you get a flicker of joy, don’t you?  I live in the country, so I only see badgers and foxes.  One doesn’t see much talent.  Is there any talent in Dublin?”

I mention some Brazilian Capoiera guys who I saw on Grafton Street.  She nods, like a connoisseur of fine wines on hearing that I have sampled a 1982 Petrus.

“Ooohh.  It’s lovely to fantasize about somebody amazing, isn’t it?  Colin Firth is sweet.  I met him at Polo, too.”

And what about Prince William?   I enquire, thinking he would make  great Jilly character, what with being so tall and so pretty.

“My daughter in law was talking to him at a party the other day and he asked her who the prat was on the go-kart.  That was her husband, my son Felix!  She said he was really sweet, and very beautiful.  I’ve never forgotten Diana, I met her at a Welsh Guards party, before she married Charles.  She was walking along and I was behind her.  The guards were all lined up in their red tunics.  And she reached a thoroughly nice looking bit of rough trade, slightly sweaty, but with burning eyes.  And suddenly their eyes met.  And I watched the blush travel all the way down her neck.  She was only eighteen, and so voluptuous.  And I thought God, Charles hasn’t got a hope in hell of holding onto her.  But of course it wasn’t that way around, was it?”

The character of Rupert Campbell-Black,  a dashing young chap who features in many of her novels was based, she says, on Andrew Parker Bowles.  Who is gorgeous.  Camilla is “sweet”, as is Charles.

“We went to a party at Highgrove, which was absolutely heavenly and he came straight up to us and said to Leo ‘I’m really sorry about the Parkinsons.  How are you?”  Leo has a difficult time at parties.  He has a razor sharp brain, but it ceases to engage with the body.  It’s terrifying, you always have to sit down.  So Charles coming straight over was like a benediction, it was wonderful.”

Leo was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s  Disease, which came as a shock to both of them.

“But it’s not the worst thing you can get.  He’s eating papaya all day, which is supposed to be the miracle cure.  He’s such a lovely man, it’s very sad.”

She has to dress him, now, she says, which is horrible for him.  She would hate it if it happened to her.

She switches the conversation abruptly back to my parents.

“You are a love child?  That’s why you’re so beautiful.  Just like Emerald.”

She wants to know what I wore, to meet my father for the first time.  I can’t remember.  Did I find him sexually attractive?  No.

“That happens a lot, you know.  It’s such an interesting subject, isn’t it?”

She and Leo have two adopted children, Felix and Emily.  She couldn’t have any of her own.

‘I’m fascinated by people meeting parents in later life.  It shouldn’t be a disappointment, but it so often is.  Neither of ours have met their parents.

I think it must be crucifixion for the adoptive parents.  I always say I would be there for them if they wanted to.  I know I would try very hard but one would find it very difficult.  Our children have been so sweet.  They’ve never once said “My real mother wouldn’t have done that”!”

The people who inhabit Jilly’s novels almost always are posh, and if they aren’t posh, they want to be.  The subject of finding one’s real parents is  most interesting from a class point of view, she says.

“When you meet your new parents, are they going to talk about dinner in the middle of the day? It’s a tricky one, isn’t it?”

I pretend that we don’t have a class system in Ireland, that we are above such things.  She says that’s bullshit.  Of course we have posh places and posh people.  Just then, there’s a knock at the door and she’s being whisked off to dinner in a posh restaurant, as if to prove me wrong.  The next morning, I listen in to her on Marion Finucane’s  show and call to congratulate her on being so charming at that ungodly hour.  She’s still having a wonderful time, she says graciously and I simply won’t guess who was at the restaurant last night.  Who?  I say.  That gorgeous Pierce Brosnan, she says, triumphantly.