Memory Lane with Kerry Godliman and Jen Brister - S01 E10: Sarah Millican (Kerry only)

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

"I could be married to Nick Coppin now!" Sarah takes Kerry on a walk through her childhood and later using the medium of photos. Photo 01 - Sarah's sisters 7th birthday Photo 02 - A fantastic perm Photo 03 - Sarah's teen obsession Photo 04 - Fancy dress Photo 05 - Meeting the brilliant Gary "You Rock!" A Dot Dot Dot Production produced by Joel Porter Hosted by Jen Brister & Kerry Godliman Distributed by Keep It Light Media Sales and advertising enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Memory Lane. Each episode, I take a trip down Memory Lane with a very special guest as they bring in four photos from their lives to talk about. To check out the photos that we're talking about, they're all on the episode image and you can also see them a bit more clearly on our Instagram page. So have a little look at Memory Lane podcast. Come on, we can all be nosy together. So do you, are you a taker of photographs?

How do you feel about photos? I take a lot of selfies, but I don't suck my cheeks in and put my lips out. I just take a photo of how I look. Yeah. And I like to do, because I've got a really bad memory, and it's the easiest way to look back and go,

oh, look at the things I did, because I can't, I can't guarantee they're definitely in my brain of their own accord. Yeah. So I do take a lot of photos. I take, I take photos of, I don't know, I just, I like to, like if there's something happening, and I like to take a photo of a memory

so that I can look back and remember that time because, like I say, I've got such a crappy memory. So if I'm out with friends, I'll be the one who goes, oh, let's all have a photograph and everybody else is like, you know. So I just, and of gigs, I like to do backstage of gigs. Remember gigs, Kerry? Yeah, I remember gigs. I like to do a backstage photo and a gig

because then I can remember what happened and who I was with and how fun it was. So, yeah, I mean, I suppose social media is really nice for being able to put, like my Instagram might put nice photos up and stuff there, but nothing too personal, I suppose. But yeah, what we did instead, we got a friend of ours who was a wonderful painter and he painted my favourite wedding photo. Oh, wow. And we have that on the wall. So it's a bit like people are sketching our lives now instead of taking photos.

We're going backwards. Yeah. It's like we're in a courtroom all the time. So these, your first photo today, that's, let's start with the baby one. Yeah. So, how, I mean, you're, what, one in that picture? I don't, I can't age babies. No, I know what you mean.

Something I can't, you probably can because you, you've had some. I'd say about one, I'd say. You've got a bit of hair, you're upright, you're not flopping about. No, that's true. That's good, yeah. And little fat legs. Yeah, chunky legs. Yeah, I just, yeah, I love the just shoved in a corner for my sister's birthday party.

Is that, would that be symbolic of how you feel about that time? Was that the way it was or just on that day? I think it's just how I feel about parties. I really? Even now. When was this? Is this the 80s, this picture? So I was born in 75, so 76, if that's, if we're guessing I'm a year.

So that would mean my sister would be seven. And you've got one sister? Yeah, yeah. And I was in that house. Well, I mean, technically I was in the house for 23 years, 22 years. and then back again after divorce for another two and a half. Right. Are you wrong with that still in that house?

No, they're not. Not anymore. But it was, yeah, they were for a long time. Was that nice place to grow up? Yeah, it really was. I just remember how, like, the house wasn't necessarily big, but it had a really big, heavy wooden door that it felt like nothing could get you behind that door, you know?

Just slam the big heavy door. Not like these ones these days with the handle that lifts open. I like those handles. And the key and all the, yeah. I mean, what are the lovely door? thing about photos I love is that they really are locked in time. I mean, you know, it's easy to go, oh, well, they're a bit shit because they're, you know, we've got such brilliant machines now to take photographs.

But I quite like the fact that they're always a little bit shonky. Like that picture now, you'd delete it, wouldn't you? Oh, of course. You know, we'd zoom in, we'd get, frame it properly, put a filter on it, you know. But you probably, in those days, we probably took two, because didn't you take two just in kiss? Yeah, I still do. I still do.

And then I keep them all. Oh. Yeah, there'll be another one. But that's, I mean, that, you know, that's one of a handful of photos I've got of me as a baby. We've got, we did have a Polaroid camera, and there's a photo of my sister and I doing gymnastics, which neither of us were any skilled up, but both in Leitodds.

And it's so blurry. You can't, I mean, if I told you what was in the photo, you might just be able to figure it out. Yeah. But you can't really see it because they just didn't age well, the old polarites. No, and you keep them anyway, because like you were saying earlier, your memory, need it.

You go, well, I'll have to keep even the ship photos. Do you remember the 70s? I don't remember much, to be honest. I remember the clothes, more my mam's clothes than my clothes. I did have, when I was about four or five, so I guess that would still be in the 70s. I had Muppet trousers that were bright red and obviously flares, and they had embossed Muppets, like on the pockets.

Oh, I love all that stuff. And they were incredible. Yeah. The clothes, because I was a kid at the 70s. was born in 73 so it's just the clothes i remember like loads of valour yeah oh yeah so much velour so much and just uh i mean velvet was like far too posh really wasn't it everything had to be oh man you had to say it because i would say it valua which sounds a lot a lot less pox well it's just actually but even the colours in that that's like 70s you've got you've solid brown backdrop there that's a 70 yeah and that was like wooden uh really

expensive my dad tells me wooden sort of on the wood on wood on wood paneling on the walls right was there until they left not long ago so it's been it was there forever and it was made the room very dark but also it looked quite fancy because I've never seen it

anywhere else and I've never seen it since or before and that was that was you know part of that room yeah so the biopic of your film that wall has got to be found art department I've got to find that wall a lot of wood paneling has your sister got lots of pictures of you and her growing up?

Not really. There's not that many pictures floating about, to be honest, because once they, like, if you lose that bag, then they're just gone, aren't they? You can't, like, find them on a hard drive or find them in the cloud if you even knew how to do such a thing. I don't know how to find them in the cloud anyway. I just assume they're in a cloud.

Yeah, I pay for a cloud, so I'm assuming they're in a cloud. But I think what I'd like to do on, like, during this time when it's all a bit, you know, crazy and when not we've got tax, I've got time, is actually print some stuff off and put them in albums. Have you done that though? Or is that just something you say? No. Yeah, something. That's just on the list of things that I think I'll do that I probably won't. Yeah, same. So if let's say you're one in that generic, you're a baby, let's say you're a one.

Yes. You're a one year old baby. Which one would you say follows on? I think they are in chronological. I couldn't even say chronological order. No, does it just to... Oh, does it? Or maybe you've got them in a different order. I would next say yellow dungarees would be next. Oh, wow. Is this the like Bo Peep one? Oh, no, sorry.

Oh, yellow dungarees? Yeah. Yeah. Is that a proper perm? Yeah, oh, it's a dulcie vitality perm. That was the brand, dulcie of vitality. What does that mean? It's just the brand.

Oh, a home poem? Yes, but my mum was a hailing. dresser so while I got a home perm it was still done by a pro professional yeah but yeah and I think I think that's when I really found my look it's a great look it's a great look so this is the 80s now

surely we're in yeah yeah so I think this is probably maybe six or seven maybe yeah maybe six or seven age that's very long to have a perm oh yeah I mean I bet the other moms were livid with your mum that they let because when my daughter was press for like ear piercings and I said no no you're only six or seven and she's like but

doodah's got it I'm like well fucking doodas mum thanks yeah it's like I was the same when everybody had a rah-rah skirt apart from me oh but you had a perm Sarah I mean you smashed it an early perm but yeah that was to thanks I see as I got older the perms at school got very crispy. So they would be moosed and then left, where I was very moosed and then brushed out. So mine was a bit more edging towards the nanoperm than a lot of the people, but not at that age. People didn't have perms at that age. It was only me. But my mum used to keep me off PE to perm my hair because it took a few hours. I'm so jealous. You didn't have to do PE to have a perm. Sorry, Sarah's not doing PE today. She's having a perm. Well, but we'd say that I wasn't very well,

but then I'd go in the next deal with a perm. Oh, that is hilarious. Age seven. Yeah, you'd have to assume it was some kind of fever that made your hair go curly. That's brilliant. I used to work in a hairdressers when I was 12 on a Saturday. And I mean, I had loads of perms through the 80.

People don't have perms really now, don't they? They're not a thing so much. No, my hairdresser won't let me. I keep saying, can I get a perm? No, she walked out. But do you remember when they grow out and you get that kind of drop? And then there's like that 80s look. It's so distinctive.

of the 80s where you just get that bit of regrowth, good inch of regrowth, and then it just suddenly goes spiral. That photo was my look for about 10 years and I, but I, my mum did once re-perm the growth, you know, you've got like your three inch growth or whatever,

but she didn't do it, she didn't really know how to do that, so she just permed all of my hair, which meant the top bit was fine but then the rest of it was like frizzed. And then she didn't tell me, but she just cut it all off. And yeah, and we had, we had like a cupboard door that you opened and there was a big full-length mirror and she'd put the chair in front of

the door like you'd open the door and we'd be sort of in the cupboard kind of and she didn't I didn't notice that she hadn't open the door and she just got a bit to snip happy and just all of my it was so short it was like boy short and I was really nervous when I went into school the next day so I had to get bullied quite a lot for a variety of things and I was really nervous and I went in and nobody noticed oh god see was that a relief or a disappoint Oh no, massive relief. I mean, it really pays to be, like, quiet in the corner. Yeah, it pays to not be loud and not be noticed. And not being noticed normally is not a good thing, but in that situation, it was a blessing. But that's amazing, because if you were like trying to avoid any, you know, bullying or too much attention to rock in with a perm, it's quite, it's kind of like. But people didn't really notice me. I was so quiet. I hardly ever spoke to anybody.

Really? Yeah. Yeah. An introvert, naturally. Yeah, completely. And just because I guess I wasn't popular at school, I was very, I liked homework and I liked teachers and all those things that don't really win you any friends when you're a kid. Yeah. Did you have like a best mate or you're a low one? I had a couple of friends that we sort of stuck by each other all the way through and that was nice. But a lot of the time, I'd have to, I mean, I don't think many, well, maybe kids do these days as well. I'd have to think of how I was going to kill playtime. Really? Yeah, and that's not a thing that kids really, not the majority of kids don't have to,

they're all, you know, we're going to play a football and we're going to play skitties or whatever. And I'd have to work out how I was going to kill the time. And what did you do to kill the time? I got a Walkman and I would just listen to my tapes sitting on a wall. And you were happy enough with that? Well, there was no alternative really. So I paid a terrible picture.

But a perm doesn't necessarily win you any friends. Just because you're wondering. No, but it's fine. it's all those things that make you a little bit different that then when you're an adult and you're a little bit different it's great an advantage yeah yeah total massive advantage is that a school photo yes yeah so we didn't wear backdrop yeah we didn't yeah we didn't wear uniform until the senior school oh really yeah so yeah so we're not no i don't think so um but we so i was like what 12 when i was wearing a uniform so i was able to wear me yellow dungarees. I always think it's a drag not wearing uniform for kids

because you've got to then think about again what you're going to wear every day which is another sort of pressure for you know kids. It's quite liberating just to stick a uniform on. Yes but the idea isn't it that it's supposed to mean that you can't tell the poor kids from the better off kids and that's rubbish because obviously within the uniform

there's still quality of clothing and they're still you know sort of different levels aren't they? But yeah, but we didn't, yeah, I mean, it was great not having a uniform, really. But because we never had a uniform, we didn't realize how good it was until, obviously, then we got uniform.

And I used to wear collots with my uniform for no reason at all. This is total 80s jargon. Perms and collots. I love it. We're during the lockdown, Ben and I sort of mixing, you know, housework and chores.

And I found that there's a real thing about dads getting the kids and the grown, the mum's clothes mixed up. And I'll never forget my dad doing some washing when I was a kid in the 80s and he put my brother, who's six years younger than me, in my collots thinking they were trousers. And my mum was like, they're collots!

He was such an 80s like, wow, they're collards. You can see that they're collards. He's like, what a collat! That's such a bloke thing, what a collat. What the fuck is a collat, Linda? Pedal pushers were a big thing as well. Peadle pushes. What happened to them? Well, I couldn't even ride a bike yet.

I was still allowed pedal pushes. With the stirrups? Oh no, yeah, the pedal pushers, just the little trousers to your knees. To your knees. So what were those things that used to go with the stirrups? Oh, ski pants. Ski pants. What happened to ski pants?

I don't know. I don't know. I never really got into ski pants. I always thought they looked a bit thrushy, if I'm honest. Thrash of the ankles. That's the wrong end. Be careful. Everywhere sensitive these days.

So, would you, so when did you start performing, do you reckon? Even as a kid, were you like? Probably, oh, quite young. I used to perform at home. Right. And I used to perform. So we had a cork boiler that had tiles around it. And I used to tap dance, which was just clattering about

because I didn't have any skills or tap shoes, but just clattering about on there. And I used to write poems and I used to read them out loud. And who too? To my mum and dad. But behind a curtain, I was always, I'd hide behind the curtain and read them from behind the curtain. Oh, so they couldn't see you? Yeah, I was too nervous.

And then when I came out, if I did well, my mom would give me a banana. Oh. But were they encouraging? Did you get a lot of bananas? It was like, that was great. Full up to here on potassium. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans.

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This picture with you in the yellow bow peat outfit. Oh yeah. So that's, I mean, having just said you're an introvert, now we've stumbled on the picture where you're more, it seems more extroverted because you're all dressed up. What's going on there? So that is older than you'd think. So the one, so there is one between those two.

Ah, let's go to that one then. Yeah, so, yeah, so I'll come back to that one. Okay. But the one of my bedroom wall, so that's another perm. You can see how soft my lovely perm is. You're really rocking the perm. I miss perms And I really do

You've got the glasses on What's the woman from Coronation Street With the glasses? Deirdre Barlow That's who you look like Yeah, exactly Was that the look you were after? I don't think so

As a teenage girl As a teenage girl I'd love to look like that I'd like Deidre Barlow But there's a lot of As you can see There's a lot of pictures of Philip Scorfield around

So was he like your heart from? Yeah, he was my dream boy. and I mean still is to be honest but I sent that photo to him. Did you? Yeah, I sent it to him and he wasn't like creeped out. He sent it back. What did he say? But he's written on the back, Sarah a true fan of Phillips Schofield.

And so even though he said a bag. Oh, that's an understatement, let's be honest. I assumed he was going to like keep it like in his house. And instead he sent it back. but I was so thrilled. So I used to, whenever I got an envelope from the BBC, which generally I meant I'd written to Phillips Schofield, I got so excitable and like just bouncy and a bit giddy

that my man would make me run up and down the hall in the house until I got it out of my system and then I could open it. Oh, wow. Because I'd just go up and down, up and down, up and down. Yeah, you've got to get the energy out. Extra energy. What was it about him that you just love so much? I just, I think he just seemed like a really nice man.

And, and yeah, and I, I liked his relationship with Gordon. I thought they looked, you know, they seemed to get on really well together. Yeah, special bond. And I think I was never the sort that would, I've never been a wrong side of the tracks kind of gal, you know, like dangerous men and naughty men. And, yeah, so after, but after him, then came a phase of Athena Prince of black and white photographs of men. in their pants. Yeah, holding tyres. Yeah.

Well, I used to have that huge one if the one holding the tyres. And my dad. Yeah, the one of the baby. And my dad would go past the one with the tyres when he was in my bedroom, he'd go past and he'd go,

somebody's put that oil on him because he wanted me to know that that was a model that wasn't an actual mechanic. And you were like, you sort of missed the point. Yeah, that's not why I'm looking at it. Yeah.

But my man would go shopping like if I was at school and I'd come in and sometimes she'd go, I've got a couple more pictures for your wall and there'd just be, my man would be buying me essentially soft porn. And then we place it all around my, because I had my cross on the wall there, there.

Yeah. So Jesus would be surrounded by other men in their pants. That's great. Was you quite religious at this age? No, but just, you know, just raised that way. But not raised, we didn't go to church or anything, but we were raised Church of England so we had to cross over our beds the whole time that we were there.

And you didn't see any kind of irony or problem with having Jesus surrounded by all these mussela. But they were in the similar outfits though Kerry. Different meaning, different message, different symbolism going on. But I suppose you've got all the bases covered if you've got Jesus and Athena Tyre man. I had a very small bedroom and my sister because she was first born had the big bedroom and I got the tiny tiny bedroom But I had so much more stuff than she had. And I had shelves, in the end, I had shelves above my bed that the bookshelves all fell down on my head in the night ones.

And I was fine. But my dad then put the shelves up so sturdy that you could have sat on them. They were so, like, screwed into the wall. Because I had just so much stuff because I bought books all the time and obviously all the posters and trinkets of being a teenager. It's such an 80s room as well. It really is. They really capture the time.

Yeah. But also I had an imaginary library. That's how I spent my time in my bedroom because I made cards for all of my books and my teddies would try and get books out and I'd stamp them. Oh, brilliant. So literally hours of fun. But very happy in your own company and completely, you know, absorbed in your own imagination. Yeah, and kind of not too far from that now really, quite happy to kill time on my own, quite like my own company. think because on tour while I have a tour support the tour manager with me now I didn't always have that but also I still even after a show and even if we've sort of had a cup of tea is like a you know debrief or whatever after the show I'll still need at least two hours on my own before I go to bed of just faffing like reading or watching telly or just playing on my phone or whatever but yeah

I still need that I think I saw a counsellor once who to well I saw council a lot but one one cancel I saw I was shite but anyway different story. He'd said he was really perplexed as to how I could play to like 2,000 people in a show and then just be in my room on my own and I said no I have to be on my room on my own that's part of the kind of the sort of come down

I suppose and he and he said you should you should it's too big to go from 2000 to none and I said like am I supposed to play like a 500 seater on the wheel What is that? It's not a thing to say though. Like what can you do about that? Well, it's just odd, isn't it?

So people just don't understand the job. And if you don't get somebody who does understand the job, they just go, yeah, you shouldn't do that. And you're like, well, that's the job. And I don't want to go clubbing street after I've been upstairs. No, quite. And also, I always think, I mean, it's interesting because I did think, apart from the one with you and Gary,

in all of these pictures, you are on your own. Yeah. And I thought, God, that's quite interesting. because a comic is a sole figure, a lone figure, aren't they, on stage? Yeah. It's very much just you. Yeah, and there's, you know, that thing of, like, there's this stage, and then there's a gap, and then there's the audience.

Like, I'm not good at a party at all, yet I can play to thousands of people, but that's because there's a gap, and I'm on my own, and they're listening. It's a very, it's not the same as trying to get people's attention at a party. No, I agree. I find it a party. Yeah, I was that one. fairly recently because I sort of felt obliged to go and I actually enjoyed myself and I think it was because I realized that I don't know how to go up to two people who are talking who I'd like to talk to and say I'm here count me in now I don't know how to do that and I realised I was talking to somebody else at the party and she said nobody knows how to do that you just so what I realised a really good tip for anybody who's crap of parties I think is I pretend I'm going to the toilet and I walk past people and I'll go oh hi how are you and if they are embrace me like if they bring me in then I'm all right and if they don't then I keep going to the

toilet. That's a really good plan. It's a proper little play. It's a piece of theatre. It really is. Now that you're talking about yourself and your life and a lot of spending a lot of time on your own do you think that's got its roots in that that you're that you worry that people on their own feeling isolated and that you can include them and do the whole I'm here you know that like you're at the party. I don't know I hadn't really thought of that actually. I think I just worry people are on their own all the time and a lot of people love being on their own and good for them and that's great. But I think Christmas Day is just a tricky day because like, for example, if I was on my own, I don't feel like I could just ring any of my friends because there's a real closed door at Christmas, I think.

Well, Christmases are happy when you were growing up. Did you always have good Christmases? I always had good Christmases, yeah. We had, my mum and dad were very good with money in that you saw. you didn't write a list to Santa. You did, but you were told how much... So the way my mum and dad worked it is you were told how much Mom and Dad was able to spend on you that Christmas. Because Mom and Dad sent the money to Santa.

So Santa was kind of a personal shopper. That's a good system. Well, it is because it means that you don't feel like if you didn't get a big toy that year, because money was tight, that you were a bad kid. It's such a terrible thing that kids are told. If you behave well, you'll get big toys.

It's financial. It's nothing to do with behaviour. So they would say, oh, it's going to be £40 this year, and then we would go through, you know, catalogs or lists of whatever. Yeah. And added all up to the penny, so we've got to £40. And then send that list off and then you would get, and we never, it wasn't really a surprise thing.

Yeah. And it meant that you were grateful and you, thanked your parents as well as thanking Santa because people, I mean, I've not got kids, but it must be really annoying if you've worked your ass off and you've bought these presents and you've wrapped them and you've done all the work and then the kids are like, thank you Santa

and you're like, oh fuck Santa. My dad's one of those weirdos that doesn't even believe in telling kids about Santa. He and my mum used to argue about it. He's like, it's lying. He's lying to kids. And my mum was like, but it's magic. It's magical. In this next picture here, so in this yellow bo-peep outfit. How old are you there then? So that was at work. That was a Christmas

Eve that will have been a Christmas Eve in my job in WH Smiths. When I started when I was 16. So you left school after your GCSEs? Yeah, because, well, there was no continuation. So I went to college. So I did. So the school ended at 16, but I went to South Tense at college. Oh, right. So is that six or any of that? No. And, did A levels and then got a Saturday job in W. Smith from 16 and was there for six years or five years. That is not W.H. Smith's uniform, so you're going to have to talk me to what you dressed at. I wish it was. That wouldn't it be great.

So every Christmas Eve, we were allowed to dress up in fancy dress. So I chose, and that was Goldilocks. That's not your hair, is it? No, everybody thought, my hair's the fuzzy piece. permed bit coming out the front of the bonnet. Yeah, totally different air. But my plats kept

getting caught in the till and everybody would, and after a while, I don't know if you've ever been in fancy dress for a prolonged period of time. Not like a night out, but like an eight-hour shift. After a while you forget. You just forget that you've got it on. And people would shout,

where your sheep? And I'd be like, what? What are you talking about? Because they thought I was Bo Peep when I was Goldilocks. And I just get annoyed and go, and then I'd look down and see my plats getting caught in the till and I'd be like, I'm Gaudilocks really, like the most livid Gordilocks.

But Gordilocks was a bit of an asshole anyway, so it's fine. So you were a bit, were you like a big comedy fan by then? Were you watching Cheers? I mean, you must have been pretty keen. Love cheers. And also, I had an odd fixation with Kirsty Alley. Love Kirsty Alley. Yeah, I loved her and everything.

Look Who's Talking. Love Look Who's Talking. I saw the second one, which hardly anybody saw, but I saw it five times at the cinema. Wow. Because also Roseanne Barr was one of the voices and I loved Roseanne as well. Yes. But yeah, loved sitcoms. Didn't really know anything about stand-up, I don't think yet.

No, but loved, you know, blackadder and all of that and all the sitcoms. Were you funny? I mean, you were funny, but were people laughing, you know, were you being consciously funny? With me or happy. Well, quite. I mean, that's the thing is that were you aware of what comedy was and how you could do it. I think the first time I realized, like people would, when I left jobs, people would say nice things in my leaving card about me always making them laugh. And that's the sort of thing I would be like, oh, it must be funny.

Yeah. But, and I, by, from the age of 17, I had a column in the free paper for, like a film review column. Oh, wow. And I had that for four years. And I used to fax it in. Imagine these days you could just email it. I used to have to go to a news agent. It's so funny you don't hear the noise of a fax.

It's such a specific noise. Like you don't hear the noise of a Walkman battery running out. Like there are certain sounds that are gone forever and that fax noise. But I used to go to the news agent and hand it in. And the man at the news agent was such a hero. Because it didn't always go through and he'd go, just because I'd have to go to work in W.S.

And he'd go, just go to work. And I'll just keep trying it until it goes. It cost me £1.50 each time. And yeah, and I, so I wrote for, so I, because I knew the free paper was mostly consumed by people who couldn't really afford by a paper. So if you can't afford it by a paper, you can't afford to go to the cinema. So I used to try and make the reviews funny within themselves. So I think that's probably when I realised that I could write in a funny way.

That's interesting. And were you like a film buff, were you sort of, in job? Yeah, always have been. Yeah. Really? Not long after that, I worked in the cinema for a couple of years as well. And, oh, I loved it. Yeah.

I always bought all the film magazines. Those walls, those shelves in that bedroom will have been full of empires and premieres and all sorts of film magazines. And where's the girl? And especially from America and being a fan and thinking I can perform? Oh, big jump. So that was, if I'm 16 there, I didn't start in stand-up until I was 29. Right. Long time.

It wouldn't even have occurred to the girl in this picture. Oh, I would have been horrified. would you? Yeah, oh my God, yes. Like when I did the school play, like the nativity, I always wanted to be involved. So I was always there in some capacity. But like the last one I had, we did a Christmas carol and I had one line. But it meant I was there in a monster all the time because I had to be at all the rehearsals and everything. But I had one line. Never ever really ever wanted to perform. Just far too shy and too quiet. But then then obviously it, at, at, I when I got divorced, because I was so, like, everything I'd planned had just gone. Yeah. I just felt like I could do anything. So it's just, I know you've talked about your divorce and your marriage, both in your book and in your stand-up as well.

Because I remember, because we started sort of around the same time, and a lot of your early stuff was about your divorce, wasn't it? Yes. So when did you get married? You were quite young. 22, 23. And you were with him from team? Like he was.

I met him at the cinema, so I'd only, I moved in with him after a know, a couple of months, a few months. Right, so it's pretty well-wind. And then married like a year later. Right, okay. And work-wise, you were doing, like, kind of moving around jobs, you didn't have a kind of career as such, or? No, I think I wanted to be a writer, but I knew that that,

or like, for a while I wanted to be a film director, but I knew all of these things are quite hard to do. Yeah. So I thought, if I could. could have a proper job, which, you know, like a civil service or even in the cinema or whatever, then I could write and then send stuff in because I knew that you didn't get paid as a writer for a long time, if at all. And what sort of stuff were you writing? I wrote short plays and I wrote short films. Right. And sort of just that sort of thing and sent them around different places

and got some bites every now and again from things. What like? What sort of bites? I wrote some short plays that I sent to so live theatre is my favourite theatre which is in Newcastle little new writing theatre a beautiful place and they used to do these scratch nights where you'd send in five to ten pages of whatever you're working on and they'd pick the best ones and then they'd perform them in front with actors

in front of an audience yeah and I used to send mine in but I was never working on a big play I used to just write five pages of dialogue and send it in and it always got picked and they'd perform them and mine were always funny yeah and because I was that was always my

inclination and then they go around and get like a vote from everybody who which one was their favourite one and invariably I won and it's because somebody else had sent in five pages of their you know they're really heavy duty war play right and I just done a conversation with a couple of nannas yeah and you had an instinct for it well I think I I think somebody gave me a nice compliment really early on saying I wrote like I write like people talk yes and it's because it's not always grammatically correct and it's you know I don't write like a writer I used to write like it was it sort of lent itself to being allowed. And I think maybe that's when I started doing stand-up. Maybe that was a nice benefit and a nice sort of help and hand really in that I was already writing how people talk. Yeah and the rhythms of language. Yeah. I was always really interested in all the kind of Alan Bennett's style as well. I was it sort of bit Alan Bennett talking heads?

Yeah. And at this stage you didn't really kind of know what stand-up was. Is that fair? No, I started, I think the first few shows, I saw Jeremy Hardy in a tour show, so I must have been, I don't know, maybe 18, 19, something like that when I did that, and I saw Sean Hughes. So you were going to tour shows, you didn't go to comedy clubs?

No, I didn't really know comedy clubs existed until I was on at one. Wow, really? Yeah, I had no idea. never really, well I, from South Shields, there was never a comedy club in South Shields and there would have been some in Newcastle. Yeah, I was going to say you can go to Newcastle. Didn't know that you could go and watch. But how come you were going to see Tom, how come you went to see Jeremy Hardy do a tour show

then? Where's the jump between? Because I'd seen him on the telly. Oh, wow. So I'd seen him on the telly and the same with Sean Hughes. And then you were like, they're coming to town, so we go. Yeah. So we'd go out on a night out, probably with my sister, because she was older and I'd go out with her and stuff.

And so yeah, it didn't even occur to me until I did a, so when I got divorced, I started, I went and did a workshop for people who'd written but never performed. And it was all poets who wanted to be

performance poets. Right. And then at the end of that, it was half day sort of workshop. And at the end of that, we had to perform in front of an audience. And they had this audience gathered in Gateshead at this sort of at Cadman Hall,

which was like part of near the library, and just a nice room. And it was, I read a monologue that I'd written, and I'd not written in years, and it was about my divorce, and some of it was incredibly, like brutally, sort of honest and sad. And some of it, as it turned out, was hilarious.

Right. And so I read that, and then I thought, nothing of it. I just ticked it off as a thing. Oh, I'd never, I'd not done anything in front of anybody for years, so it's in school, so I ticked that off. And then six months later, I contacted the woman who ran the workshop,

a woman called Kate Fox, who's a very good friend still now. And I rang her and I said, I think I want to try doing stand-up comedy. And she said, I know. Like, she'd been waiting the whole time. Like you're cutting out. We all know, Sarah. Yeah. You're horn to be a stand-up.

We talked for so long on like, do you remember like a, you know, like a landline that was corded? Yeah. And we talked for so long that it was dark in the room. It was like when I started talking to her and I was too far away from the light switch. And I was just sitting in the dark at the end

of the call because the light had gone and I couldn't reach the switch and I was too far away. And so she got me in my first gig and I went to meet her and I was in such a panic about it going straight from work that I forgot to take all of my notes. Right. So all of the jokes that I'd written, I didn't have them and I just had to kind of remember what they were. And how did it go? Yeah, well it was five minutes and the first two and a half minutes just silenced, just people

arms crossed upstairs in a pub and biker and they fucking hated me. Oh, right. And then I did a joke about my dad that just the whole room, like, it's only 50 people, but they all just cried laughing. And I thought, oh, okay. And I think some people would think, oh, God, that was so stressful and never doing that again. And I just thought, well, that joke's obviously going to be at the beginning.

Right. So you immediately had an instinct for how to get better and better and better. Yeah. And then a guy came up to me afterwards who'd been on the bill. and he said, are you willing to travel for this? And I said, yeah, sure. And he gave me a number of a comic in Manchester who ran a gig. And as he walked away, I didn't even save it.

As he walked away, I just deleted the number. Because I was like, I'm not going to travel for this. Wow. What was that about? I just thought, like, no, this is not going to amount to anything. Why? I'm surprised that you had that initial feeling at the beginning. Well, I think also if you say it, like, I couldn't drive or anything. So it would have like, oh no, like I'd never been to Manchester like ever.

Like, why would I travel for this? And then obviously I got the bug and I did a handful of gigs the rest of that year. All local. Yeah. And then in the January I decided, right, we're going to do this and we're going to. I'm going to travel. I'm going to Manchester. I mean, the next picture I love. love that picture of you and Gary.

Oh, so why. I mean, talking about what comedy brings you, it brought you him, didn't it? It brought you together. Yeah, and that's, we, so that photo, I don't quite know, it's definitely within the first year or two. Right. So I met Gary at my second ever gig. Did you?

Yeah, he was on, he was replacing Nick Coppin. I could be married to Nick Coppin now. What a sliding door's thoughts. I know. Yeah, he was, so I was doing the corner house in Newcastle right for Warren for Warren speed and Gary did the open in 20 Gary was on the circuit how long before you got only a couple of years ahead of me yeah so he was

doing he did the opening 20 and I was doing like a seven in the middle and he was amazing as he is and the first thing so I did my set I didn't really talk to the other comics because I was I came with like friends right so I sat with my friends you know and he did that and he didn't really because I didn't really know the comics. Yeah. And then the first thing, when I came off stage, the first I went to the back of the room where the comics were hanging out then. And the first thing he said to me was,

you rock. And it's on the inside of our wooden rings. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, bloody hell, Sarah. That's romantic. I like it. It's the first thing he ever said to me.

And I had had a good gig. It had gone very well, which was nice. And that photo, because I think initially, We were going out. We didn't tell anybody we were going out. I remember. I remember seeing you around Edinburgh eating chips and I was like, what's going on there? What's going on with those two eating chips over there? Some things never change. We still eat chips now. It's very, it's a really emotional food for us. Why did you keep it a secret initially?

I think because we didn't, Gary is quite private anyway. I'm not. I'm an open door. but I think we didn't want anybody to think like if I was doing okay we didn't want anybody to think it was because he was sort of writing like there's a comic who shall run me nameless who told me only a few years ago that he genuinely thought

that Gary was writing all of my jokes when I first started and that's how I was doing all right and I said Gary can't write long jokes but your comedy is so your voice I mean it's extremely authentic you can't, someone else can't write it. Exactly. And that's, you know, it's, yeah,

it was a very odd to think that somebody just assumed that because I was going out with a comic that he must be doing it all rather than me just being quite good. And it was because I had written for years. I didn't start writing stand-up at the same time as I started performing stand-up. I'd been writing something funny for years.

Yeah, yeah. So I think I came to it, like, as a more experienced writer than somebody who's starting from brand new. Right. But yeah, I mean, I had shitty gigs like everybody does, but it's about sort of learning from it and not going, oh, well, I'm not very good at this,

just going, right, what did I do wrong? Well, how could I make that better? Yeah. What are the pros and cons of being in a comedy couple? I don't know that there are any cons. Pros are, I mean, we just howl a lot of the time. Yeah, I bet. Like, especially at the minute,

because we've never spent this amount. of time together. Like we're, you know, we're 10 weeks into lockdown now. Yeah. We've been together and only seen each other. And I said, isn't it lovely that I'm, we don't, we're not sick of each other. We're not desperate to get away from each other. We're, you know, it's really nice.

It's a nice confirmation of something I suspected, but it's nice to be. You don't want to have a global pandemic to prove that you've made the right life partner choices, do you? But I bet some people have realised they hadn't made the right decision. Oh, wow. We're too late, mate. That's it. We're in lockdown and you're locked in.

Exactly Listen, thank you so much For sharing your pictures and stories Thank you It's been a real joy It's been so much fun Thank you darling It's just nice talking to you as well

Oh it's lovely I love hearing people's stories That's it for this week The rest of series one Is available with all the photos On our Instagram page And Jen and I will be doing new episodes Every week

Thanks for listening Bye I'm Max Rushden. I'm David O'Darady. And we'd like to invite you to listen to our new podcast, What Did You Do Yesterday? It's a show that asks guests the big question, quite literally, what did you do yesterday? That's it. That is it.

Max, I'm still not sure. Where do we put the stress? Is it what did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? You know what did you do yesterday? I'm really down playing it. Like, what did you do yesterday? Like, I'm just a guy just asking a question.

But do you think I should go bigger? What did you do yesterday? What did you do yesterday? Every single word this time I'm going to try and make it like it is the killer word. What did you do yesterday? I think that's too much, isn't it? That is, that's over the top. What did you do yesterday?

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