Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Two women in the prime of their lives (with Linda Robson)

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

There's more extracts from the fruitful genre of 'celebrity non-fiction' so listen out for that... Jane and Fi also discuss compressed meat, foreign exchange experiences and the correct pronunciation of Penelope Cruz. Plus, they're joined by actor and presenter Linda Robson to discuss her memoir 'Truth Be Told: Tales from a Baggy Mouth'. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Eve Salusbury Times Radio Producer: Kate Lee Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We'd had a few drinks one day, we were all in the bar and he said, you know how much they're getting, the boys from Only Fools? And it was more than you. I mean, we were getting like 10% of what they was getting. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen. VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open.

Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11. And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. Are we ready? Welcome to a bouncy new week, she said, sounding really irritatingly Tiggerish. We had so many emails, did we not? And people are going to be saying,

is there more from Simon Bates? What's the news there? Well, there is. So Random Readings continues. Excellent. And we'll save that for, I think, right at the end of the show. OK. If that's OK.

You've brought in Sophia, Eat With Me. It's a classic, isn't it? Classic book. Eat With Me shares Sophia's culinary secrets. She's 89. She still looks like this. Well, she does, doesn't she? She does look amazing.

And I think she did a very well-regarded acting role quite recently. So she's still got it. And I think she did a very well-regarded acting role quite recently, so she's still got it. But here she's telling us basically how to make things like, well, chicken curry. I was initiated into Indian cooking when I was in London, she says on page 156. I'm not sure I'd eat a curry given to me by Sophia Loren,

Italian poppet that she is, but maybe, yeah, maybe she could tell us. And I think one we won't be doing altogether. She's quite a spicy lady herself. Shame, what do you mean? You're quite right. Can we do random readings? Can I just pick a number?

Well, how about the recipe on page 147? Something no one... It's not quite the game, but yeah. Kidney omelette. Here's another way of enjoying kidneys. To make anelette just stop there well it gets marginally worse let me just i'm not going to go on for too long i promise to make an omelette you must soak the kidney for half an hour in cold water to which a good splash of vinegar has been added then dry and remove the outer membrane, slice it, pull out the spongy gristle in the centre and set the kidney at... No, thanks. Sorry, Sophia.

No, you had me at gristle. We're not going any further with that. But there are some nice... I'm going to try and find a very simple tomato sauce perhaps to delight people with later in the week. OK, and can we have a pudding as well? Yes, we have. She's got a chocolate mousse that I'll certainly bring to your attention.

Can I just say a huge thank you to Tash who has, well, it's not a spare ticket for Ray at the Royal Albert Hall. Actually, no, it's at the O2, isn't it? Next Friday, this coming Friday now. I've heard for you talk about Ray, same respect I felt when I first discovered her a few months ago.

Sadly, none of my friends share the same love for her, so my boyfriend had agreed to come on my other ticket, but if you'd like to join me, then I'd be much happier to go with another Ray fan. Isn't that lovely? It is lovely. And I've got fantastic news for Ray. I've got her album now and I'm enjoying it.

So that's very kind, Tash. I might be going myself. So you must go with your boyfriend. But I really, really hope he enjoys it. And, I mean, to be honest, if he's not full of enthusiasm and pizzazz about it, I'd take Jane Garvey instead. She hasn't thought about that, though, has she?

No, but that's because you weren't terribly enamoured of Ray. I'm Ray positive now. Excellent. Can we have some final words on frozen peas? Penny says, regarding frozen peas used on sprains, any frozen food should never be refrozen and then used. Now, can you do this in your very best BBC government health announcement voice? As your peas thawed, bacteria were able to breed

and unless you boil them when the bacteria is killed, you freeze the higher number of bacteria. When you thaw them again, the bacteria breed again. Disgusting. Hope that makes sense. This happens with anything that is thawed, so you should never refreeze food that hasn't been cooked first. If you look on lots of microwavable food, you will see that you shouldn't freeze it once thawed penny okay i think i'm across that i think i am as well there is another one here so hang on a sec if you get a piece of frozen fish out of your freezer and it it thaws and you cook it you can freeze it again but you just can't freeze it without having cooked it is that that it? Can I bring in Judith?

Please do. Because Judith says you've asked about the rule of not refreezing frozen foods. My mother tongue isn't English but German, so the explanation might be a bit bumpy, she says. The reason is minimising a hypothetical hygiene risk. In theory, once the thawing peas get to a certain temperature, bacteria that may or may not be present can begin to multiply. And yes, also if the packet is still closed. So when you refreeze them, the microbiological load might be higher than before. Okay, yeah, low temperatures

don't kill bacteria. So again, theoretically, when you don't cook them at a high enough temperature, they theoretically can make you ill, especially if you have a weak immune system. But I must stress, the risk is very, very low. Thank you, Judith. And please don't apologise about English not being your first language. I'm throwing the peas away. That's the safest thing, isn't it? I think if I have a watchword or a key phrase, it is always better be safe than sorry.

I thought it was going to be always throw the peas away. And always chuck the peas out once you put them on a spray. Which would be quite a niche kind of catchphrase to have. Marie loves the show in capital letters. We love that too. Good morning. Looking on Google at the calendar for international days.

Many of the themes, although very deserving, are rather serious. On February the 10th it was World Pulses Day. On March the 1st it was World Seagrass Day. We have quite a lot of days in our canteen, don't we? We have so many days. Yeah, I mean it's St Patrick's Day in a week or so's time. Oh no, but we do also

have, we have Vegan Pulses Day and things like that. Nutella Day and quite a few. And then there's a kind of revolving calendar of burger days, isn't there? We're working our way around the world in compressed meat. Cajun burger. May the 30th is International Potato Day. And December the 27th is International Day of Epidemic Preparedness, which is very serious indeed.

Very serious. But Marie wants to suggest keeping it light by adding International Trouser Day, a day when we can globally celebrate Scottish trues, American blue jeans, the French pantaloon, the Japanese hakama, Arabian harem pants

and North African zouaves. I hope I've got that right. Cultural appropriation is totally permitted on this day. And she goes on to say, mine would be trousers inspired by David Bowie. They were front pleated, quite voluminous, pulled in at the bottom of each leg with an ankle strap. They were in all the magazines at the time.

I thought they looked great. Unfortunately, some oaths in a taxi office in Sunderland in 1975 didn't think so. In his student days, my husband worked in a petrol station. This was in the 1970s, in the beginning of punk. Fortunately for him, the job came with a plastic outfit to be worn in bad weather. The trousers were so on trend, he used to wear them when going out to see bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols. They fitted perfectly into the punk aesthetic. And just a cut above the bin bag.

Would love to hear more trouser-related stories. I think we used to call those in the North West peg trousers. Pegs. We've got a pair of pegs. Yeah, that's what people used to say. There was a very, very beautiful young lady doing the red carpet stuff for the Oscars and she had what was basically like a kind of boob tube

which just had massive pantaloons coming off the bottom kind of boob tube which just had massive pantaloons coming off the bottom of the boob tube and the boob tube was tiny. Neither you or I would have been able to wear that boob tube. Well, I've got the boobs. Sadly, not the body for the tube.

But I thought she looked absolutely cracking. They were a massive massive pantaloon of a trouser. I thought, good on you, girl. Because all of those very, very cinched in, you know, body conscious frocks on the red carpet, I think they're quite boring, Jane. They are.

I mean, but also, does my annoyance with them come from a place of jealousy? But perhaps I don't. I no longer have the figure that could dance along the red carpet and get the flash bulbs popping well i think you're doing yourself down thank you there's a fantastic email about uh us embracing our age isn't there do you want to do that one um is that too complex to find it right no it might be a little bit we should say that as we speak,

well, where are we in this sort of British news cycle? We're in a strange place regarding the Princess of Wales and her photograph. And I'm just, it's on all the screens in every studio, probably in the world right now, that photograph that was released yesterday. I can't be alone of my generation in just not having spotted any peculiarities in the image when I saw it over my croissant yesterday morning.

I can't say my first thought was, that's been touched up. I just don't notice these things. Do you think that is a generational thing? Well, I'm absolutely with you, and that was my response to it too. I saw it and I thought, well, I mean, it's nice. She looks well. She looks healthy. She's having a sit-down down which is good if you've had really serious abdominal surgery or whatever it is uh and i just moved on to something else

jane not to be high-minded about it i mean i totally but then when it all blew up overnight and the picture was uh it was the result of a kill order which it just sounds that's horrible as well didn't like that phrase i've got it i that you're looking for. I've got it. I finally got it. But I just do think it is occasionally just worth noting that she's clearly not very well and maybe we just need to all. And I say that from the place of someone who is also exceptionally nosy.

Nothing better than a royal story. Of course. No, no. I want to know what's going on. So I can't actually marry the two sides of myself here because my kind compassionate bit just thinks leave her alone yes she's asked to be left alone and then we

should leave and then my other you know neighborhood nelly uh the other 50 okay 60 okay 70 um just thinks tell us what's going on and stop making it all so much worse for yourselves. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just outing myself as somebody who's extremely confused. I'm with you on that, Yo-Yo. I think we all think that we've got a relationship with them, don't we? Well, in a strange way.

Their very existence depends on us feeling exactly that. So, as in any relationship, that kind of give and take of you haven't told me the truth, you haven't told me enough, you're keeping something from me, that is all at play in whatever level of relationship you've chosen to have with them. I think the huge problem for them now is already Catherine has put out a statement, hasn't she, saying, you know, I have done a bit of photoshopping like any amateur photographer would do, but she hasn't addressed the, you know, the massive thing that set the internet on fire was the fact that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring.

But again, I would say that, A, you know, it's an absolute whopper of a ring. You probably don't wear it around the house when you're just mucking around with your kids and occasionally doing some washing up um and be you know if it's off it's off yeah yes so uh it's it's a confusing whirl of intrigue let's be honest and also plenty of people weighing in saying i don't care but many of the people who say they don't care do feel the need to tell everybody saying, I don't care. But many of the people who say they don't care do feel the need to tell everybody else that they don't care, which leads me to wonder that perhaps they do care. And also, do you think that there's ever been

an ex-royal correspondent who, in answer to the question, would you like to come on and talk about something that you may once have known something about 40 years ago, says, I don't think I should. I don't really know anything because I haven't been there for 40 years. Do you think that's ever happened? Fiona, I don't know what you're talking about.

Shut up, everybody! Sometimes some people, they just answer, they just pick up the phone and go, yes, what time? Nothing else is there. Nothing else in their locker. Okay, this is the one that you, the email that... Ugly women age better.

No, I do want to do that, but this one from our correspondent, Jenny, who just says, I know your email sack is bulging. I have to say it really is bulging over the last couple of weeks. And in all sincerity, we're very grateful, aren't we? It's been brilliant the last couple of weeks. And thank you for your continued interest in, as we always say, whatever this is. Anyway, says Jenny, I confess I'm usually asleep

by the time your guests appear on the podcast well you won't be sleeping today because it's Linda Robson actress loose woman and somebody who's got a lot to talk about and I know you'll want to hear her so keep tuned for Linda Robson but I enjoy your cracks as Jenny you do make me laugh but I am tired of you

going on about how old you are you're not you are two women in the prime of your lives holding down highly successful careers. You have families, pets and parents in your busy lives, but maybe beginning to taste a little of what the future holds. Bits beginning to drop our four moves south. But basically, Jenny is castigating us and says that we know we shouldn't be negative. And I think on the whole, we are both pretty positive about our lot. I think we're quite honest, but we're also, I think we're both very grateful for all the massive bonuses we've had throughout our life.

But I would probably argue, particularly now. So, Jenny, I hope we haven't given the impression that we're a moanin' and a groanin'. Because far from it. Anyway, Jenny says, BS, I'm writing this whilst enjoying a holiday in Barbados. Yeah. I went there once. Did you not? Okay, can I do, do you want to, I think you should

do that one because you'd spotted it in the email pile today. But I just want to do one about exchanges. We've had a lot about your European exchanges. This one comes from Claire who signs off, bien à vous. I'd like to share one of my multiple, all awful

exchange experiences. At 17 I had the misfortune to be partnered with I'm not going to name her actually, on our school French exchange, Je Pépignon. Her house was beautiful with a swimming pool. My hopes immediately dashed as the girl told me we weren't allowed to use it as her parents couldn't afford to clean it.

Gosh, I mean, the travails of the rich are sometimes dreadful. We do need to think of these people. On my first night, there was a knock on my bedroom door. I opened it to find her father, a diminutive bearded man dressed in a blue romper suit with a whiskey in his hand. Savant, he said. Oh, bon nuit, I replied and slammed the door. Having watched a lot of films, I grabbed the only, bon nuit, I replied, and slammed the door.

Having watched a lot of films, I grabbed the only chair in the room, rammed it onto the handle. I slept like that for the two weeks I was stranded there. That is horrendous. That's awful. The whole thing was horrific. The girl would never go out

with any of the other exchange students. I spent a lot of time isolated in horrendous French discotheques on the coast, fighting off the locals. The only outing I was taken on, famille, was to the local

Bric-a-yard where I despondently bought a large milker bar from a display near the cash desk whilst romper suit bought some paint. Even this ended in tragedy as on going to bed that same night I discovered an ant infestation lured

by the chocolate I'd carelessly left half eaten on my bed. She really had me at that big bar of Milka. Yeah. It is exquisite chocolate, that. It's lovely, isn't it? It's very, very... I think there's such a clever...

It's the mauve one, isn't it? It's got a mauve cover and it makes it taste creamier. It is really... The pale mauve. I always get an absolute load of it at Duty Free on the way out of France. You can't... I don't know why you can't just buy it in Britain.

You can. No, it's not the same. Yeah, it is. It's not really chunky. It's not that big, thick megabar. I'm going to find you a big, thick, chunky megabar. I'm not devoting another evening to try and find you dark bounty, though. It's not an euphemism. Have you got one? Yes. We're back in France. I'm afraid there must be peculiar exchanges in other countries. We've got some about German exchanges. Don't worry, we're spreading the countries. We've got some about German exchanges. Don't worry, we're spreading the misery. We love the French, but this is from Elizabeth.

I was 13 and I was sent for a month, yeah, as she says, a month to France with very basic French. The French girl, Agnes, came to us first and I was a typical teenager, clothes, music, boys. But Agnes, her interest was collecting scout knives. At the end of our stay with us, she didn't seem keen to go back home and alarm bells should have been ringing they were ringing enough with me at that last minute so much at the last minute sorry that i packed 27 books into my suitcase in those days you didn't pay extra for a heavy case i arrived at their house

in versailles to meet a cold, distant father and rather sad siblings. Their mother had just been sectioned. I was left in my room on my own all day, every day, except for meals. On night one, enchanted by the French doors and mild weather, this was my first trip out of Northern Ireland, I left the doors open while reading my first book. I fell asleep. By the morning, I was covered in bites and the room was completely infested with bugs. I was in that house in Versailles for a fortnight. I got up to book 15 and I didn't even see the palace of Versailles.

We then went to the family chateau. They had been aristocrats pre-revolution. It was in the arse end of nowhere. It was medieval and very creepy and my bedroom was so enormous that when i switched the light off there were no guarantees that i would find the bed i did however discover the interesting fact that turrets are for toilets again they were happy to leave me in my room all day oh elizabeth i right this is... I don't know whether you have written a deeply depressing novel about this experience, but perhaps you should do.

Yeah. It sounds... I have to say, that's a very, very extreme experience, and it gets slightly worse. They did just one excursion during this month-long trip, and that was to the family crypt in the village. It was nice to meet the Releys, she said. A month is so long.

Oh, my God. Whoa. BC, I don't... Yeah, I'm not sure that it is that uncommon. I think people just... Imagine now, the youth of today, Jane, they'd be on their mobile phones, complaining about it, sending pictures,

and you'd be home within 24 hours. But we just sat things out, didn't we? Well, we did. I mean, I should say, Elizabeth says, when we got back to Versailles, their poor mother was out of hospital and was unbelievably kind and apologetic. I went back to Ireland just after that,

and on arrival, I kissed the ground in true papal fashion. Not surprised. This comes from long-time listener Alison. I felt compelled to write after hearing you question how late the Spanish eat. It's all part of a snowball effect as primary school children don't finish their school day until five o'clock. Factor in the obligatory after school activity or two and the logistics of getting children there followed by homework. And you realistically don't sit down for supper until 9pm.

My 10 year old daughter can routinely have a dentist appointment as late as, steady yourself, Garvey, 8.30. At least they can get a dental appointment. On a slightly different note, something that has made me smile on several occasions has been Jane's attempt at pronouncing words in Spanish. Yeah. There have been bungled... No, hang on.

Zara. There have been bungled attempts at the name Jesus. Jesus. What is it? Anecdote to follow. Lentillas. Lentillas. What are they?

When did you say that word? Show me. Lente. Lente. Lente de las. That's it, isn't it? Sorry. And my favourite, Mallorca.

Mallorca. I thought the best one was last week's Penelope... Pit stop. No. What? Penelope Cruz. Well, she was so rude to me. I don't need to learn how to pronounce her name.

Oh, dear. In my younger days in Spain, I had a Spanish boyfriend called Jesus who invited me to join him for Christmas. No, who I invited to join me for Christmas

with my parents in Devon. Sadly, the relationship must have gone sour in early December and he declined to join me. I was then reproached by my mum

who told me if your father and I had had Jesus around the table for Christmas, we could have died out on that for years. Well, that's a very,

very good point. And if I was your mother, I would have said exactly the same. Also, we have no tradition in this country of calling little boys Jesus, have we? I was pretty sure that you couldn't actually. Well, I don't think you can't. I think there are some

names. Oh, there are some banned names. No, I don't know whether there are in this country actually officially banned. No, I don't think you can call your child Satan. You can't use an explicit... Oh, no, you can't know whether there are in this country actually officially banned. No, I don't think you can call your child Satan. Oh, no, you can't have them christened Satan. Yeah. But not that many people get christened. But I don't think you could even go on a birth certificate as Satan.

Let's look into this with some very high-octane journalism later on. Actually, there was quite a good ad on the Tube. Oh, it was brilliant. Is it the Bible app? It's for the Bible app, and it has no stars like you would have on tripadvisor yeah and it's it's signed satan yeah it's i mean i'm not i'm never going to get the bible app but fair play to them that's a good that's a good ad so allison we're with your mum on that and we say adios or as jane would say adios or what what would... I don't know what... I'd get it wrong, that's for sure.

But Zara is a Spanish shop, isn't it? And I'm a regular customer. Yeah. Don't try taking anything back there, though, because that's a bloody nightmare. You've got to set aside most of the day. Unless you arrive at opening time, and even then you won't be in the top ten in the queue. Honestly, I was furious the last time I went in there.

There weren't even my trousers. This is controversial from Anonymous, but I think this is interesting. Anonymous writes, I am 40 now and I've seen friends reach a bit of a crisis as their looks don't give them the cachet that they used to, whereas the opposite has happened to me. Men never really found me attractive in the first place. Lots of men, straight and gay, didn't really want to talk to me because of that. I mean, this is our correspondence interpretation, I should say. So we have no way of knowing whether that's true. Being funny doesn't help because as you must have noticed, most men are bemused and confused when women make jokes. At 40, I feel more confident and attractive than i ever did i've just given birth and i'm

amazed at what my body has done unlike when i was in my 20s i couldn't give a flying what men think of me or whether they want to sleep with me maybe i'll feel different when i'm 50 but i just don't think so the playing field has been leveled as far as i'm concerned also in response to when a listener mentioned about refusing to be in photos, this has always annoyed me and the letter you read out made me realise why. I'm sorry to sound harsh, but there is something narcissistic

about refusing to have your picture taken as though the only thing that matters in the whole room is how you look. Also, there's quite a lot of interesting things in there. And thank you for that email because it's thought-provoking uh you have called the email ugly women age better so that's your decision to call it that i i don't know i mean it's you've raised some good points let's see what people say yeah joan collins said didn't she was she felt it was one of the curses on her life that she was very beautiful as a young woman

because every single year that passes she felt less of the thing that everybody was celebrating. Valuing her form. And actually she did some incredible work, didn't she, about ten years ago where she took the wig off and she was in some kind of Shakespeare, you know, whittled down, modernised up thing, wasn't she? Joan Collins?

Yes, no, no, no. Was she? She was. And she appeared kind of as herself in a bit of a statement piece. And I thought, well, good on you. But then I'm intrigued. I mean, a little bit like Sophia Loren. She's a very, very beautiful, still very beautiful, much older woman,

which I find heartening to see because you kind of think, well, you know, if you've always taken pride in your appearance and that's the thing that's been celebrated, then you should still be able to take pride in your appearance when you're in your 80s or 90s. Why not? So it is thought-provoking,

Jane. It is. People will have provoking thoughts. Can I just do Sean and Caterham before you go into the interview? Caterham. Caterham. I'm sorry. I hate to prove it. Anyway. Where is Caterham? Oh, now you've got me. Caterham, Caterham. It's not the same as Caversham, is it? Caterham. No, I don't think so. That was a V

or a T and there's no S. Caterham, I'm feeling it's in Essex. Okay. I share your disdain. Here he goes. Let's call it the boisterousness of supporters on trains. I'm a middle-aged football fan who's avoiding the worst excesses of actual... Hang on. Where's Caterham? Below Croydon. Well, south of England.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a win for Jane. That's good. That's good. that's good that's good I'm a middle aged football fan who's avoided the worst excesses of actual hooliganism over the years

except for one evening on the district line in a carriage pack with West Ham and Chelsea fans as the train pulled in to Earl's Court a cry of

let's go mental went up and dozens of predominantly fully grown adults began knocking seven bells out of each other picture me

on my way home from the Hammersmith Apollo cowering in the corner of the carriage and displaying energetically a Joan Armatrade knocking seven bells out of each other. Picture me on my way home from the Hammersmith Apollo, cowering in the corner of the carriage and displaying energetically a Joan Armatrade in concert programme in the hope that it said beyond any doubt that I had no interest in football. Good for you. Whether it worked, I'll never know,

because the train was eventually flooded with members of the taxpayer-funded Metropolitan Police. But just in case, I thank you, Joan. That's beautifully put. Well written, thank you. Yeah, that is. Well done, Joan. She has written some of the best songs ever, Joan. She's a lovely woman, isn't she? Well, she's very distinctive, isn't she?

There's something... Yeah, and she's still going, she's still touring, she's still out and about, isn't she? Yeah, and she was one of the organisers of the women lunch thing that we kept on not being invited to or only one of us being invited to, but never both in the same room together. I think they were trying to split us up. Just can we have the final word on Spanish time?

Actually, this is from Ailsa. And she just writes that Italians are already later diners than the UK, eight's the norm there, restaurants are unlikely later diners than the UK. Eight's the norm there. Restaurants are unlikely to open before 7.30. However, says Ailsa, and there's another Spanish pronunciation coming up, so brace yourselves. However, I spend time each year in Andalucía and struggle to adapt to lunch 2.30 or 3. And dinner on average around 10. So many restaurants not opening before 9. on average around 10. So many restaurants not opening before nine.

It's terrible for the digestion. I'm sure it must be. And for morning preference workers like myself, says Elsa, many of the Spanish people I know would be in favour of turning Spain's national clock back an hour and putting it in line with Portugal. Because at the moment they have a time difference. And that's bonkers, isn't it? That would be like us having a time difference with Scotland, wouldn't it?

Well, it would, and it's so silly. It's utterly ridiculous for Spain and Portugal not to be on the same time. I mean, it's just crazy. I feel suddenly extremely invested in this. Sort yourselves out. Please. OK. Put yourselves out. Please. Okay. VoiceOver describes what's happening on your iPhone screen.

VoiceOver on. Settings. So you can navigate it just by listening. Books. Contacts. Calendar. Double tap to open. Breakfast with Anna from 10 to 11.

And get on with your day. Accessibility. There's more to iPhone. So who's our big guest today, Jane? Our big guest today is British television stalwart, Linda Robson. Now, she's written a showbiz memoir, which in many ways is rather typical of a British showbiz memoir.

So Christopher Biggins is in there. I think it's typical of a british showbiz memoir so christopher biggins is in there uh i think it's actually illegal to write a showbiz memoir in britain without referencing biggins at least a couple of times and sure enough he's in there and there's a lot of very cozy stuff about her childhood but um she's had some really severe mental health problems in the last couple of years and she's very honest about those as well she is someone who is a loose woman on itv the very successful female only uh panel and talk show that's on five days a week isn't it it's five days a week i think so and birds of a feather of course was one of the most successful tv sitcoms of all time in which she starred alongside pauline quirk and leslie joseph it ran for a very long time, wildly popular.

So let's listen to Linda Robson talking about her memoir, Truth Be Told. Well, they call you Baggy Mouth, which is why the subtitle is Tales From A Baggy Mouth. That's right. It's quite rude, isn't it? My mum started that off, actually, because she used to say to me, you and your baggy mouth is going to get you into trouble. And it has several times over the years.

Well, it's got you into trouble, but it's given you an amazing career as well, hasn't it? It has as well, yeah. It's 56 years this year I've been in the business. I started when I was 10, and I'm 66 on Wednesday. Right, OK. So a long time, yeah, yeah. She's looking good on it, isn't she, Fee?

It's the hair. What you have to do is this. You put it all over your face, and then all you can see is that little bit there. And it works. Well, you look great, seriously. But we probably need to start with that, because you haven't been well. And part of the book is about your mental health and

just how tough the last couple of years have been yeah and what struck me reading this is that actually you were one of what you appeared on the surface to be one of life's copers yeah you just kept going i'd always been life's cope and i'd always been the strong one in my family if my family needed anything or needed looking after i was the one that they came to so my son and my husband had a bit of depression and I was the one that looked after them never dreamed in a million years that would happen to me I'd always been absolutely fine and then just went for a really bad time probably about four years ago and I was off tv for two years and I was on suicide watch I just was finding it really difficult to get through the day.

It all started with a sugar-free diet. So I used to have spritzers every night and then I just stopped the spritzers. And I think my body went into shock where I drank wine every night. But never of a daytime. It was just like a couple of spritzers, 10 o'clock at night when the kids were in bed. And I felt like it was my time then. And then I just started drinking more and more and more. And for some reason, they put me on medication. They had a really bad um it had a really bad effect on me so then they just kept

putting the medication up and that because it was private health as well then so everything's like if you want anything just say can have some more tablets they'll give you more tablets and that's not like the NHS they're just like looking after there's a lot of money concerned in some of the private health care and that. How are you now then? I'm fine now. I'm absolutely fine now, yeah. So it was four years ago that it happened. I haven't drunk for four years now.

And when they asked me to write a book, I thought, oh, I don't think I've had that interest in her life really. And then I met Beth Neal, who wrote the book with me, and she knew more about me than I knew about me. Right. So she'd say things to me like do you remember you did a film with Richard Burton and Billy Connolly and I went oh yeah the absolution you know like I forgot that I'd done that and there were so many other things that

I'd forgotten about as well but I always say I'm a normal sort of working class woman but some amazing things have happened to me well they have I mean you have been on quite the showbiz journey well you've been on journey with Christopher Big biggins i have yeah i've smoked pot all around america for three weeks an itv documentary gone to pot it had to be called that it had to be and then my agent didn't want me to do it because she said you're a daytime face you'll never work again but medicinally i think cannabis is amazing and i saw firsthand in america and i've seen it in this country as well people that have got parkinson's or ms and when they have the cannabis it just helps them and that and it's and it can slow down tumours and things that's if it's got the THC in it as well

so I was all for it because I met a little boy on Twitter years ago called Derren Blackwell who had two forms of cancer he had leukaemia and a really rare form of cancer and I befriended him went to Bristol I used to go and visit him in Bristol he was only young and then I went to say goodbye to him his mum said I don't think he's got very long now come and say goodbye I said goodbye to him and then about six weeks later she rang and said you won't believe this but we've started him on the cannabis and he's doing all right and the last time I spoke to him he was working for Heston Blumenthal wow okay so yeah that's brilliant um tell us a little bit about your background because we were talking Fee and I earlier about Anna Sheurn you went to her acting school in islington one of many fantastic talents who came yeah well we never called it a school we always called it a club okay so how did that

work you just used to drop in there no so what happened was she was an art teacher in my primary school and we just used to go along at lunchtime and then after school she started taking class and it was a bit like a youth club really and there was also really good looking boys there like Martin and Gary Kemp, Phil Daniels, Patsy Palmer, Sidorin, Cathy Burke. So many people went through there and if it wasn't for Anna and the classes were 10p a lesson so it was never a money making concern for her.

She just did it to get the kids off the street. She was also the worst actress I've ever seen in my life as well. Well you say that in the book that she could teach acting but she couldn't do it herself. But she couldn't do it, I know, yeah. She had a part in a series that we're doing once we're all like oh my god that's quite interesting isn't it that she could teach but not yeah oh and everyone respected her you know like she was she said be quiet in the classes we'd be quiet and that you know like she did she really did but she kept us all off the streets all those years ago there was

no youth clubs or anything so this was our little place that we'd go to. Well, there's a bit of talk today around the fact that working-class kids are not getting those opportunities anymore and that the two British actresses nominated for an Oscar last night, they didn't win, were both privately educated. Oh, were they? Great, great actresses like Emily Blunt and Carey Mulligan. You know, really talented,

but they didn't come through the way that you did. Well, that's what I said. I don't know what I'd be doing today if it wasn't for Anna Sher, because it was like she took us off. And we did the first thing that we ever did was a set. Remember years ago, there used to be Saturday morning pictures. Yeah. So all the kids would go down to Saturday morning pictures,

and that was cheap as well. So my mum would take us all down there. And the first time I did a film called Junkie 89, and my mum brought all my cousins and my sisters and everyone down. Every time I came on screen, they'd start clapping. You were making a tidy sum, weren't you, as a relatively young kid? I was the first one in my house that had a bank account, so my mum had a post office account.

And so then you have to go to County Hall and get a licence at that age. So you get your licence, then you could work on the show or whatever. We'd have a chaper whatever and we'd have a chaperone and we'd also have a tutor there to help as well and not that I did much work I've I didn't get any like education or anything really I was always bunking off school anyway I was always naughty right and I always had a potty mouth as well so Mr. LaCala who's my maths teacher heard me swearing and brought me in the toilet and made me wash my mouth out with soap no yeah that did that

did used to happen yeah yeah yeah i mean that stuff really did go on um was there ever a time when you just thought no i can't showbiz isn't for me i don't i don't fit the mold here or did you because you actually there was lots of times when i was young like if i was working i did a thing called the case of a middle-aged wife and agatha christie thing and all the actors were really posh actors and And they did sometimes say, oh, would you pop over to Marks and get me a sandwich? So you'd get treated like you were downstairs. But you were all in the same cast.

We were all in the same cast, but then because I think we were Cockney and working class, they thought we should run and get their lunch for them or whatever. If they said it now, I would say, go and get it yourself. But years ago, I did it, you know, because I thought, oh, I've got to go and get it. I'm i'm quite but years ago now um but years ago i did it you know like oh i've got to go and get it i'm the young one in it there was an element of that with birds of a feather and that was a comedy about two working class sisters their husbands had gone to prison leslie joseph was their indefatigable princess princess neighbor wasn't

she but it was unashamedly a working class comedy it was really yeah about it i think maybe yeah i think they was um i mean we were at the same time as only fools and keeping up appearances and all of those and i remember someone saying another actor saying once to us that you only appear you only appeal to the lowest common denominator at the time i didn't know what that meant but um it's like to people that are not very educated and whatever and we were getting like 27 million viewers or 25 million viewers and whatever. But we were very hands-on with it. So whenever a script came through, we'd go through it and say,

oh, no, we're not doing that. We've got to change it or whatever. So we were... And it was a bit like the American way. So even when we were in the studio, all the audience would be in there and they'd say that didn't work the ending so we're going to rewrite it quickly

and then we'd have to do it again and that. But we had the best time. We had the same crew, same wardrobe we went to la we went to like scotland we filmed berlin and that we had the most amazing time honestly there was a but which was that you were paid half what david jason and nicholas were getting so our canon we'd had a few drinks one day we're all in the bar and he said um you know how much they're getting the boys from only falls and we said how much i'm not going to say how much on here but um it was a lot of money and it was more than you and it was i mean we were getting like 10 of what they was getting and so we went to our producer mitch mick pillsworth and said we want to be paid the same as the boys we're getting just as many viewers as them and we want the same money and he said i think you're right and we want the same money. And he said, I think you're right. And we got the same money as them.

So it did change at that point. It did change, yeah, yeah. It's a good job you found out. It is, I know, yeah. Okay, the other thing I want to take up with you is this shock revelation in the book that your Irish mother, and she was one of 13 children from Dublin. Yes, eight boys and five girls. Did not drink tea.

Never drank a cup of tea. The only time she ever drank a cup of tea was when she was in a hospice when she had dementia and we got there one day and she was drinking a cup of tea. The only time she ever drank a cup of tea was when she was in the hospice, when she had dementia, and we got there one day and she was drinking a cup of tea. And we said to the nurses, she doesn't drink tea. She only likes Diet Coke. Can you please give her Diet Coke? But then she'd started eating things that she'd never ate before or whatever. She was in Marie Curie for five months, and me and my sisters went to visit her every day.

And we were there with her at the end when she passed away. But she had a really lovely, this sounds like a terrible thing to say, but, you know, people always talk about lovely births, so she had a lovely death because her three girls were there with her and my cousin Jackie, and she died peacefully in her sleep. Well, we should talk about lovely deaths. I mean, it's an important thing, isn't it? Can I just ask you whether you ever felt uncomfortable when you made that move from being an actress,

which is wearing a mask, a very successful mask, to being on Loose Women, which is absolutely oversharing your real self? I've been in trouble quite a few times over the years and there's normally our director, Dickie, in my ear saying, don't swear, Linda, don't swear, whatever you do. Because obviously when we're off air, during the breaks or whatever, then the few expletives, whatever they're called, come out.

I can't believe it. But I did really think I'd lost my job one day because I had to wheel a million pounds into the studio, flanked by two security guards. And there was Brenda. It was Charlene's first ever loose woman. Charlene White. Yeah, Sinetra, Brenda, Kelly.

And I walked in with a million pounds. And they told me it was rehearsal and then I wheeled it in I'm not gonna swear I promise and I said so today's your last chance to win a million pound all in one go or you can win ten thousand pound a month for the next four years and I went I can't beep beep see that and then I looked at the women I went are we live and they went yeah I said well I'd just like to apologize for what I just said because I thought it was a rehearsal and I walked out into the green room and they were all in corners talking and I thought oh no I've lost my job and then Andy Peters saved me

because he said he came in with a bar of soap and said I'm gonna wash her mouth out my mum never swore my mum was was Catholic Irish. She never swore. And if she could hear some of the language that I say, she would have killed me, honestly. Do you know what? She'd be really proud of you, Linda. That was Linda Robson talking about her memoir, Truth Be Told. Right.

We are going to return to Sophia Loren a little later in the week with something hopefully a little more attractive than the prospect of a kidney omelette. But Fee has now been reunited with the thinking of the DJ to end them all, Mr S Bates, who was a stalwart of Radio 1 for 155 years and now finds himself in his late 70s. But Fee is reading from his tome, My Tune. OK, so here we go.

I've been enjoying a fling with a lady newsreader I shall refer to as Sarah. Nothing serious, just a movie and a meal every now and then. I bowled into Broadcasting House one afternoon to be confronted by a friend of the aforesaid newsreader who said, you bastard. I stopped dead in my tracks and said, what? At which she repeated herself, you bastard. How could you knock Sarah out like that? I hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about. The idea of me knocking out a substantially built woman like Sarah. Simon.

Oh, God. It's gone wrong already. It was patently absurd and I protested that twernt me governor. We went a few yards down Oxford Street to a coffee bar to resolve the issue, and she explained herself. According to Sarah, she and I had been in the bath at her flat making vigorous love. Mm-hmm. I say it again.

Oh, Simon. And I had become so passionate that I'd somehow managed to bang her head against the taps, knocking her out in the process. I knew nothing of this, and when I asked Sarah about the incident, the truth came out unbeknownst to me. I've been sharing the favours of the lady newsreader with the light entertainment producer. Oh, God.

Right, well, I'm so glad that's been explained. Yeah. That's dreadful, and I think it illustrates that times have not only changed, I'm going to say, Fia, I think things might have improved marginally. At least people these days wouldn't be allowed to write that. No, they wouldn't.

Doesn't mean it didn't go on, but they'd find Sarah and make sure she was okay. Just another tiny bit further down the paragraph, the light entertainment producer was a man with a great sense of his own place in life. You don't say. So, I never asked him about the incident, but the relationship

with Sarah was somehow soured and we went our separate ways though I never denied the story when I heard it coming around again he goes on to pronounce gossip and the BBC go hand in hand oh I certainly do right bye bye Simon for the time being

I think we've done Simon now yes I think we have I'm going to lift off my uh copious and stuffed shells another autobiography from an incredibly important man a contributor to our industry jane randomly open the book and see what i can find and i look forward to hearing more from sophia on the same kind of basis okay i think we're trying to move sophia off awful and into slightly more companionable so far we know from that book that that she does canny things with kidneys and likes to, what was it, fry a magnolia petal?

Yeah, well, that was according to one of our correspondents. It's just the idea of Sophia Loren in her gorgeous pomp wrestling with the gristle from the inside of a kidney. And a membrane. I just don't think that happened. I think it does. No, I think she's probably a fantastic cook. Yes, okay. Jane and F fee at times dot radio although at the moment we haven't even actually finished

reading the emails from the weekend so if you've got something important to say you might want to hold back and rejoin us towards the end of the week uh but it is lovely to hear from you and if you have any thoughts on topical matters, we'll certainly take them. Well done for getting to the end of another episode of Off Air with Jane Garvey and Fee Glover. Our Times Radio producer is Rosie Cutler and the podcast executive producer is Henry Tribe. And don't forget, there is even more of us every afternoon on Times Radio. It's Monday to Thursday, three till five. You can pop us on when you're pottering around the house or heading out in the car on the school run or running a bank. Thank you for joining us and we hope you can join us again on Off Air very soon. Don't be so silly. Running a bank? I know ladies don't get signed up. Sorry. what's happening on your iPhone screen. Voice over on settings. So you can navigate it just by listening.

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