‘What’s going to happen between now and the train arriving?’
‘You never know, there are some funny people about,’ she’d say, and all the while I’d be thinking, one of them is you …
Perhaps she was right to be concerned: we were almost all girls and we looked like everyone’s idea of typical schoolgirls, which attracted a fair few dodgy types. We were all very blasé at the time and I can’t remember any of it being a real threat, but looking back I guess she had a point. But I was very self-conscious about Mum being there and shouting ‘Love you, Babes!’ when everyone could hear.
I can remember so clearly one of my first days at the school: I got into the carriage and became aware, as the train started moving slowly off, that she was running alongside it. The tube went a bit faster and when I glanced out the window she was still there. But now she was shouting: ‘Help, my coat – it’s stuck in the door … Open the bloody doors!’ The guard noticed and so the train quickly stopped and her coat was released, but I’m deeply ashamed because when one of the Conti kids who’d seen it asked ‘Who was that woman?’ I shrugged and said, ‘No idea.’ With that, I turned my back on Mum. All she was trying to do was protect me, but I was embarrassed and ashamed – I hate the fact that I was like that.
Later on, everyone would get to know my mum and they’d all be shouting, ‘Bye, Lisa’s mum!’ when she did her big ‘Bye, Babes, I love you!’ routine (she took me to the tube every day until I was 16). On the train it was a wonderful little bubble. Because we were stage-school kids we were naturally noisy, and we’d sing songs and recite bits from plays – I felt extremely special and happy as soon as I entered that bubble.
The arrival of Bonnie Langford in our class at school a year later was a big event. We’d been told she was coming and couldn’t wait. She’d been a big star on Broadway in Gypsy (Noël Coward reputedly said about the show: ‘They should cut the second act and the child’s throat’) and we’d seen her in the film Bugsy Malone, but I don’t think any of us anticipated what a consummate pro she was. Twelve-year-old Bonnie arrived at school every day as if she was going into rehearsals: her hair was fabulous, bright red and teased into a million ringlets, every single one immaculate and held back by a headband that matched her school uniform. Everything about her was ‘finished’ – that’s the only word I can think of. We were all learning, works in progress, but she was already the complete deal: the perfect package.
Her pencil case had her name on it and all her pencils had her name in gold letters along the side. Over her leotard and tights she’d wear a black T-shirt with her name in diamante and a big star with lights shooting out of it. She was good at everything, could put her leg up by her ears without wobbling and she was also clever, getting straight As for all subjects. Bonnie was a few months younger than me and already famous; I couldn’t believe we were in the same class. We wanted to criticise her to make ourselves feel better because she was such a high achiever, but we just couldn’t because she was brilliant at everything, also lovely to everybody else. She had black eyelashes that she told me were dyed – it was the first time I’d heard of anyone doing this.
Laura James was my best mate at this time: so pretty and super talented, I was always proud she chose me. If anyone should have been the next Liza Minnelli or Barbra Streisand, it had to be Laura (she’s now happily married to Jonathan Ross’s younger brother Adam, with two lovely girls). A right pair, we bonded over our sense of humour. We were a bit mean to Bonnie: she sat in front of us in class and we used to dip her ringlets in the inkwells. I’ve never owned up to this before and when I meet Bonnie – we are good friends – she may go off me, now she knows!
Laura and me would slip into Frank Spencer impersonations and keep it up all day (the older girls used to get us to do it; I think they thought we were a pair of freaks). She lived just three or four stops up the Northern line from me in Stockwell and I loved going to her house. It was my idea of what the perfect family should be: a mum, a dad and an older brother. I hardly ever invited her to mine, but I think she worked out that it was because I was ashamed of our flats. She was always very sensitive and never asked why.
We used to spend hours together at the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre, pulling faces in the photo booth and buying Snoopy and Holly Hobbit pencil cases and rulers. At least, Laura was buying hers and I was demonstrating how good I was at nicking them. I got away with quite a few and shared the spoils with her – luckily, I was never caught. We’d also buy our favourite magazines: Bunty, Jackie, My Guy and Photo-Love. At 16 I made it onto the cover of Photo-Love, in my eyes one of my greatest achievements.
It was while Laura, Karen and I were mooching around in the school holidays that we were flashed at in the street. A man walked towards us with a coat over his arm, and when he moved it, ‘Run, he’s got his willy out!’ Laura shouted. We weren’t scared – we just thought it was funny. Laura and Karen started running but I was laughing so hysterically that when I tried to run I wet myself so I had to stop and cross my legs. We went to Laura’s house and then her mum and Karen’s mum took us to the police station to report it. Being 12-year-old stage-school girls, we loved the drama – I think we thought we were in an episode of Dixon of Dock Green. ‘Oh my God, you should have seen it! It was right down here …’ we babbled, gesturing down towards our knees.
The policeman asked the mothers if we knew what ‘erect’ and ‘flaccid’ meant. When they said no, he asked us whether it was pointing North or South. Finally Laura drew it for him by pointing towards the South. I’ve always said it was Karen who wet herself, but this book is about the truth: it was me who had to walk around in a pair of wet jeans and I’ve only recently apologised to her.
Meanwhile, back in the school dressing room we would play performing games: our favourite was Grease after Mum took a group of us to see it at the Elephant Odeon. We took it in turns to be John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Bonnie didn’t always join in our games but she loved playing Grease and if she was Danny she would leap off the table like the Russian gymnast Olga Korbut, singing, ‘It’s electrifying!’
Danielle Foreman was also a good friend at Conti’s, although like Bonnie she started a bit later than the rest of us. She’s the sister of the actor Jamie Foreman and their dad was Freddie Foreman, a well-known gangster (Jamie used to babysit me when Mum was going out – Danielle would come over and he’d be left in charge of us at our flat). The family lived in Dulwich and their dad wasn’t around some of the time because he was in prison but I can remember the thrill of him turning up at school to pick Danielle up in his sky-blue Rolls-Royce Corniche. Freddie was part of the whole gangster scene going on in London: he knew the Krays and the Richardsons and he was involved in a couple of murders as well as some big heists. I didn’t know any of this at the time but I think I was savvy enough to know he didn’t get his Rolls working down the market.
When 50p was nicked from Bonnie Langford’s moneybag, the finger of suspicion was unfairly pointed at Danielle and me for some reason: it wasn’t us. About six of us had been in the dressing room at the time and we were interrogated by Mrs Sheward. Afterwards Danielle and me were kept behind, probably because we refused to allow them to search our bags. It wasn’t because we had anything to hide; we were just being difficult.
A girl in our year had already started her periods and she seemed to be excused almost everything. She was always missing things because of her period – blimey, when you start your periods you become practically disabled, I remember thinking. So when they wanted to search our bags we told them: ‘You can’t search our bags! We may have personal things in there, like Pantie Pads.’ It was an invasion of our privacy, we said. We didn’t even know the right