On the Northern Conquests

This week our show was on a tour of schools in places like Shropshire and Warwickshire, and Chris, our red van and I pushed further north into Upper England than I've ever been. (Which, hitherto, was Oxford.) Monday was a bank holiday, and I set off in the little red postal van with our set rattling in the back to collect Chris from his family home in a village outside Cheltenham. I was wise enough to comment on his mother's beautifully tended garden before lunch was served, which prompted the dear lady to roll up her sleeves and whip around, taking cuttings of everything for my fledgling garden at home. After lunch of burgers and potato salad and homemade apple pie, we nestled my new green treasures into a snug spot beside our lights and drove up to Shifnal, near Telford in Shropshire. I had found an online bargain for our evening accommodation, at a place intriguingly named Naughty Nell's, which we found on a busy road opposite a tea room. The place was a 16th century coaching inn now featuring Mongolian cuisine, so-called after a tenuous association with King Charles' paramour, Nell Gwynne. It hadn't been dusted since her time, apparently, and we had the place to ourselves that drizzly evening. Except for Harold, the resident ghost, according to the publican, ex of the Paras and with many a gruesome tale to tell. I left Chris in his thrall and retreated to the eerie Teddy Bear Room, where I attempted to wash myself in the world's smallest shower and not brain myself on the the lowest beamed ceilings outside of Lilliput. Chris, who is 6'4", thought I had chosen the place as a practical joke.

Our show, early but sadly not bright the next morning, was at a newly built school, appropriately named The Old Hall School. Our get-in is a well oiled machine by now, and I rig the lights and sound while Chris does the set. Its a wonderful thing to be completely reliant on each other and I find the ritual of laying out props together very soothing; each member of the partnership wordlessly doing the tasks that need doing. I used to believe that I was lucky as a performer to have a stage management team to worry about this 'stuff' for me. But stuff is only that if you don't care about it. And perhaps the more you care, the luckier you get.

After our second show, for the older classes at Old Hall, we were free with half a day to ourselves so we went to Ironbridge, which is a tiny town built around the world's first iron bridge. The place is postcard pretty; the eponymous bridge is triumphant over a gentle river meandering through a lush gorge and presided over by the kind of town to do a Stepford wife proud. The day was that perfect marriage of a little too chilly and nearly hot that England has down to a fine art, and we found a Thai restaurant overlooking the gorge that offered lunch for a humble £6. Very exciting stuff to lowly paid actors! We walked off our Eastern indulgences along the river, down a shaded lane bounded by lingering bluebells (still an exotic species to me) and ended up nowhere exciting, whereupon we turned around and wandered back to our little postal van and set off in search of our next stop.

Oldham is not a place that will end up on a travel agent's wish list anytime soon. It made me feel like I was in someone else's basement. Someone like an axe murderer, say, or a misanthropic taxidermist. I just got the heebies from the place. I felt conspicuous and unwelcome, a situation compounded by the lingering musty smell in our hotel room, the officious hotel manager brightly informing us that we were late for check in, and the man with the bloodstained hand in the entrance hall who leered at me. I locked myself in the room and passed the evening listening to Chris willing his team, Man U, to take their place in the Cup Final (which they did, thanks in no small part to his lusty vocal urgings). Luckily I had remembered to pack a pair of scissors, and amused myself in the bathroom reshaping my coiffure. Good entertainment never came so cheap.

Breakfast was in the sun room - perhaps wistfully named. I had requested the continental breakfast and was rather jealous to compare the box of Tesco muesli that arrived on my side of the table with the Full English that landed in front of Chris. Although my arteries breathed a prayer of thanks. We had a free morning and were at a loss as to how to spend it. The sky was resolutely slate and spitting, and the only perceivable landmark was a jumbo Asda. I asked Chris to drive me out of the town and dump me for half an hour, which he very obligingly did. We drove until I spotted the first remotely pretty field. Picture it: I'm in my pink running jacket and Nikes, hair set in rollers and bound up in a headscarf, and I jump out of our little red van and go running off down a muddy lane. If my mother could see me now! The muddy lane became a bog, and I thought of the fun I had splashing about our garden in Singapore when the monsoon rains arrived. I do recall the mud being slightly warmer back there, but no matter. I followed a signpost that said Public Footpath, which appeared to point through an empty farmyard, and on the other side of the yard was a dazzling view of a Lancashire dale sweeping down to the train line skirting the river at the bottom of the valley. The relentless wind swirled through the knee high grass, painting ephemeral brush strokes. This was more like it. I descended a steep muddy slope into the valley, wondering how I was ever going get back up again and knowing as I did so that I would find a way because I had to. The meadow at the bottom of the hill was a green velvet secret and I skirted it happily, listening to the singing river and the wind rattling through the trees. The slope presented itself again, and I realised its easier to run up than skid down. The trick is momentum, and putting your weight on the balls of your feet. But, with this triumph still glowing in my cheeks, I found myself greeted at the farmyard gate by a bristling pack of dogs and an irate farmer. So much for Public Footpath. The woman enquired of me in broad Lancashire where I had come from and what I was doing. I said something lame like "Down there...it said...I'm running...", and she responded that "We don't like people on our land." I felt foolish and decided the safest thing to do was befriend the barking unwelcome committee. Seeing her attack dogs switch allegiance made the rubicund cheeks of my interrogator flame brighter and I decided now would be an excellent time to make my way, in what I hoped was a soothing but swift manner, back down the lane as fast as I could manage without looking like prey. Chris, when I recounted the incident to him in the van, said that what else did I expect? we were in the North after all. What I want to know is exactly where we crossed the border.

Our show that day was in a working class area in Rochdale, and the dinner ladies (those vast, terrifying wielders of ladles) were clearing the remains of the lunchtime chaos from the hall as we put up our set. I have become quite au fait with school dinner menus in the last few weeks, and I think Jamie Oliver has a long way to go in his attempts to reform the British school dinner. How can little minds learn while little tummies are attempting to digest roast chicken with stuffing and gravy? I was amused and amazed to see one menu offering children toast with a choice of beans or toast. Yum.

Sweaty and satisfied after the show, we packed up yet again and headed south to our evening stop in Warwick. Warwickshire is Shakespeare's county, and I'm amazed he ever managed to leave the place; its the prettiest English county I've seen yet. This is the kind of place I thought they made up for the purposes of washing powder and butter commercials when I was growing up in the jungles, concrete and otherwise, of Singapore. We treated ourselves to pizza and wine at Pizza Express in Warwick, after a walk about the town as dusk fell. Warwick is idyllic. I stood on the wide stone bridge over the rowers and swans conceding each other space on the smooth gray river, and felt joy surge through me. Swallows were zinging through the air around the rearing spires of the magnificent castle downriver and a lively wind was blowing in new ideas. I felt bathed clean and sharpened by its energy.

By the dawning of day four, in the charmless Days Inn at the M40 rest stop, I was quite ready to go home. I put on my new (albeit pre-owned; I am totally converted to Oxfam thanks to Amber's keen eye for a good sartorial scoop) summer dress, bursting with pink roses, which was an antidote to another drizzly sky. Two shows later,the sun had emerged and we were floating homeward down emerald country lanes, the breeze soft and sunshiny on newly bared shoulders. And life was good.

This is turning out to be a better gig than I'd ever dreamed. I'd always flipped past the posts for auditions for children's theatre, dismissing it as too many steps back. But then my own phrase wafted up from my self conscious and asserted itself at the opportune moment: The secret to happiness is often the lowering of your standards...