Country life
Parents and pop stars
Leanda de Lisle
My parents' house is about to feature on MTV. Spice Girl types sing about the place where they grew up, which is now sadly run down. The family home has been somewhat typecast in this sort of role. But then, as my father commented almost proudly, 'the film makers didn't have to bother much with fake spiders-webs and that sort of thing'. I am never in a position to meet pop stars and I was as curious as I was jealous. How did they take to the coun- try, I wondered? 'Well, they didn't smile much,' my father told me, 'at least not until I persuaded them to ride my lawn-mower around the garden.' I tried to imagine the scene, but without success, so my father elaborated: 'They zoomed up the lawn shouting, "Don't photograph my ass!" at their publicity people.' As far as I'm aware, my parents' experi- ence of pop stars was previously limited to a night in the Sixties when George Harri- son took my mother on to the dance floor at Annabel's. 'What do you do?' she asked. `I sing,' he replied. Their interest in rock and roll artists hasn't exactly taken off since then. They seemed less than excited to have the best that Top of the Pops can offer posing outside their downstairs' lava- tory. But my father adored the film crew whom he put up for several days. My moth- er described how they brushed their hair and put on clean shoes to collect the direc- tor from Newbury station. He turned out to be black, with an impressive head of scarlet hair. They soon discovered that they had friends living in the country in common. I hope he was used to doing without a daily to make his bed, for Margaret, the cleaner (who is in her late seventies hence the cob- webs), had taken the week off and my mother soon disappeared to London.
In any event, the crew proved far too polite to complain about their billets. One chap told my father he was going to redo his own home in the style of the house. 'I love it,' he said; 'I've peed in every room.' The make-up lady, who had even redder hair than the director, explained, 'He means that as a compliment,' but my father had understood that. He did once have a guest who peed in a room (and set fire to the carpet), but he was a mad stockbroker, while this fellow was clearly a sane artist. At some point an extravagant looking member of the party turned to my father and announced, 'There's something I've got to tell you. I'm . . .' What? A bomber? A double murderer? We've lived with those. 'No . .. gay,' the man concluded. 'I'd never have known,' my father replied, and this must have been an appropriate response for the crew very kindly asked him out to dinner.
Meanwhile, I was preparing to host a clay pigeon shoot for the NSPCC. Honest- ly, I felt like Saffron the dreary daughter in Absolutely Fabulous — only less good- hearted.
I had thought that this event was going to be like the shoots held here by the Terri- torial Army. One twangy thing and 40 peo- ple in a distant field. Instead, I discovered a month ago that there were going to be 20 twangy things set up all over the garden, at least 200 guests, marquees for a sit-down lunch, a champagne bar and a pub. I'm afraid my lower lip collapsed. However, I was persuaded to bite it back into place and the shoot went ahead the day after we came back from holiday. It was a great suc- cess.
Nevertheless, as I looked at the sponsors' Mercedes 600s parked outside the front door, I thought why am I not hosting Child Aid with Bob Geldof instead? Or Leanda Aid with Oasis? I'm going to write the lyrics of their next hit 'Peter In The Garden With Rabbits' and ensure that this house is the perfect set for their next video.
Previous page
