The reality of her past is sad enough. French’s father, Denys, had a history
of depression and attempted suicides. He didn’t adjust well to civilian life
in Plymouth after the RAF. He hid his chronic depression from Dawn and her
brother, Gary. He told Dawn every day how beautiful she was, which rooted in
her self-belief and confidence. When she was 19 her father attached a hose
pipe to his exhaust and killed himself. She’s writing the book in the form
of letters, many of them to her father. No wonder it’s hard.
Her mother took a course in dog-clipping and went on to clip every poodle in
Plymouth. “She’s done mouth-to-mouth with many poodles. They’re very
fragile. You put on the clippers… Many poodles ceased to be, on that table,
and many more she brought back to life.”
She turns back to the photographs and explains that Saunders is moving back to
London from Devon, while she is intending to move to Cornwall in September.
“It has taken a while for Len to make the choice to go. I felt very strongly
that I would want to be in Cornwall by the time I was 50. I thought I’d like
to spend the rest of my life there. I want to see beauty every day. But
obviously I had to take into account what he felt, and I wanted to wait till
Billie had finished her GCSEs.”
Is hitting 50 a landmark for you? “Definitely, because I’ve never thought I’d
live to be very old. I’ve always felt that. So by 50 I want to be down
there.” I’m shocked. So you think you’re going there to die? “Yeah,” she
concedes brightly. “But to die slowly and nicely, in great surroundings,
with my family. It is a bit shocking, isn’t it?” she says. “I’m not ill. I’m
very fit, in fact. There is no history of early death in my family. I have
got a granny who is 99. I lost my other one at 95, and my mum is a pretty
good 74. I don’t feel gloomy about it. I’m resigned to it. I don’t know why
I feel so sure. I said it to my brother when I was about six.” She says it
so calmly it feels sad and scary. “It doesn’t feel scary, it feels like a
surety. I’m not scared of death. I want to be around for my kid to get
plugged into adult life. That is the only thing I would want to live any
time for.” What do you think happens when you die? “I doubt that you go
anywhere, you just go to sleep. I’ve told Len ever since I’ve known him, I
don’t think I’ll be around for a long time. Billie is the only one I think
it would be difficult for. What’s weird is, I’m quite a logical person and
there’s not much logic to this. There are certain things I just know.”
This confident, if strange, view of her death is consistent with her belief in
herself, but there was one moment where her insecurity peaked: the first
night she spent with Henry. “Len had been going out with a lot of blondes;
Jen was blonde. I had just met him and she was coming round to work the next
morning. I should have called her and said, ‘Don’t come,’ but I forgot, so
she turned up and I didn’t let her in. I opened the door enough to say, ‘Go
away.’ I wanted more time with him and I didn’t want him to meet her until I
knew what was happening with us.” Were you worried he’d fancy her? “There
was a little bit of that, but I think it was more because he was ‘the one’,
so everything was heightened. He mattered. I needed to be territorial. Also,
I appreciate Jennifer as a top-quality bird. I’d be surprised at any
boyfriend not fancying her. After a few days I knew that that would never
happen.”
Because he was madly in love with you? “Yes, he was. Right from the start. And
I with him. He wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever known.” And are you still in
love? “Definitely. A different kind of love, the kind that comes 25 years
later. But I miss him terribly if we’re apart. I ache for him. A part of me
doesn’t feel right if we’re not together, and we have to be apart a lot. So
I’m always excited to see him. He’s a good anchor. Len goes to sleep in the
same position that he wakes up in. He doesn’t have the kind of worry that
keeps you up at night and makes you fidget.”
In 1999 he had a crisis. The previous year, his mother died and he hit 40.
While he was on tour the tabloids rumbled a liaison with a young blonde. He
ended up in the Priory. “He went a bit mad. Absolutely mad. It was like all
the bonkers behaviour people can have in a lifetime, he put into two years
and went off the rails. I was sort of worried he hadn’t gone off the rails
before – that he’d always been so calm.” Did that shift the dynamic between
you and him? “No. He was always looking after me. I think we look after each
other, in different ways. I do the worrying for everybody, including for
Jen. She just takes whatever is coming. She doesn’t think outside the
present; she lives in the now and I don’t. I live in the future and a little
bit of the past.”
Is that another reason why you’re writing your book? That you want to set it
down before you die? “Perhaps. A few of the letters are to my dad about the
life he didn’t see. I’ve also written to Len and my daughter.” And to
Saunders? “I like big friendships. What have I learnt from Jennifer? Many
things. Not to panic. To believe in yourself more. I have come to appreciate
the depth and the history of our friendship. It feels unbeatable.”
French is voluptuous with her emotions and her expressions. Saunders is about
small gestures. You learn more about her by what is not said. It seems
Saunders would have nothing in common with the excessive Edina, although she
likes shoes and is wearing high, strappy sandals. What she does have in
common is that she can float off into a world of her own. She is quite
eccentric.
We meet at a London club, Home House. Its English elegance seems to suit
Saunders. A few years ago she thought she wanted to live in Devon for ever.
“Just as my friends are all retiring and moving out, Ade [Edmondson] and I
have decided we like London. So we’re moving back to town so we can enjoy
life. We’re almost child-free now, so I won’t be tied to school holidays.”
She met Edmondson, her husband of 22 years, when they performed in The Comic
Strip.
Beattie, the middle daughter, is at Manchester University studying drama, just
as her father did. Saunders mumbles: “You see your parents doing it, and you
do it.” Her father was in the RAF and then worked for British Aerospace and
her mother was a biology teacher. Was she expected to go into science? “Er,
I don’t think there were any great expectations for me. I wasn’t academic.”
As a child she would always be frowning and staring. It seems she was always
misplaced. It took her a while to find her groove, but once she found it she
placed high expectations on herself. Without French, though, she would never
have had the motivation in the first place.
