Dear Diary

One of the reasons I gave up writing a diary as a teenager was the fact that each evening I had to think of something interesting to put into it.

I kept a diary from roundabout 1972 until early in my professional career around 1979. Last Friday I took a post holiday trip up to see how mum was, and to take her much sought-after  ration of duty-free perfume. I found myself skimming through my old diaries which are now kept in a rather tattered bureau in the corner of what passes for my bedroom at  mums house.

Some of my days were so fascinating I can't believe how I survived them!

 “Got up. Had breakfast. Went to Rotherham. Watched TV. Had bath. Went to bed"

As you can see I was a teenager on the cutting edge! Every so often though as I flicked through the pages a day would come back into focus. A day that had caused me to write more than “had pizza. Went to bed"

My visit to the "Magpie television" studios in 1972 to interview the actress Diana Rigg as the result of a competition I won merits almost a page and a half of teenage scribbling.  Events are recorded right down to the shirt that I was wearing.  Winning the national schools public speaking competition in Dewsbury town Hall in 1973, with only my dad for support. There are some fun jottings from my drama school years too.  Protracted scribblings about how to play a particular character. I suspect these were written more because I thought they should be written than because I wanted to write them. I'm never been an actor who has made massive notes about how to do anything. What little talent I have has always been instinctive. This is great in many respects as it has given me the gift of such things as sight-reading, and an ability to interpret something very quickly and make it jump off the page. It does mean however that if I were ever asked to play something which involved extensive research I'd get bored as hell.

It's amazing how some of the most significant events that occurred during those early diary years are noted down in such a cool brief fashion.

“Got job. Eight month contract with Royal Exchange. Mike came to tell me in car park" is the somewhat terse entry that notes down the extreme elation and exhilaration I felt when in early July 1978 I was told by the then assistant director at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester that I would be joining the company  on an eight month contract for a very big Shakespeare tour all round Europe  ending up with eight weeks playing at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester.

Other jobs are entered in an equally dismissive way. “Did telly. Something called “Brideshead"" tells of a couple of days spent a Granada television on what was to become one of the most iconic pieces of TV drama ever made. My contribution is now reduced to one scene in episode 11, but it's still there for all to see.

The brilliant thing about this blog is of course that one can be more selective. I get to write this on a Sunday afternoon, or  as in this case, early Monday morning and I have all the events of the previous week to cover. It might be apparent to our more more discerning readers that this little diversion into diaries of the past fills the page this week because the last seven days have not exactly been event filled. I did manage a two-day trip up to Yorkshire on Friday and Saturday to see Mum, and other than the casting for a TV last Monday which it looks increasingly likely I will not get, the first post holiday week passed by  in a summer haze. 

 The only event of any consequence was the fact that yesterday afternoon thanks to Novak Djokovic and his victory at Wimbledon,  I won £180.  I had a small win on the Grand National and decided that instead of collecting my winnings from the William Hill website I would reinvest them into something for Wimbledon. This was over two months ago and somewhere I had a thought in my mind that I'd read something that this was Djokovic's year.  Well it was!  and mine too on the winnings front!

 Now that would certainly have made the diary.