For 15 years, Jane Graham has asked people from a range of industries including entertainment, politics, sport and business to write a letter to their younger selves. Her latest book includes letters - first published in UK magazine The Big Issue - from inspirational women.
Dawn French
Comedian and writer
October 9, 2017
At 16, I was virginal. I thought about sex almost every hour of every day. Imagining it, anticipating it, fearing it and longing for it. I was at a girls’ school and my brother was at a boys’ school so I fell in love with each of his friends in turn. Mostly misguided crushes on inappropriate people. Always asking, when will the moment happen? Before that I’d practised kissing on plums, other girls, pillows. I feel very affectionate about the teenage me. I was full of hope, always looking for the good in every moment. And always looking for the laugh.
There were points when I didn’t have much confidence. It would go from high to low a lot. My dad gave me a bit of a talking to one night, when I was off to a party in my purple suede hot pants. He told me what I was to him. A beauty and a prize. He said if anything happened to me he’d be devastated. He told me any boy would be lucky to have me. And I utterly believed him. He was probably handling me carefully, knowing I was a bit vulnerable, off to a party, maybe not with a lot of confidence. But I believed he spoke the truth and it really stuck with me. A dad’s boost of confidence to his daughter is a very potent thing. I was very lucky to have him. And I still believe what he said to me was, and is, true.
I was 18 when my dad committed suicide. If I could go back and put an arm around my teenage self I’d say, one day, eventually, you will understand this. Because it was so hard to understand then. It was a giant trauma. I was angry, confused, bewildered, sad and blaming all the wrong people, including myself. But as time has gone on I’ve learned about mental health, and understood that if my dad had perhaps lived in a time when he didn’t feel so ashamed of his depression, it might have been very different. It’s a cliche but it’s true – over time you learn to forgive that person and understand they sought a way out at a particular time.
At that point, for him, life was a sort of hell. He was just then altered, and not the dad I knew. It wasn’t until the middle part of my life that I began worrying and catastrophising. Probably to do with having kids. Paying mortgages. Having responsibilities. I longed for children and I was so happy when it happened, but when they were there the responsibility sometimes felt overpowering. It can wear you down if you’re not careful. Since then, I’ve made conscious decisions to live differently. There’s a Jane Hirshfield poem where she says, “I move my chair into the sun”. That has been the most useful thing I’ve learned in the past 10 years. You actually can choose to move out to where it’s warmer. And now, it’s like muscle memory, I’m starting to feel much more optimistic again. I’m back to where I was when I was young.
The 16-year-old me would be amazed and very impressed that I ended up in the comedy world with comedians I adored. I still have odd starstruck moments, like when I met Michael Palin or John Cleese, and I thought, oh God, I have adored you. And I have to tell myself, come on, they’re just people, they’re normal. Among people I actually knew, Rik Mayall was very easy to love. Not only was he beautiful, he was extremely funny in a very unique way. He used to have me in absolute fits of laughter. Probably because he performed very easily in his normal everyday life. He would do anything, any stupid thing, to get a laugh out of you. He was a complete tart for a laugh. I have a lot to thank him for.
It can be hard when a friend, especially one you’ve never done any work separately from, suddenly has a huge success without you. Ab Fab was such a massive hit. Until then Jennifer (Saunders, her comedy partner since the early 80s) and I had been utterly linked in everything we did. I was made very aware that, in comedy terms, she was a completely individual, separate person. With her own powers. That really shocked me. Not only was she able to do it without me, she could do it really well. So that was really annoying. But however jealous I was, I love her and I was proud of her. I dealt with it by being open and honest about my jealousy. I sent her a bunch of flowers when she won a Bafta saying, “Congratulations you c***.”
For me, our separation was a sad thing (she split with husband Lenny Henry in 2010, after 26 years together), and a kind of waking up to the inevitable. That’s a slow and painful process, when you finally start listening to your inner instinct. You must never, never ignore voices that are in your heart. We all know them. We suppress them like mad, but sometimes they are the truth. So it was sad. But we handled it by acknowledging that we were both in a bit of pain. And we looked after each other. We were kind to each other. Those were the brilliant things and I was delighted with that. It’s not like we had to say, ooh, let’s try to be kind to each other. We just were, because we’d always been. We thought, let’s finish this as we started it, as friends. And we’ve got a kid! Who matters much more than us. And she must never feel that she was trapped in the middle of this, or that she was for one minute to blame.
If I could have one last conversation with anyone, it would be my dad. Though I’ve always felt he knows what’s been happening in my life because I have him in my back pocket at all times, sort of like my engine.
But I would like to talk to him about his struggles with mental health. I knew nothing about them at the time, though other people did. But it was such a shameful thing back then, no one talked about it. Most of the time he was a cheerful, funny, adventurous, happy dad. Then there were times when he withdrew to a dark room, but I just thought he had a migraine. I’d like to talk to him properly now about he was feeling. Now that I think I understand.
If I could go back to any moment in my life, I’d be 18 again, in a tent, in the dunes on a Cornwall beach called Gwithian Sands. That was the moment everything I had been worrying about for years finally came to pass in that intimate little tent with a lovely, lovely boy I met. It was not at all traumatising. It was a happy event. Then we had a big, long sloppy kiss. And then we went for a big swim in the sea. And then we had a Fab ice lolly. Bliss.
Cyndi Lauper. Photo / Chapman Baehler
Cyndi Lauper
Singer-songwriter
April 4, 2016
At 16, I had just got a guitar and I was so excited. I had saved up a long time, and finally I had my guitar. I would stay up all night and sing and write and paint. I thought I was going to be a musician and I got a band together but they fell apart. And I was almost lost then, because if it hadn’t been for music I didn’t know what I would do. Sixteen was not easy for me. It wasn’t so sweet. And a year later I really was lost.
My circumstances when I was a teenager were difficult. Maybe my personality didn’t help me fit in either. By that point, I couldn’t take school anymore. I’d been in high school for seven years. I had been kept back so many times graduation felt like it was getting further and further away. I spent my time humming to myself. I was in the art class where they hand out rounded scissors to cut out paper. Nothing was connecting. It was very difficult. I didn’t learn the same way as everyone else. I wasn’t like them, though I wanted to be. So I became more of an outsider, wearing things and doing things that frightened the people who laughed at me.
People are afraid of crazy people so I did crazy things to scare them and keep the assholes away. I was always a bit psycho, a mild schitz.
Before I was a pop star, I used to have people throw rocks at me because I was wearing vintage clothing that didn’t fit very well, and it was different. Someone threw a rock and I’d say, oh really? Where did you get your clothes from? A rack alongside 10 others that were exactly the same? But then when I became famous everyone started dressing like me. I didn’t expect that. I guess they just wanted to have fun. But I felt like I couldn’t be who I was anymore because it had all gone. It was like a uniform, this thing I’d put on to empower myself. I’d picked out all those pieces. When we were doing the club scenes everybody had their own space. Madonna dressed her way, I dressed mine, and we didn’t want to look like each other or anybody else.
If I met her now, I think I’d still like the younger me. Around 17, I worked out you have to like yourself. I would tell her things will work out fine. I’d say, your beginning might not have been so good, but you can start again now. And I’d say, don’t be afraid. What would she think of me? I think she’d be proud of me. That I always stood up for what I believed in, even when my choices weren’t popular.
The big changing point for me was when I joined a band. That’s when I stopped being so odd; I’d found my tribe. Were they the quintessential end product of what I was going to be? No, but I was on my journey. I would tell my young self to learn to be patient. It would be a long journey but I was in it for the long haul. When you first join a band it’s all for one and one for all. But as you go you realise, you know what, if the person next to you isn’t going along with you, you have to go your own way.
I always knew I was born to be famous, but there’s no handbook that tells you how to do it. It’s a whirlwind. One thing: people are almost too nice to you and you can get away with all kinds of things. Two – you can’t go out anymore because everyone jumps all over you. You can’t even sit down and have dinner with someone outside your apartment.
I found the whole love-you-hate-you thing difficult. I couldn’t deal with that kind of fame, when people go cuckoo over you. I like to go for a walk. I used to write when I was walking, so not being able to go for a walk really bothered me. On the other hand, fame allowed me to do my work, my art, and I learned how to do things I never would have otherwise. I’m very grateful for every single thing that happened to me. All the pitfalls teach you something, then you get back up and try again. That’s how life is anyhow.
I have been criticised my whole career. My manager once said that I was like the Rodney Dangerfield of Music, until I wasn’t. She meant that I didn’t get the respect until later in my career and sometimes I’m not completely understood. But I’ve always walked to the beat of my drum. Sometimes I’m loved for it and sometimes I’m not.
Of course, there have been times when I’ve lost faith in myself. I’m still fearful. But I say to myself, walk forward, keep walking forward. Don’t do stupid, unsafe things, but don’t be afraid to try things. I still make mistakes because, even in my 60s, I’m growing.
I always thought clothes were important. I wrote a song once, Hatful of Stars (1993, when she was 40) about this lucky hat I found. I don’t know where the hell it is now, you lose things as you go. I was so lonely at that time. I had my dog. And I held the hat up to the sky and I imagined taking the sky and putting it in my hat. And every time I wore that hat I could close my eyes and see the sky.
I think I was happiest when I first had my son. Those first two months, to be that close to him. It was fun, playing with him, talking to him. And when he fell asleep I’d dress him up in all kinds of clothes and take pictures of him. That’s the only time you can do that, when they’re very little. After that they start having their own tastes. But those first six weeks, they are magical.
Dame Jane Goodall. Photo / Supplied
Jane Goodall
Primatologist and anthropologist
September 20, 2012
I was an extremely happy teenager, having grown up in a very close family. Life was wonderful, even though we were all just recovering from the war and no one had any money. I was a shy child, but I loved to have fun and I was very determined. I think I was better at things than I thought I was. My mother made sure I read and read and read. I’d love to find a young person to work with now who is like I was then – I had such a passion.
I became obsessed with the idea of going to Africa when I was a very young girl. I read the Tarzan books and of course I fell completely in love with Tarzan. I felt he’d married the wrong Jane – it should have been me. I was very jealous of Jane. My mum saved up to take me to see a Tarzan film at the cinema but a few minutes in, I got very upset and had to be taken out. I said, “That wasn’t Tarzan”. Johnny Weissmuller was not how I imagined Tarzan at all. And to this day I’ve never watched another Tarzan film.
I knew I wanted to go to Africa and be with animals, but I wasn’t thinking about it from a career point of view at all. I wasn’t thinking of primates either – they were too esoteric to really enter my thinking. I was just dreaming of the jungle, and the wild open plains. In those days girls were all supposed to wait for the white knight to come along and sweep us up in matrimony and we wouldn’t have to worry about a career. When I told people what I wanted to do everyone laughed. ‘Where would I get the money to do that?’, they said – and anyway, I was a girl!
But my mother was amazing. She just said, ‘If you really want something worthwhile, never give up.’ It wasn’t reading books or working with chimps that convinced me animals could think and feel. It was my dog, Rusty. We spent every waking hour together. Every day started with him barking outside the door at 6am to be let in, and from that moment we were glued together all day. I can still remember clearly the day he died.
I was about 20 and in London out to dinner with my boyfriend and I got a call. I was told the news and I went back to the table and tried to carry on but my boyfriend looked at me and said, “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” And I burst out crying. I was utterly devastated. His dying changed things for me – I could never have left England when he was still alive. The deaths of some of the chimps I’ve worked with were very upsetting but it wasn’t the same as Rusty. The chimps were their own selves, they were quite separate – Rusty was part of me.
When I finally got there, Africa was everything I’d dreamed it would be. I had a wild time on the boat going over – flirted outrageously – then I went up on the train from Mombasa through Kenya. I was picked up at the station and we drove off in the dark and I saw an aardvark and a giraffe. In those days it was still wild, untouched Africa. There were no roads, no trails – just us and lions and rhinos and African wildlife. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me, it was magic, magic, magic.
If I had been told back then the kind of life I’m living now, I would have given up. The idea of speaking to audiences would have utterly terrified me. That wasn’t the life I wanted to live. When I began my work studying primates, I knew I was different to everyone else in the field. I was female, and I didn’t have a degree and I had my own ideas about animals. When Louis (Leakey, Kenyan archaeologist who raised funds for Goodall’s chimpanzee research at Cambridge University) got me in to do my PhD, they told me I’d done everything wrong. They told me only humans had emotions. I was utterly shocked – but I remembered Rusty and I knew they were wrong.
