When, 50-odd years ago, I started in what was then known as the Business, later the Arts and more recently the Media, I was warned not to express opinions openly, for fear of alienating the Public. Added to that, my generation of little girls was told to be seen and not heard, and to do as our elders and betters, which included politicians, told us. They know best. Well, after a week of even more carnage in Iraq, I disobediently declare, ‘No, they don’t.’ This mere luvvie knew it was folly to try to impose a revolution on a country from outside, and force democracy on it. I knew it would create more terrorists, and I knew thousands would die because of the missionary zeal of two dangerously myopic men. In short, I knew it was not just disastrous but worse — silly.
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When I was the subject of the TV programme Who Do You Think You Are?, which delves into your family history, I was shocked to discover I had German roots. And even more shocked that I was shocked. I realised I was racist and prejudiced. As a wartime child I was taught to hate the Germans. And I did, despite rejoicing in the unified Europe. Then I was asked to appear in the musical Cabaret, playing an ordinary woman in Berlin during the rise of Nazism. Now, living her dilemma every night, I understand. In this production the young director, Rufus Norris, has found a way of making popular theatre deal with a deeply serious subject and, judging by conversations with youngsters at the stage door, it engages them more profoundly than any history lesson.
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In the same TV programme I discovered that my great-grandfather was superintendent of the Pimlico pumping station at the start of the Victorian sewage system.
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