Feeling the usual pain after the break up of a relationship some years back, I felt I must do something to keep myself BUSY. I have always believed and found that exercise is an important tool, mental health wise. Thus the obvious answer was to take up a new hobby/ activity..so this time I chose golf. Sailing wasn’t an option as I wasn’t near the sea and knew no useful boat owners, as I had in California. This time I was living in the UK. So, through an old friend John Glen…Director of several of the Bond movies, I discovered the Stage Golfing Society…a club comprising members of all walks of our industry, with golfers very good, to average, to not very good… to I know nothing at all…me. Happily I made the right choice, the game is complex, difficult, demanding and requires all one’s concentration. So there was no time for angst over things past. The Stage Golfing Society is housed at Richmond Gold Club, a very old beautiful club, based in an old hunting lodge adjacent to Richmond Park. Historic locations all. Richmond Golf Club is very exclusive, very expensive, with wonderful but very testing course. I never got round the whole thing in one go…only 9 holes at a time. I wisely took lessons from the lovely Golf Pro there, who taught me much, but sadly I never became more than a real beginner at the game, however much he urged and encouraged. The other smart move I made was not to spend vast sums on expensive golf clubs. (The tools you hit the ball with , not the smart places you join and where you show off). But I made some good and lasting friendships.
The social side of things was great and I enjoyed being a member and meeting old friends and making new, all in the business, one way or another. One good friend was and is Terence Frisby, playwright extraordinaire…he wrote the play THERE’S A GIRL IN MY SOUP, later to become a film with Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn. Terry is very talented and does wonderful, funny work. Through him I met Jeremy James Taylor OBE, the Creator and Director of the National Youth Music Theatre ( as opposed to the National Youth Theatre, where I started), Jeremy kicked off and mentored a number of distinguished careers, including those of Jude Law, Sheridan Smith, Eddie Redmayne and a number of others. The question always with Jeremy …is he/she one of yours? More often than not, they are. The third member of this wonderful trio is Eliot a lovely man and History Teacher at a prestigious school in London. These three men meet regularly for lively dinners and discussions and I was lucky enough to become one of their token women invited to join in these wonderful evenings. Actually I ended up hosting a number of them at my riverside flat in Fulham. Home cooked dinners are generally more fun, since the food is generally better… the wine flows, their arguments got heated and often intellectually were way over my head, but we all cared for each other and I treasure that time spent.
Houses of Parliament and Environs ca. 2000 London, England, UK
So…although my beloved Thames side flat is long gone, one of my great pleasures in being in the UK is to join in again with them at dinner. Here they are last week, some few years after our first meetings …they haven’t changed and I still relish my time spent with them.
