Barbara Dickson Fern Britton Meets...

This week, my Advent series continues here in Edinburgh.

My guest is someone best known for a string of hits

in the '70s and '80s...

Ladies and gentlemen, Barbara Dickson.

# January February Don't you come around. #

-# Wasn't it good?

-Oh, so good?

# Wasn't he fine... #

..and, in particular, one song and video which,

according to the Guinness Book of Records,

is still the biggest-selling UK chart single by a female duo.

But there is so much more to Barbara Dickson than just the '80s,

big hair and thick shoulder pads.

In the '60s, she came here to Edinburgh,

and this is where her career really started to take shape.

By day, she was a civil servant.

At night, she was making a name for herself in the folk clubs.

Barbara's career was going from strength to strength.

She was selling thousands of records. She was a pop star.

And then her friend Willy Russell offered her a part

in his brand-new musical Blood Brothers.

She was a sensation, an ultimate star.

# Tell me it's not true... #

Having babies is like clockwork to me.

I'm back on my feet and working the next day, you know?

If I have this one at the weekend,

I won't even need to take Monday off.

But a sudden attack of stage fright and exhaustion

meant she had to take a break.

I think she just went...

..bang, this is too much.

I was thinking,

I don't think I can do this any more, I'm too tired.

Barbara was also concerned about what fame might do to her...

I was afraid of losing my soul, losing my identity.

..but with her strength of character and help of family and friends,

Barbara overcame those fears.

She went on to win two Olivier Awards

for her work on stage...

-The winner of Actress of the Year...

-Barbara Dickson.

..and she had major roles in popular TV dramas

Band Of Gold and Taggart.

# This is my fight... #

On this second Sunday in Advent,

the themes of hope and joy shine through in her story.

Throughout it all, Barbara's faith has carried her.

God looks after me.

I just put my hand in this great big hand.

This is my hand, it goes into a great big hand

and He just says, "You're OK."

Barbara has been performing for virtually 50 years non-stop,

and she's showing no signs of wanting to stop now.

So I want to find out what drives her on.

# The early light is breaking

# The morning sun is waiting in the sky. #

Barbara Dickson's road to fame began just after the Second World War

in Dunfermline, in Fife.

The daughter of a Scottish policemen and a Liverpudlian telephonist,

she grew up in what was then a modern-day terrace.

When I was very, very small, we lived with my granny in Dunfermline,

in a place called Chalmers Street.

And there was a big back garden there.

I remember my granny used to have... There were vegetables there.

I don't think she dug the vegetables,

but there was a big back garden, and the postman....

This is... I think this is probably apocryphal, but anyway,

they say that he was coming up with mail

to give to my granny and he heard the singing

and he realised that it was

the baby in the pram.

I would imagine it's quite unusual for a baby,

sitting up in the pram, to be singing, but I was.

And when you were very young as well,

I think Doris Day was big for you?

Well, the thing that I loved about Doris Day was that she...

It was Calamity Jane, it was the character of Calamity Jane.

Calamity Jane!

Because she was a girl being really, really tough...

Are you calling me a liar?

..who could do all that stuff that boys do without any kind of problem

and she could shoot and she could ride on the Deadwood Stage

-and stuff like that.

-So you were a tomboy?

Yes, very much so.

I wanted to be Sir Lancelot when I was four.

-Fantastic.

-Yes, it's great.

How were your family? Were they churchgoers?

Was there much churchgoing and religion in the house?

My mother had gone to church

very regularly in Liverpool.

She had been christened in the Church of England,

but hadn't attended church as a young person,

but was definitely C of E,

and she heard Donald Soper speak.

I believe in God, in God's province, in God's purpose,

as revealed in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, I believe that peace and goodwill and justice

and the family life are available.

He was a famous Methodist.

So, she went to the Methodist Hall in Liverpool

and heard Donald Soper and it sort of transformed her life,

and so henceforth, she called herself a Methodist.

May I professionally tell you that at any moment

the thunderbolt may strike.

-You don't look too healthy.

-LAUGHTER

My father, who was raised in the Church of Scotland,

and they'd been married in the Church of Scotland,

he didn't attend the Church of Scotland,

but the minister would come round like the child catcher

and gather up children to go to Sunday school.

And so I, like all the other children in the neighbourhood,

would be sitting, having Bible stories and instruction.

"And they planned to make a special party to welcome him."

I can't remember what they taught us,

but I think we just talked about the parables and Jesus and his life.

I wonder who would be there.

-ALL:

-Mary and Martha.

Tell me about your parents, their characters

and, as parents, what were they like?

Well, they were very nice parents, very kind and loving.

My mother was a feisty Liverpudlian

who'd come from a very poor background.

She was actually a very talented person, she was very funny,

like a lot of Liverpudlians are, very funny,

very observational in her humour,

but had the most lovely singing voice.

My father.... I mean, he was the second youngest of a big family.

He was very shy,

he was very sweet, very quiet,

but I think didn't have a lot of confidence.

Very much a man of that generation,

didn't really talk about how he felt or anything,

but was loving and kind to me and my brother.

The arrival of her baby brother provoked a less generous reaction

in the young Barbara.

When my brother was born, I was very disappointed,

because I didn't really...

I remember being three and a half and not really wanting competition,

and not wanting this little baby

who had come into the house.

Barbara's mum decided to send her to nursery school,

but Barbara's time there was brief.

I hated it.

Didn't want to join in, was very...

SHE LAUGHS

..disruptive.

Just completely subverted the whole class.

And also, they said,

"We don't know what's wrong with her, Mrs Dickson.

"When we sing the morning hymn, she puts her fingers in her ears."

THEY LAUGH

Oh, dear, so we've virtually expelled or just taken away?

I think I was expelled.

And then you ran away, at one stage.

-I ran away when I was four.

-Oh, yes.

-Yes, I ran away.

I'd had enough of them and decided I was going to go,

with my doll's pram, which I had stuffed full

of all my possessions.

And away I went, along the road.

And I stopped to ask a woman for a drink of water

and she took me to the police station.

SHE LAUGHS

She took me to the police station, which was very nearby and said,

"I've got this child here!"

My mother was furious.

You know, she was humiliated, as well,

because her child had run away.

Even then, that was considered not the thing to do.

And I think it was all to do with my brother being born.

Having said that, there's only me and my brother

and I love my brother.

My husband said he is the only man in my life

who gets away with anything.

If he murdered somebody, I would say,

"Well, they must have deserved it." FERN LAUGHS

"Yes, they must have provoked him."

After her early brush with the law, Barbara knuckled down,

but a turning point came when, after failing her 11 plus,

she didn't get into the school of her dreams.

I didn't go to the high school,

which is where I thought I was going

and it was very traumatic for me.

There was a massive kind of

mood of disappointment.

I just remember thinking, this is disastrous.

And I've never really got over that.

So I think the disappointment of failing my 11 plus

made me determined

to kind of do something.

Although not at the school of her choice,

a young music teacher named Sandy Saddler

would soon inspire her.

He used to give us music to sing, classical music

and proper choir music when we were singing in the choir.

But he would also encourage kind of free expression in music.

So he, I know, liked folk music,

because if you think about 1960,

it was the time when people like The Kingston Trio

were emerging in America.

Like, there would be a lot of white college people

singing songs about black people's culture in the South.

You know, there was that kind of thing.

It wasn't considered to be weird then.

# But I know he's just a Louisiana boy

# Who died with a hammer in his hand Lord, no

# Who died with a hammer in his hand... #

So we kind of tapped into that,

because we learned a lot of songs via these sources.

Pete Seeger was around very much at that time as well.

But Sandy Saddler knew these artists

and he liked that music,

so he would play it to us.

I also, around the same time, discovered The Everly Brothers.

# There goes my baby

# With someone new

# She sure looks happy

# I sure am blue... #

The Everly Brothers made an album called Songs Our Daddy Taught Us,

and so they have those songs,

and they were also easy to play on the guitar,

so this is when I first started to play the guitar.

What are we talking, '61, '62?

-Yeah, yeah.

-The rock and roll scene was coming, The Beatles.

-Yeah, yeah.

-And you saw The Beatles.

I did see The Beatles in Kirkcaldy.

Everybody was screaming, so we never heard a word of what they played.

It must've been so grim for them,

because nobody...

Nobody was listening to them.

And yet, they were good, they were really good.

I remember seeing them and thinking,

"This is just amazing."

Music was a driving force throughout Barbara's school years,

and she found safety in numbers in the school choir

until an opportunity presented itself at a local folk club.

My school friends who were with me volunteered me to sing

when the man said, "Would anybody like to sing?"

Which is what they did.

And so that was the beginning of my career, really.

That night, out of school, was it,

because the man who ran the folk club said,

"I think that was really nice.

"I'd like you to do that again."

# For the world is slowly dying... #

And Barbara continue to do it again and again,

constantly impressing those that she worked with.

Barbara's voice is...

I know it's a cliche, but it's full of integrity, it truly is.

You know, there is a genuine British soul there,

it is a British soul.

Her voice comes out of these islands.

It's not from Brooklyn, it's not from New Orleans,

it's from these islands and it's indescribable.

The most important thing about Barbara's voice is that

it couldn't be anyone else. It's completely recognisable.

It has a kind of...

interesting mix of strength,

enormous strength, but also a kind of vulnerable quality to it as well,

which is unusual.

There is a plaintive melancholia about

Barbara's voice that's strangely,

paradoxically, joyous and uplifting.

She nails every single note she goes for.

# I don't expect my love affairs

# To last for long... #

She's never trying to demonstrate the song,

she's always - I think this comes from the kind of folk tradition -

she is the servant of the songs.

# Being used to trouble

# I anticipate it

# But all the same, I hate it

# Wouldn't you?

# So what happens now? #

But back in the late '60s, despite gigging more regularly,

a career in music seemed to be a pipe dream.

I was from Dunfermline and people from Dunfermline

didn't become pop stars, do you know what I mean?

They didn't become film stars.

You got a job and you got married and you settled down.

So that was kind of my future. I saw that for myself.

I didn't think for a minute that I would ever be sitting,

at my age, talking to you about my life thus far.

So, I left school with three O-levels

and I went into the civil service

cos if you didn't have many qualifications

you could get a job in the civil service.

But really my ambition was to try and earn a living as a musician.

That's all I ever wanted to do.

And finally, I was able to do that.

Because you arrived in Edinburgh and there was a big scene going on here.

Oh, yeah, it was amazing.

Barbara made the move to Edinburgh, and in particular here,

to the famous Sandy Bell's pub.

She was immersed in a buzzing folk scene

and, creatively, she felt right at home.

There was a kind of big crowd of people

and we all hung out together.

We all wore polo-neck jumpers and duffle coats,

and you could only tell the boys from the girls cos the boys had beards.

The ones without the beards were girls.

The hair was the same,

the clothes were the same and the beard was usually on the boy.

And I also fell in love, big, big time, around that time as well,

-for the first time.

-Yes.

And my sweetheart was in Edinburgh,

came from Edinburgh, and was at art college.

I was very committed for a long, long time.

It took me a long time to get over him.

He dumped me.

I felt extremely let down

and I was totally broken-hearted.

# It's the end of the world

# Cos you don't love me

# Any more. #

I would say to myself, "I've got to try and do something about this.

"I've got to try and pick myself up and go on

"and turn this around."

# Don't they know

# It's the end of the world

# It ended when I lost

# Your love. #

Did you find that your faith,

-perhaps quiet as it was, from Sunday school, etc...

-Yeah, yeah.

..did that come into play during that time?

It most definitely did, because when I was here aged 17,

I used to buy candles and I used to light them in my flat,

and I would use them as a sort of aid

to some kind of meditation.

To transport myself away from what I thought was

kind of the misery of my personal life.

As a heartbroken woman,

or a woman who was going nowhere in her personal life.

But I remember being very young, lighting those candles,

sitting there and going, "Right, that is a light in the darkness.

"It's a flickering light, it shows me that I'm alive.

"That candle is lit, there is oxygen in this room,

"we can do something about this."

But I didn't quite understand it then, but it's a good image.

It is a good image, and the guidance that it's sort of suggesting...

Did you feel perhaps that you might have been guided at that time?

No. I've never felt guided,

I've just felt that God looks after me...

..and that when I go wrong, because I am His child,

I just put my hand in this great big hand,

this is my hand, it goes into a great big hand

and He just says, "You're OK."

He just lets me fall flat on my face to make me tougher

and then when I get up and say, "What's this about?"

That's what that... And that's OK, that's OK.

In the early '70s, Barbara collaborated with someone

who would have a big influence on her life...

..Liverpool playwright Willy Russell.

He was writing a Beatles-inspired play titled

John, Paul, George, Ringo... And Bert,

and wanted a female singer in the show.

Willy's idea was to write a show about The Beatles

seen through the eyes of a person who did not become successful.

He was like Everyman.

And I went there and I sang The Beatles songs on the stage.

Barbara was on stage in this dark theatre

with her back to the auditorium,

and playing away on this harmonium, doing some Beatles songs,

and the company started to straggle into the auditorium,

and I turned around, and they were like...

..just, you know, stunned at what they were hearing.

So it was a shoo-in from then on.

And people are going, "Who is this woman?"

And I would say,

"Well, I'm a folk performer."

"Well, how come we've never heard of you?"

"Because I'm not in show business.

"I'm a folk singer.

"We don't have that kind of thing where I come from."

But not only that, to bring a show from the Liverpool Everyman,

a very good working theatre, but to open it in the West End,

on Shaftesbury Avenue, it's an incredible thing.

Your heart must have been bursting with excitement.

It was fantastic, yeah,

we had people like Peter Sellers and Rod Stewart in the audience

on the first night and all sorts of people came.

# Why do you sing it your way

# At the risk of knowing that our love... #

And when Barbara was first in the West End,

I remember people saying,

"Who's that remarkable girl?

"You can't see her. Her hair is falling all over her face."

You know? There was a lot of that kind of thing.

"We've got to do something about that. And the glasses will have to go."

And all that kind of stuff.

# Think of what I'm saying... #

My father and mother came to Liverpool for the opening

and they came to London as well.

Did they mind the bad language, and were you concerned about that?

No, well, I... Yeah, I spoke to my dad and I said,

"you know there's the F-word in this?"

And my dad said...

He just looked at me and he kind of raised his eyes and he said,

"Look, I have heard the F-word."

SHE LAUGHS

The show was a huge success,

and helped to launch Barbara's pop career.

In 1976, she released her third solo album,

with the song Answer Me, propelling her into the top ten.

# In my sorrow now I turn to you

# Please answer me, my love

-# Oh answer me

-Answer me

# Answer me, my love. #

Answer me is the perfect case in point for me,

a folk singer singing a pop song.

Pop at its most perfect, really, that song, Answer Me.

And it always puts a big smile on all of our faces, you know.

She sits down at the piano,

we all look at each other and we all know this is it,

we're on Top Of The Pops in 1976.

By now, Barbara had a record label and a full production back-up.

A press officer, label manager, publishing people.

Yeah, there's a team looking after my work and my product.

And your image.

-And my image, yeah.

-So, how did your image change

and were you pleased with it?

Well, I was doing a cover

for the Answer Me album

with a photographer called Lauren Zeteci

and he said, "I want to do something seriously different with your hair,"

and he got... He cut my hair, permed my hair

and made me up,

and so it was almost like a character thing,

and I was comfortable with that.

And I went to the theatre that night and nobody recognised me,

so my life had changed.

I always used that as a life-affirming image

of what women can do with a little bit of help. Just help.

You know? That's all I needed, to be guided into realising

that I was a swan and not a duck.

# I don't expect my love... #

Barbara was certainly getting noticed,

and was asked by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber to sing

on the original cast recording of their new musical, Evita.

She achieved her second top-20 hit.

# Being used to trouble

# I anticipated

# But all the same I hate it

# Wouldn't you?

-# So what happens now?

-Another suitcase... #

I liked what I did at that time. I mean, I liked doing

Another Suitcase In Another Hall for that Evita album.

I'm delighted I wasn't cast as Evita.

That would not have been good for me.

But I got, I think, the best song, which was great, just by default.

# Time and time again I said that I don't care

# That I'm immune to gloom

# That I'm hard through and through... #

Another suitcase, another hall,

she was the first person to perform that,

as far as I know, and to perform it really, really well.

It's probably one of the best songs off of that musical, I think.

It has a really interesting melody,

an interesting lyric and there's something a bit,

that's a sense of abandonment that's in there and so on

and she found that.

More hits followed in quick succession,

as Barbara became a familiar face on Top Of The Pops.

Well, Barbara Dickson has come a long way since the days of

John, Paul, George, Ringo...And Burt and here she is.

I had a hit with January February, so I was working with Alan Tarney,

who was the most sought-after pop producer of the time.

That was a good record. A really good record.

# January, February

# I don't understand

# Why it is you say you leave and then you turn around

# You won't settle down... #

I'm delighted with that.

I love Caravans, which I did with Mike Batt and is still

the most favourite song of anything I do today.

People would kill me if I didn't sing that song.

# But I'm going

# Caravans

# My soul is on the run... #

But it's much more popular than January February

because it has that kind of anthemic thing in it,

but I don't know, you know, life is a trial,

I'm heading out into the wide blue yonder,

I have no idea what's going to happen to me, but off I go.

That's why people like that song.

# I am flying

# Caravan

# Moving out to the sand

# I don't know where I'm going but I'm going... #

Barbara's star continued to rise, helped by regular appearances

on one of the highest-rating television shows of the time -

The Two Ronnies.

It was wonderful doing The Two Ronnies.

Ladies and gentlemen, Barbara Dickson.

They did my music as an insert,

but it was so brilliant to be associated with them.

I mean, apart from the 15 million people a week who watched it.

# Try and see it my way

# Do I have to keep on talking till I can't go on

# Why do you see it your way

# When the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone?

# We can work it out We can work it out... #

That didn't matter to me.

I mean, it was, all the people,

all the people who were number crunching were going,

"That's a marvel, they sell a lot of records."

And doing Top Of The Pops much the same, but to me,

I was always more excited by who else was on Top Of The Pops.

You know, "Oh, I'm on with somebody. I'm on with Phil Collins.

"Oh, my goodness, that's brilliant."

# I was never so much younger than... #

Another hit single that Barbara has forever been associated with

was taken from the musical, Chess.

-# Wasn't it good?

-Oh, so good

-# Wasn't he fine?

-Oh, so fine

-# Isn't it madness

-He won't be mine...

-#

Recorded with Elaine Paige,

it became number one and became a top-ten hit around the world.

# Didn't I know how it would go if I knew from the start... #

I mean, I love I Know Him So Well.

I mean, people think the video's a bit, well,

so what, it's of its time.

And you'd put up with the video any time

for that great melody, wouldn't you?

# Wasn't it good

# Wasn't he fine

# Isn't it madness

# He won't be mine

# But in the end he needs a little bit more than me

-# More security

-He needs his fantasy and freedom

# I know him so well... #

Well, that video, that in capital letters,

that video of I Know Him So Well,

is kind of burned into the consciousness

of a lot of people who grew up in the '80s.

Everybody knows it and it's, let's face it,

it's loved by a lot of people, but it didn't reflect her at all.

There is a slightly unfortunate thing in our lives

where people do tend to get branded with something

or perhaps the most prominent thing you did.

Be careful of what that is cos it's going to follow you around forever.

But I think she handles that rather well.

Barbara was a household name and was even given her own show.

Yet all this attention didn't sit easily with her.

I did too much light entertainment.

There's no doubt about that.

Because I was kind of seen as the girl next door.

# Just a dream and the wind to carry me

# And soon I will be free... #

They would think, "Oh, she's nice. She's harmless, let's get her."

And so I would be on every single show where they would go,

"Ladies and gentlemen, Barbara Dickson."

That was OK, but there was too much of that and I think there was

too much of me on television at that time.

Hello and welcome to another afternoon show.

Still In The Game, Barbara Dickson.

..Week's reviewers are

-the singer and songwriter Barbara Dickson...

-Good evening.

Completing a trio of very lovely ladies, Barbara Dickson.

This is Caravans from Barbara Dickson.

Were you uncomfortable with fame or did you enjoy it?

No, I didn't enjoy it at all because I was always concerned with

diluting what I felt that I had to offer

and I think to a large extent, it did.

I think she probably doesn't like all the stuff that comes with fame,

the kind of shallow aspect of it because that's one thing she isn't,

she isn't shallow at all.

And all the stuff that comes along with being famous,

people wanting something from you.

I remember her telling a story, very early on,

she must of just been in Blood Brothers and she was walking

down Shaftesbury Avenue and somebody got out of a taxi, saw her,

came running over and said, "Are you Barbara Dickson?"

She said, "No, you've got me mixed up." Carried straight on.

Quite often, at the end of some kind of showbiz do or whatever,

she'll be there for it but then she'll go.

You'll look around, she won't be there.

Barbara's resistance to fame was more than just an aversion to parties.

She found it a genuine struggle and sought help

in the form of counselling.

And I did analysis for quite a long time...

..and I... It helped me enormously.

All it did was help me to prioritise things and lose a bit of fear.

Got rid of a lot of fear, unnecessary fear about things.

What were you afraid of?

I was afraid of losing my soul, losing my identity.

I had a very good manager who was very ambitious on my behalf,

but unfortunately, I didn't share his world view of what I should be,

which was very, very frustrating for him

because he couldn't understand why somebody wouldn't want to do

three years at Las Vegas, you know. Being on every night of the week.

I could not have borne it because to me, it was utterly miserable.

The 1980s continued to offer Barbara new challenges.

Her old friend, Willie Russell, asked her to take on the lead role

of Mrs Johnstone in his new musical, Blood Brothers.

# I regret to inform you

# That owing to circumstances quite beyond our control

# It's a premature retirement... #

I certainly remember Blood Brothers.

She took to it so well.

She's one of those people who probably is infuriating

for people who've studied acting for years and years,

you know, that she sounds genuine.

She sounds, you know, she has that knack of making it sound natural.

# And the price you're going to have to pay

# It's just a secret glance across the room... #

The winner of the Actress Of The Year In A Musical is...

Barbara Dickson!

CHEERING

Totally well-deserved award for singer, Barbara Dickson,

for her fine performance in Willy Russell's dramatic musical

from the Liverpool Playhouse, Blood Brothers.

Despite being a hit in the West End,

Barbara originally wrestled with whether she should take on the role.

So when you were offered Mrs Johnstone,

did you at first think, that's definitely for me,

I'm a fit, or was it frightening?

It was terrifying, and in fact, I didn't, I said I wouldn't do it.

I had to really be backed into a corner,

because I'd never acted before,

and I wasn't prepared to kind of take a chance on it.

I thought in my heart it was too difficult for me to do that.

I could sing the songs without any difficulty,

but what was a problem for me, was the acting,

because I wanted to do justice to it.

Oh, but it's all right, Mrs Lyons, I'll still be able to do my work,

having babies is like clockwork to me.

I'm back on my feet and working the next day, you know.

If I have this on the weekend, I won't even need to take one day off.

She was terrified.

She was absolute terrified, and it caught up with her, that terror,

because, I know what it's like.

She's got no...basis on which to...

..to conduct a long run of a show.

Having not acted before, and I had no experience of acting,

I came twice...the wheels came off what I was doing.

Once in Liverpool and once in London.

In the middle of the run in Liverpool,

I think something to do with the seriousness of the role,

the amount of angst that was required from me,

the emotional roller-coaster of the part, I couldn't pretend to do it.

I was doing it kind of for real, all the time.

So it was so arduous, that in the middle of the run in...

..in Liverpool, I had a kind of crisis.

# Tell me it's not true

# Say it's just a story... #

I remember talking to Barbara about her finding it difficult

to keep doing that same performance again and again and again.

You know, that sort of relentless aspect of being in the West End.

And, you know, needing to step back from that.

# Say it's just a dream

# Say it's just a scene... #

I remember Barbara saying. She did that classic thing, you know,

I mean, I know how frightening it can be when you're on stage,

and you leave your own body, and you're up there, you know.

You're up in the flies looking down at yourself, you know.

A lot of people never overcome that. Barbara has.

She said to me many, many years later,

that after that occasion in Liverpool,

she was never really fully able to enjoy the show,

because the second she came off stage, you know,

ecstatic applause ringing in her ears, her first thought would be,

"I've got to do it again tomorrow."

It never occurred to me to leave the show, but I was thinking,

"I don't think I can do this any more, I'm too tired."

I could hardly put one foot in front of the other, and if I think,

if I had had the mental strength to go on and on and on,

I would've had a terrific nervous breakdown.

But I didn't, I just kind of went home in floods of tears,

got put to bed, and was off about four weeks,

and then eventually went back.

And my stage fright, because of these things that had happened to me

in Blood Brothers, that stayed with me for years.

So from 1983 to about the late '90s,

I suffered every single time I went on stage.

I had terrible anxiety.

# Beginning to think that I'm wasting time

# And I don't understand the things I do

# The world outside looks so unkind... #

Once you've traumatised yourself with the terrible fear

and you've had that thing of saying the line and thinking,

"I don't know what I'm going to say next, I've no idea, here it comes,

"here it comes," and there it isn't.

I can understand that that's extremely traumatic,

and then you...then you become frightened of becoming frightened.

# I want to get lost in the rock and roll and drift away... #

I don't have it now, but now, you see, if somebody was to ring me up

and say, "Will you sing at the Oscars?" I would say, "No,"

because I might be sick in a bucket before I do it,

and I can't do that any more. Life's too short.

She just doesn't do anything she doesn't want.

She'd rather go and sing some, um...

you know, some advent carol in a cathedral, for one night,

for nothing,

than go out to Australia and eat bugs for half a million quid!

She would! I know she would.

With work dominating Barbara's life so completely,

she'd ruled out the chance of being lucky in love.

So I thought, this is not going to happen to me,

because I'd had a couple of broken relationships famously.

I made a big mistake in one of them and I went, "This... I'm really..."

And then I was in analysis.

But in 1983, she met an assistant stage manager

who was 11 years her junior, Oliver Cookson.

The first time I met her was in the rehearsal room at Matthew Street.

She was smaller than I thought, having seen her on television.

I thought she was quite... quite tall,

when I saw her on television,

but she was smaller and um...

And I thought more interesting looking, actually.

And I think probably the first thing I said to her

would be something along the lines of...

Hello, I'm Oliver, would you like to join the tea club?

Which, for chat-up lines is not... not a great one, but it sort of,

something happened, and she did.

And so I had to put some money into having tea and coffee

in the rehearsal room in Matthew Street in Liverpool.

And, er, we got to know each other over those weeks and months

in Liverpool and then the show moved to London

and we all moved to London with it.

He and I used to talk, we were part of the gang who went out and stuff,

and obviously, there was a really nice relationship between us,

but I...

It's famously known that I thought, this is not my relationship,

because he was 11 years younger than me.

And I thought, that's not, that's not going to be a relationship.

I think she was a bit unsure, because of...11 years.

But, Barbara, she thinks too much. Everything is thought through.

I just thought, she's the girl for me, this will do,

what's the problem? You know. And um...

She was all right, she got there in the end.

# Little darlin', it's been a long cold lonely winter... #

When we eventually got together, which took a very long time,

I just remember cutting to being in church getting married

in Richmond, and going, "My God, this is so serious.

"This is a really serious thing I'm saying here."

# Little darlin' The smiles we turn... #

I hope I can fulfil what I am saying I'm going to do here.

I was a bride who listened to what the priest was saying.

# Here comes the sun and I say

# It's all right

# It's all right... #

APPLAUSE

And talking about faith, Oliver was, is a Catholic...

-Yes.

-And really wanted to be married in a Catholic church.

However, he was extremely lapsed.

-Ah.

-He was lapsed.

And you were coming into it.

It was me that brought us back to church, basically.

And, of course, I had to get baptismal evidence from the...

..from Dunfermline Abbey where I had been baptised

in the Church of Scotland years before,

and then we were married in a Catholic Church in Richmond.

I was 35 and I had to make a decision about,

if I was going to have some children, I had to get on with it.

I said, "Can we have a baby?"

And he said, "No, you're not going to have a baby until you get your overdraft down."

That's what he said to me.

I mean, it sounds bit mean really, looking back on it.

You say you can't have a baby until you get rid of your overdraft,

but you know, my mum was quite careful with money.

Being married to an actor, you know, it wasn't always...

There wasn't always work out there, so you had to be careful.

Did I ever get rid of that overdraft quickly?

Barbara fulfilled her dream of having a family,

and was blessed with three boys.

She was also becoming increasingly drawn to the Catholic church,

and soon made a big decision.

The parish priest I hardly knew he said,

"Barbara, don't become a Catholic because your family

"need to go to church. That's not why you should do it.

"If you want to come into the faith,

"come in to the faith because of what is in your heart,

"not because of anybody else."

So I frogmarched everybody down to church

and we started to go to church, and then I suddenly went,

"This is what I've always wanted to do."

So I had a sponsor.

I was confirmed in the 1990s.

So it was just wonderful, because I felt as if I was coming home.

And the liturgy in the faith is the thing that I just love,

and suddenly, I've connected to something pre-Reformation.

And I think as you get older you realise what's important, you know,

family and friends and trying to make the world a better place.

She wasn't Catholic when I met her,

but she had a very strong tractor beam

pulling her towards Catholicism.

But it was in a very... in a very lovely way.

She didn't become a ranting fundamentalist

or anything like that.

She wasn't like a new convert who decided to shout at everyone,

you know, she wasn't a manic street preacher.

She doesn't evangelise,

it's very much something that is hers, it's her life.

# Why did you go?

# Why did you go?

# Don't you know, don't you know

# I need you?

# I keep hoping you'll come back to me... #

For wherever I go in the world, I go to mass and mumble away

in English while everyone is mumbling away in Serbo-Croat.

I'm fine with that.

And I feel connected to the world through my faith,

and I feel connected to Saint Paul.

That's it, simple.

Wow. That's... When you say simple, well, that's a vast thing.

It's a vast thing that I see very clearly as a through line.

It's absolutely, utterly where I love to be.

Everything makes sense to me...

..in that way.

I'm still anxious and I'm not a good person, and I just strive to be,

you know, a reasonable human being,

and to be kind and loving and fair

and tolerant, but I'm not always.

-Well, you're human.

-I'm not remotely perfect, and I never will be.

And none of us are.

But it just gives me a little code, and that's a good thing.

Rules and codes are good, in my experience.

There is also something that a lot of people can experience in church,

it's not all the time, not every time,

but that real sense of fellowship that you are in a crowd of people

feeling, thinking the same thing, and that's very, very powerful.

Do you ever get that feeling?

I do, I do think that's a factor, but for me,

it's feeling the presence in church of the spiritual,

the collective spirituality.

It's quite...it's quite abstract what I'm talking about.

But I can feel that in an abandoned redundant church in England

that's been closed for 20 years, but is a medieval building.

I can go into that and I can feel the prayers of the people

who have been in there.

There's something gorgeous within those bare walls

and the dusty few pews that are still there.

So if you go into a working cathedral where you can smell

incense and there's the smell of, say, flowers,

but nobody is in there, that is the thing.

It was GK Chesterton, I think, who talked about the presence,

feeling the presence.

CHOIRBOY SINGS

Our clergy are lovely.

They are kind, they're tolerant,

there's a lot of difficulties in Edinburgh.

There's a lot of difficulties anywhere.

There's homeless people, a lot of disadvantaged people who want

support, who can't always get it, who come wandering about

in places like churches looking for people, and they're great.

You volunteer in the church, doing the flowers, cleaning,

-you're on the rota.

-Yeah, I am.

I do what I can.

I'm a reader, I read with Oliver.

# Here might I stay and sing

# No story so divine... #

As well as the fulfilment she finds in church and family,

Barbara is passionate as ever about her first love, music.

# This is my friend in whose sweet praise... #

50 years after she started, Barbara's still eager to get out on the road.

2019 is my next big band tour.

That is... The main venues, you know, I'll play Glasgow,

Newcastle, London, play the big ones with my five-piece band.

And that is the most, for me, the most glorious musical experience

doing the perfect music with the best possible people.

She can go out there every couple of years and fill the halls

and there's a really good crowd

of regular attendees who want to come and see her,

and there's lots of new people keep on coming as well.

So, that's no small achievement when you look at all of

what could be described as similar careers around the place.

The beautiful paradox is that she became a huge star,

but she never pursued it.

She never wanted to be a big pop singing superstar, she never did.

All she wanted to be was a musician,

and that's exactly what she is in every sense.

# I would gang with you

# A stranger... #

You're taking care of yourself?

-I don't really take care of myself, no.

-Don't you?

-No, I know.

I'm not a pampered woman.

And everybody in my family would laugh at me if I was.

But they all say that, um, that I'm a good representative

of a woman of my age. I've got something to say for myself,

and I haven't had facial surgery,

and I don't believe in anything like that, because I think it's a lie.

And you have to learn to live with yourself

and that's what I'm trying to do.

Like everyone else, I have bad days and good days,

but in the main, I want to be useful,

particularly to my own peer group as well.

I want to inspire people and let everybody know that it's possible

to do what I'm doing, and keep... Do what you do.

Do what, you know...

You are nothing like as old as I am, but my peer group...

Well, we're close, we're close.

-I'm 60.

-I'm 70.

So in that extra ten years,

a lot of people would tend to give up once they retire, and say,

"Right, OK, that's it now. I've got to be a grey-haired old granny."

Now, there's none of that at all.

I don't think anybody needs to be anything they don't want to be.

-Yes.

-And I get women with glowing faces coming up to me

at the end of the show and saying, "You are an inspiration to me.

"I'm the same age as you, and you are an inspiration to me."

We have to not listen to anybody who says it's impossible.

-Keep going.

-No. Keep being who we are.

-Absolutely.

Please welcome Barbara Dickson.

APPLAUSE

So, Christmas, darling. Do you have a lovely Christmas?

Do you go mad decorating the house, presents, food, church?

No, I don't, I don't overdo it.

It's quite simple and it's quite real, our Christmas.

# Through the bleak midwinter

# Frosty wind made moan... #

Everybody in my family is a cook.

So it really is literally too many cooks, all fighting and arguing,

and drinking wine in the kitchen and arguing with each other.

So Oliver said, "No, we're going to go out."

So we're going to go out for Christmas dinner.

# Snow on snow

# In the bleak midwinter

# Long, long ago... #

So what we do is, now, we go to midnight mass, which is wonderful.

So we tend to not get to bed until about 2am.

That mass is big-time, and it goes on and on and on.

The Bishop will be there, it will be fantastic.

The church will be lit, flowers, wonderful.

It's such a lovely, joyful celebration.

It's so wonderful, it starts Christmas for us.

Come home, probably have a glass of something, fall into bed.

Get up kind of late, have a brunch and then open presents,

and lovely time round the tree,

and then we'll go out for lunch and then just a quiet Christmas.

Well, we wish you a very Merry Christmas

and a good New Year as well.

-Thank you, Barbara.

-You're so kind.

Thank you very much, Fern, it's been a delight.

It has been lovely.

Well, what a lovely morning with Barbara.

I started the day wondering what it is that drives her

through her career, and I think it's clear.

She's just very human and she has enormous fortitude.

And when life has been bad, she's got on with it.

When life has been good, she's got on with it.

Sometimes there's been bad and good and she's got on with it.

And that message about always be what you want to be,

not what others want you to be, is very strong.

Next week, I'm going to the House of Commons

to meet the Reverend Rose Hudson Wilkin

who's been looking after the spiritual welfare of MPs

during a period which saw a terror attack on Westminster itself.

We are not defined by that act of evil,

instead, we are defined by acts of forgiveness.

Rose has also had to deal with the murder of an MP,

in her role as chaplain to the Speaker of Commons.

She has been a towering presence, morally, spiritually, humanely.

And Rose also tells me about a girlhood dream

that led to her life of religious service.

I was so excited that I started saying,

"Thank the Lord! Praise the Lord!"