Pam Ayres celebrates 40 years in the business

KB: What can we expect from this show?

PA: I’ll be on stage for two and a half hours, doing a selection of things I have written.

KB: Will you be reading from your book?

PA: Oh no, Kelly. I always learn everything by heart because then it enables me to talk and be natural, which is nice, because I’m on stage a long time, so I need to do a variety of things.

It’d be boring if I was just reading and had to muck about with putting my glasses on.

But I will be doing different things, some old things and newmaterial, funny and sad, things that have happened across 40 years.

KB: You first began reading your poetry at the local folk club and Bob Dylan inspired you. I wondered if you were also musical, and ever had any desire to turn your poetry into lyrics?

PA: Well, I never had the desire to turnmy poems into lyrics, but I was somewhat musical.

I used to take a guitar with me and sing, and to lighten up my set I’d do a few funny poems inbetween and people seemed to like it. So I’d be singing these lovely folk songs like Galway Shore, then do a poem in the middle to make people laugh.

So, although I always enjoyed singing, I never intended to put my own words to music. I don’t think it would work. There is a certain rhythm to the poetry, so to try to put music to that, I’d get in a terrible muddle. I found that when I was on TV, people used to try to apply the music and I didn’t think it would work.

KB: What were you like as a young girl? Were you ambitious?

PA: Well, I was the youngest of six. I don’t know about ambitious, but I knowwhat I liked. I liked performed on stage, I liked writing...but I was never surrounded by ambitious people really.

I went to a big village school and we were all fed in one end and came out the other, and a lot of us did fairly understated jobs. Perhaps if I’d have gone to a different school I would have been different.

KB: Your delivery works as well as the poem itself. Was that something that came naturally from the off or did you have to develop that?

PA: Well, I always knew how I wanted it to sound when I wrote it, and that’s another reason for learning everything by heart. You need to know what you’re saying to get a laugh. If you know it inside and out, upwards and backwards, and applymeaning to it, it makes it funnier.

Quite often people introduce me by reading a poem and they’ll say it all wrong and I always want to get them by the throat and say “no, you pillock!

You’ve put the emphasis on the wrong syllable!”

KB: All sorts of doors opened for you after you started to make a name for yourself – I wonder what is the strangest thing you have been asked to do, as a poet?

PA: Hmmm... (pauses and thinks for a bit). Well, I resist doing things that are too strange, but I did think it was rather strange in the Eighties, when they asked me to perform on an old P&O ferry after the Falklands War. It was used to bring over the troops.

It was meant to be stopping at Barbados, but the sea was so rough we never got to dock...but I still had to do the performance!

The ship was rocking so much, the only way I could stay upright on my feet, was doing the whole performance while walking side-to-side like a crab. So there I was, doing my crab walk, going from side to side, trying to keep up while trying to be funny at the same time, reading Teeth or whatever.

I remember thinking “I must be absolutely nuts”.

KB: Your poems are famous for being about down-to-earth subjects, but I wonder if Pam Ayres has any secret diva traits and what are they?

PA: Ha. No, I don’t think I’ve got any diva traits at all. I started working as an ordinary person and I really haven’t changed much.

I feel I’m really fortunate that I’ve found an outlet for what I love to do. So many people out there are so talented and they haven’t found an outlet and that must be so frustrating.

But I think I was lucky to just come onto the scene when I did, when there was a folk scene where you could read and people would listen.

Not a diva. I’d say maybe I had a bit of courage though, not much, but I would do things when I was starting out, like I produced a pamphlet and took it around to bookshops, you know, with all these beautiful books in there and I’d walk in with this cheap pamphlet and say “please will you stockmy book?” So, for that I needed a bit of courage.

But I was just ordinary. Anyone who goes on a talent show will know if you win, there is a baptism of fire you go through – one minute you are amateur performing to your friends, then suddenly people who have paid a lot of money for a ticket are sitting there expecting you to deliver.

KB: Do you still find you get nervous now, and feel like that girl peeking out from the curtains?

PA: It depends what I’m doing. If I’m doing something different. I recently got asked to do the RHS Garden Rosemoor, in Devon. I thought “that sounds nice, I like gardens. I can put in the things I’ve done to do with gardens.”

And I got there and they’d put up a marquee with these metal struts. It was one of the windiest days I can remember.

I mean, there was no sign of garden. There wasn’t even a potted plant, just this thing like a sports centre, and the whole thing was flapping and I had to fight to be heard what with the weather.

I didn’t like it at all. I was really nervous then. It was all out of my control you see. It’s horrible when you want to do a great job, but what do you do when there’s the naff-ness of equipment.

Usually we are quite strict about the way we do things. I like to have my ownmicrophone and we specify what we need.

KB: It’s no secret you are an animal lover. Are there any current animal rights campaigns you’re involved in at the moment?

PA: Well, it really is a huge subject.

There is so much and I don’t want to bang on about it but you are asking me.

One of the things is about the moon bears. They are these big black bears that are kept in tiny cages, and they have spikes stuck in their gallbladders so bile drips out.

It is used for Chinese medicine for eye and liver complaints, and it does work, but these bears are kept there for 30 years.

People can find out more at animalsasia.org

We share this planet with so many other creatures and yet we can be so mean to them.

KB: There was a 50 Shades of Grey poem doing the rounds on line, which people thought was yours but...

PA: I know – much to my irritation!

And no, it wasn’t mine.

There was another one about leaving the loo seat up which I didn’t write. A lot of people have it read out at their weddings and so I get all these brides coming up to me asking me to sign their order of service because my poem was read out, and I have to say, “well, I didn’t write that poem”.

KB: I put a post up on Facebook to say I was going to be talking to you and got some great questions to ask you. Ray Morgan, local poet said she’d love to know what you think of the poetry scene today and how the poetry landscape has changed.

PA: Well, I’m not familiar with the poetry scene today. I’m very much a one-man band and find myself getting very introspective about what I do. But I don’t immerse myself in the poetry world or anything.

I love to write each day and my yardstick is if I find it funny myself, then I offer it out. I don’t even know if I can call myself a poet at all. I write verse.

KB: You’ve half-answered this one from another local poet, Adrian Green, who says you wrote that you don’t essentially think of yourself as a poet... but do you also take yourself seriously and write poems you don’t include in your shows?

PA: Well, I do write serious poems that I do use in the shows. On the stage you need lots of light and shade so its nice sometimes to use more serious poems.

KB: Sadie Papillon asks have you ever told Bob Dylan he was your inspiration to start poetry ?

PA: Well, I don’t know that he ever was the inspiration to start writing poetry...I certainly loved him.

KB: Jonathan Abrams asked to what degree do you think your accent and West Country humour contributed to your success?

PA: Well...I like the accent. I wouldn’t be able to drop it if I tried. It’s the same accent as all my family had and very much a part of who I am. I think if all I had was the accent I wouldn’t have been able to keep going for as long as I have done – you need something else. I’m not sure what West Country humour is though.

Pam will be at the Cliffs Pavilion on Sunday, October 4. Tickets are £23, available from southendtheatres.org.uk