No Idea

Ideas are elusive.
There are those who say if you don’t grab an idea when it comes to you it’ll fly off to somebody else. Them creatives always say if an idea arrives in your brain box they’ll be five other bastards who have the same idea at the same time. An idea is tangible. If you don’t honour it it I’ll fuck off to somebody else’s box.
So, ideas are elusive.
I’ve been working with ideas and an empty page for years and years.
Aged 14 instead of going into my piano lessons I would sit at the bus stop in Watford and fill a page with dreadful poetry.
At Drama school my bags were full of scrap paper filled with unhinged ideas.
I wrote lyrics and poetry. I wrote heartfelt stories and letters. I’ve still got a red exercise book with my teenage ramblings.
And then my first telly job.
Nobody told me I was allowed a car or an office at TVam, so I took the tube – the earliest one – arrived in Camden Town and walked to Egg Cup House.
Diana Dors told me I was allowed a courtesy car from the management and told me to cut my fringe so my eyes were visible… you weren’t the first, Caudia Winklewoman.
I took my place on the floor, spread out my notes and wrote scripts.
My first assignment was for Greg Dyke.
‘I’ll make you a star’ he pledged.
I wasn’t interest in stardom I’d come from a grafting culture where the work was for the benefit of all. Had I realised the power of stardom I’d have taken up the offer. But I was young and foolish. .
Greg Dyke was wonderfully available. I went into his office and told him I couldn’t work with just nine letters sent in from the viewers – I was the Post Bag woman.
‘I’ll do it’ he said.
The perfect response for me to flounce out and pick up the pen.
I sat up all night writing eight minutes of material. I called a writer friend bemoaning my nocturnal trials.
‘That sounds about right he said. 8 minutes over 8 hours.’
By June, I was watching Wimbledon and writing nonchalantly as Bjorn Borg smashed another ace.

When Greg left the new boss, Bruce Gyngle, arrived, an Australian with few niceties.
‘What are doing sprawled all over the floor?’ he drawled
‘Writing my script.’
‘Go to your office’
‘I don’t have one.’ I said insolently and carried on with my floor work.
In 1984 we moved here and I needed an office.
I’d always created a ‘shrine’ with candles and spiritual gew gaws, but I was getting paid £250 a week so I needed to be professional about it – no more scraps of paper. Real scripts that were timed and properly printed..
I set up Alan Sugars’ computer CPC 464 in the front bedroom, bought weedy shelves, stacked with hard backed books on script writing and comedy. Arranged my new desk on top of an old table given to us by Bill the sailor from Wapping a shiny half moon oak table with hinged sides.
I polished it with Briwax, an unctuous smelling polish, and set about writing.
Couriers were sent the 50 odd miles to collect my script on perforated paper. Twice a week. I would get up early and write funny stuff. I was forever pressing wrong buttons and end up tearing my clothes off, sitting naked whilst trying to remember the first draft.
After four and half years of breakfast TV I ended up at London Weekend Telly.
A big open plan studio with a cast of incredible creatives – Jeff Pope being one – who went on to write wonderful dramas. I didn’t need to write scripts but I rubbed shoulders with the best.
After LWT I went to the BBC where script writing was not an option. Just travelling round the country doing daft things and coming up with elusive ideas in the back of my chauffeur driven car. Thems were the days.

After years of hiring myself out as a noisy bint I took time out to meet my eight and a half year old dawter and chop carrots in Emerson College kitchen. Emerson college is in Forest Row and trains all the exponents of Rudolph Steiner. Theosophists galore.
Carrot chopping and lettuce cleaning took up only half the day, so I had time to write.
My first comedy drama was commissioned by Channel 4 and then withdrawn when ‘Cracker’ arrived on the commissioners desk.
My office had now moved to the attic.
A big table, courtesy of Bill Oddie, a Mac computer and all my books surrounding me. A big airy room that was home to more scripts.
It now belongs to the dawter.
I’ve moved to the studio in the garden. It’s a tiny room. The Old oak table has been resurrected. I have a refurbished Mac, a new keyboard covered in cobwebs. The spiders weave dreams, and more cobwebs since I spend most of my time writing at the kitchen table,
either in the middle of the night or early mornings.
This morning I started at 7.00.
After sweeping away glistening golden leaves, bloody thousands of them, and taking the bin down, I had a nap then opened up the blank page.
One word can get the wheels in motion. Two words can open up the rusty portcullis of my brain.
If I’m lucky I can grab an idea and then let it do the work.
Ides can be good to you if you are good to them.