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I WENT TO ICELAND... AND FOUND MYSELF A VIKING!
As the celebrity OAPs return in The Real Marigold On Tour, Sheila Ferguson says she got more than she bargained for this time
Sheila Ferguson, formerly one third of the Three Degrees, scoffed when she was first offered a place on The Real Marigold Hotel reality show. It was, after all, a show for ‘oldies’ and she was not old, was she? How dare you suggest such a thing. ‘I thought I was much too young but my agent kept pressing me,’ admits Sheila, whose birth certificate – if not face – says she’s 70. ‘I couldn’t understand it. Why on earth would it be good for me?’
The premise of the show, based on the film The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, is that a group of celebrity pensioners travel to other countries to see whether growing old there is preferable to the UK. Sheila’s first Marigold trip was to India a year ago, and to her great surprise she had a whale of a time. She even found time to go on a date while she was filming – a breakthrough since she’d been single since 2010. And it seems the travel bug (or was it the holiday romance bug?) has well and truly bitten because she’s back for another series, called The Real Marigold On Tour.
When we speak she’s just returned from a two-pronged trip – the first half to Iceland and the second to Thailand. She admits she was sceptical about Iceland and how welcoming it would be to her. ‘I thought I’d be the only black person in the country,’ she hoots.
But guess what? The people of Iceland welcomed her with open arms and she’s returned with more than jet-lag. She seems to have a boyfriend, or at least a gentleman friend who ‘makes me feel like a woman again’. And he’s a Viking to boot. She shrieks about that. ‘He’s a lovely chap. We’re in touch via email, but it’s difficult because I live in Majorca and he’s in Reykjavik. But I’m moving back to the UK so it might be easier. He’s intelligent and charming, what can I say? I finally got to date a Viking! And I got to be me with him, and to show the other Sheila, the one who likes to cook and iron and...’
Hold on. Sheila Ferguson, 70s icon, one of the biggest divas of all time, likes to iron? She hoots with laughter again. ‘ It’s one of my favourite things.’ She gets serious, though, about the problems of dating when you’re as high profile as she is. Sheila, after all, has never shaken off the rumours that there was more to her friendship with Prince Charles after he invited The Three Degrees to perform at his 30th birthday bash in 1978. Earlier this year she admitted he did make advances which she rejected, not wishing to be ‘a notch on his bedpost’.
In 1980, she married property businessman Chris Robinson and they had twin daughters Alicia and Alexandria, but they divorced in 2004. She’s been single since her latest partner Jon – 20 years her junior – died in 2010, and had made her life in Majorca. She thought she’d end her days there, but it seems the Marigold experience has made her rethink. ‘I’m selling up,’ she says. ‘I’m coming back to the UK. It had always been the dream to live out t here but spending time with all the others on Marigold made me realise how lonely I was. It’s changed my life without a doubt.’
The show, which started off in a low key way, has become one of TV’s unlikely juggernauts with fans enjoying its warmth and humour. The format this time has been tweaked, with groups
of four celebs visiting varied destinations. Miriam Margolyes, Wayne Sleep, Bobby George, Jan Leeming, Paul Nicholas, Dennis Taylor, Rosemary Shrager, Rustie Lee and Sheila will mix and match to visit China, Cuba, Thailand and Iceland to find out what they can offer in retirement.
Actor Paul Nicholas proved a hit last time when he pitched up in India with only two pairs of pants to last a month. The hilarity when he went shopping for more was TV gold. Did he remember his pants for Iceland? ‘I did. And vests,’ he laughs. Paul, 72, admits he was thrown when he learned the team were off there, what with the 18-hour days and the lack of darkness. ‘That was the thing we all struggled with. I woke up at 2am once, thinking, “What’s that noise?” and saw a man mowing his lawn. That’s what they do – if they can’t sleep they get up and do stuff.’
Some of the messages that have emerged about how other countries treat their elderly have been brutal for us in the UK to learn. Chef Rosemary Shrager, 66, whose double act with Miriam Margolyes was one of the most winning aspects of the first series, says the show reveals ‘how wrong we get it. In places like China or Thailand grandparents play a huge role. They’re the respected ones, the ones with wisdom to impart. I don’t think that’s always the case here. Here we’re past our sell-by date by a certain age, which is wrong.’
Proof of the pudding, of course, comes in the form of this lot charging off around the world challenging every stereotype going. As Sheila puts it, ‘I haven’t finished with life yet.’ Her Viking might want to be warned.
‘They mow their lawns at 2am in Iceland’