ITV SMASH RETURNS 30 YEARS LATER Del Boy was our dad.. and we ate ice-cream all day
Darling Buds kids recall when life was perfick on set of telly classic
came to my dressing room and sat and rehearsed it with me.”
The holiday was especially fraught for her as she caught chicken pox.
“I had to miss some days filming in the UK so they had to joke in the show that Primrose was in the bath. I was then given the all-clear to travel to France but I was covered in scabs so it had to be written into the script.”
Julie recalls: “Pam, David and Catherine were so lovely in giving me cuddles.” Pam was, they all recall, Ma Larkin in reality, dishing out hugs regularly.
“She loved cats and brought me in a picture book of kittens,” says Steph, who is now an occupational therapist with the NHS but still lives in Kent.
Her family’s farm is “not a million miles” from the Larkins’, she laughs.
Catherine acted like a “big sister” to the kids. “She gave us postcards between series and a Biggles teddy bear when we went to France,” says Chrissie, from Guildford, Surrey, and now a journalist. “Even as 10-yearolds we were like, ‘She’s incredible’.
“Once we had Smash Hits magazine on set. Catherine had just released a single and there was a poster of her in it. We ran up to her and she was really excited, she found it funny.”
Food dominated filming, which was not much fun for vegetarian Pam, explains Julie.
Still living in Kent, Julie is the only one of the kids to go on to work in TV, first behind the scenes and later as a checkout girl on Dale
Winton’s Supermarket Sweep. She now works in a GP’s surgery. “I remember a scene where we had to feed the geese and the next thing me, Steph and Pam were sitting there plucking them. They were still warm. We ate them as well. I remember eating a lot but a lot of it was cold by the time you’ve done take after take.” Life filming wasn’t always as blissful as it looked.
“Filming the rain scene in France we all had to get in the showers in our clothes,” remembers Chrissie.
Steph recalls the swimming pool Pop built – filmed in Leeds – as “absolutely freezing.”
It could be precarious, too. The twins had a scene where they had to climb out of a boarding school roof. “Everyone was worried about our safety but we were used to climbing trees,” says Katie, from London, who now specialises in medical law.
Ian Tucker, who played son Montgomery, was born with cystic fibrosis and despite an early career in theatre and TV quit acting to study English.
Between David’s jokes, Pam’s cuddles and Catherine’s care, the four women can only recall a warm, family atmosphere on set.
“I remember sitting in Pop’s RollsRoyce on Philip Franks’ lap, driving down country lanes singing 1950s songs,” recalls Katie. “It felt like a real family, all crammed in, having a laugh.”
As viewers, we wanted to join them. No doubt a new generation will too. ■ The Larkins, tomorrow on ITV at 8pm.