The joy of… saying what you really think
Getting older can be so refreshing because you finally get to be honest, as TV’S Jenny Eclair explains…
Jenny Eclair believes getting older can be a blessing
Some women, I think, are born with a more developed embarrassment gland than others; mine is particularly small. In fact, I don’t think it grew much beyond puberty, and now I’m a middle-aged woman, it has probably atrophied along with everything else.
This is a joy of getting older: you don’t mind so much about anything, and that includes social niceties. Obviously you need to be polite, but you also need to be honest, otherwise you end up feeling resentful. Better out than in is what I say (unless one is in a lift, of course).
Case in point: if I ever have a dinner party and there is a chance of people outstaying their welcome, then I like to explain in advance that the invitation is only from 8pm until 11pm; after that, I shall be in my pyjamas and they can see themselves out. Most guests look hugely relieved: no one wants to stay out late these days, not at our age. Let’s face it, we usually start the night-time-yawning routine around 10pm. And anyway, even dear friends are best taken in small doses.
Age has made me very aware of what I like and what I don’t like and, as I approach 60, I don’t think it’s rude to turn down invitations to events I really don’t fancy or can’t afford. Recently, a mate asked me to accompany her to an outdoor opera. I squirmed a bit, but not for long, before telling her that I couldn’t think of anything worse: ‘Opera? Outside? During an English summer? And the tickets are how much? No thanks.’ Life is too short to be shy about turning things down that you would actually pay money not to do.
Was she put out? No. She’s an old friend and I was being honest. But if it’s someone you don’t know that well, then you must be able to lie without blushing – a trick I mastered years ago.
The people I feel sorry for are today’s
‘I don’t have time for pretence any more, nor prudishness’
20-somethings who are far too embarrassed to tell some old school chum that no, they can’t afford a hen party in Lisbon. Instead, they accept the invitation and bankrupt themselves.
I don’t have time for pretence any more, nor prudishness. In fact, I feel mildly impatient in communal locker rooms at the swimming pool when young women and teenage girls get all coy about taking their clothes off. You are young, you are beautiful. If anyone should be cowering behind a towel, it should be me with my cellulite and stretch marks. I don’t see the need for embarrassment here. We are among our own; this is where we should feel free to bare all and share each other’s lumps and bumps.
I’m not sure how I developed my lack of body consciousness. My sister is incredibly private, and back in the 1970s when she hit puberty and we were sharing a bedroom, she insisted on suspending a modesty curtain between our beds. I thought it was ridiculous.
In my late teens, while at drama school in Manchester, I would earn cider and cigarette money by sitting naked for life-drawing classes. It was all strictly above board; I was anorexic at the time and there was certainly nothing alluring about any of my poses. A couple of years later, having moved to London, I continued with the life modelling – this time for the students at Camberwell College of Arts. Almost 40 years later, I still live nearby in south London and it sometimes strikes me that tucked away in the attics of local houses, some paintings might still exist: portraits of a naked 20-something me, never getting older; a sort of Dorian Gray scenario in reverse.
Embarrassment can be such a waste of time and energy and, at its worst, it can seriously damage your health. Statistics show an alarming percentage of women are missing essential health check-ups owing to self-consciousness. The thought of anyone skipping a smear test or a breast examination due to embarrassment makes me desperately sad. Equally, I find it somewhat depressing to be asked if I require a female chaperone when a male doctor needs to give me an intimate examination. Why would I? You are a doctor; your gender is unimportant to me. Your qualifications, on the other hand, are essential.
Before any of you start marking me out as some kind of brash, overly confident type, let me explain: while I find it hard to be embarrassed by my body or by supposedly taboo subject matters – after all, I
was the first woman to say ‘vaginal dryness’ in a TV advert when
I chose to be the public face of an intimate moisture cream last year – my skin might not be as thick as you’d expect.
Talking honestly about female issues, be they emotional or genital, has been one of the cornerstones of my career. I am used to baring all, literally. My most
recent stand-up show, How To Be A Middle Aged Woman (Without Going
Insane), was advertised with a poster depicting my 50-something self in my (non-matching) bra and knickers. An image that was called into question before it was deemed fit for public consumption and went up on the London Underground.
But whereas I have no problem with being a poster girl for the flabby 50-plusses and remain pretty cheerful after letting off in a yoga class, the thing that really embarrasses me is failure. Faced with a bad gig or a poor review and I feel the scarlet blush of shame sweep across my face.
All you need do to embarrass me is to mention a disastrous corporate gig I did for some nameless cheese conglomeration a few years ago in a posh West End hotel and watch me burn. Remind me of that early 1990s sitcom I did on Channel 4 with Frank Skinner and I will shrivel like a worm on a pin; believe me, I know what it’s like to want the ground to open up and swallow me whole. We all have our emotional discomfort levels; mine are just set a notch or two higher than most.
Inheritance (Sphere) by Jenny Eclair is out now.
‘Embarrassment is a waste of time and can also damage your health’