I’m still in Tennison’s
THIRTY years ago, crime writer Lynda La Plante’s iconic creation DCI Jane Tennison blasted on to our TV screens. Tough, brilliant and damaged, her character shook up the genre forever by showing a female detective overcoming sexism and adversity to reach the top.
The Bafta award-winning hit Prime Suspect was a watershed moment in the careers of Lynda and lead actress Dame Helen Mirren, who became a Hollywood star and won an Oscar in 2006 for her role in The Queen.
Lynda, 78, became known as The Queen of Crime and retains her crown to this day, as a hugely successful writer, selling millions of books around the world.
She is reflective about the public outpouring of grief after the recent murder of Sarah Everard, 33. And she has real fears for society as the world becomes harsher by the day, driven in part by the collateral damage from the pandemic.
She said: “Your heart breaks when you read that she was just walking home. It has touched everybody and for me, the heartbreak is, you can’t repair it. There is no closure – she was just taken. It’s horrendous.
“For years women have felt frightened on the streets.
“You think, why do I have to live feeling wary?we should not have to live like that.
“Even me, walking in the park, I am suspicious if I see a male without a dog.
“The hoodie is the worst design of any outfit in the world.
“If you see someone in a hoodie, dark clothes and walking solo at night, you are on your guard.
“We need to re-educate men, and children too. Think of the knife deaths, young people are killing and injuring each other.
“I think it needs parental control too – a lot is being put on the schools to sort out.
“We are living in a very harsh world at the moment.there is so much violence erupting.
“It’s coming from frustration, terrible frustration of so many unemployed, so many without money. The homeless are back on the streets. It’s a mess.
“You think of the businesses that have shut, gone, and people are now stuck in their houses.
“It’s fine for me, I have a garden and park nearby.
“But can you imagine if you are living in a high-rise flat
with two children? Kindness is imperative now.”
She says young women feature all too regularly as murder victims in film and TV: “It’s very simple to put a glamorous figure being murdered because you have an immediate, strong welter of feeling towards it. That beautiful life snuffed out.why?
“For me, I don’t ever go down the gruesome route. I follow the victims and their families and explore what it does to them, rather than the violence.
“It is the hunt for the perpetrator. I take the more complicated way to solve the puzzle.”
Fiercely bright, funny and curious, Lynda’s outgoing personality has meant she has struggled being socially limited in lockdown. She has been staying with her 17-year-old son Lorcan in her Kingston mansion.
She says frankly: “I didn’t want to risk going out. I suffer from bronchitis and I’ve had a little problem with my heart over the years, so I have to be careful and not foolish.
“I’ve been marooned. I haven’t left this house, apart from grocery shopping to Asda and my daily walk, for a year.
“I can’t wait to see people again. I’ve got a huge dining table and I’m thinking, ‘When am I going to have a dinner
party?’ I love entertaining. I’d really like to charter a boat for friends and sail around the Mediterranean when it’s over.”
She believes she caught coronavirus last January in 2020.
“I was in America and I was so ill with bronchial pneumonia and a cough. But there was no Covid scare then so after I regained my health I flew home.
“But I was sick again and it was the worst illness ever.
“I couldn’t get out of bed for a week and Lorcan had it too.
“I’ve had the first dose of the Astrazeneca vaccine but I hope they’re not running out.”
S‘I’d really like to
charter a boat for friends when this is all over’
HE HAS enjoyed being at home with Lorcan and lights up talking about her adored son, whom she adopted in America as a baby when she was 59.
She says: “He has his own quarters and I’m not allowed inside.
“He has a lovely girlfriend who he met at school. They’ve been going steady for two years, they’re like an old married couple. She’s in our bubble and stays here quite a lot.
“Lorcan’s a very big personality, he never ceases to surprise me. Without hesitation it was the best decision of my life adopting him. I’d fight to the death for him.”
She has protected him from the limelight and there are no photographs of him in the public domain. “He isn’t bothered about me being famous and has no interest in my books. I don’t think he’s even read one. I am