XMAS WITH HUBBY PAST AND PRESENT
AT Chez Welch this Christmas, I’ll have two blokes cooking for me. My ex-husband Tim is in charge of the dinner – and his sous chef will be my hubby Lincoln. While they’re doing that, I’ll be having a glass of Shloer and relaxing with Tim’s wife Jo, my kids, and my sister Debbie and her three foster children. It’ll be lovely to have little ones running around again. Tim and I would never in a million years try to be the poster couple for divorced people. But we love each other as family, we co-parent our children, and they have amazing step-parents in Jo and Lincoln. Our set-up might raise a few eyebrows but I love Christmas and wouldn’t dream of spending it any other way. Having said that, I can’t stand the build-up. You go into a supermarket and people have 17 trolleys piled high. I want to scream: “You’ve only got four people to cook for!” I get high blood pressure thinking about it. THERE’S nothing worse than battling through a show with clinical depression. I know because I did it.
So I applaud Sheridan Smith, who suffered a breakdown last year, for questioning in a recent interview whether the show must always go on.
Back in the day, that was a motto I lived by. I worked through two nervous breakdowns at Corrie, and there were times in theatre I would be vomiting in the wings then step on stage and hear the lines somehow come out of my mouth. I would never put myself in those situations again. There are times we must stop the show and show ourselves a little kindness instead.