‘Hello, I’M DAVINA, A WORK IN PROGRESS’

From drug addiction and the death of her sister to living with her husband’s infuriating habits, DAVINA McCALL has a wealth of hard-earned wisdom to share. Here, with brutal honesty, she reveals the highs and lows of her world beyond the cameras

Because I really believe that I am a work in progress, I feel as though I am learning every day. I learn from every situation, every person I meet. Sometimes I am unwilling at the time to see it… Maybe the lesson hurt or embarrassed me and it’s only with hindsight I can feel how much it taught me. At other times I am desperate to learn – I may be stuck in some emotional rut or a parenting quandary or a self-esteem collapse and turn to others for help. In this extract from my new book, I want to share some of my life lessons with YOU…

LOOK AFTER THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE AND KEEP THEM CLOSE

My childhood was quite complicated. My mum was a total wild child. She’d already had a little girl when she was a teenager herself; that was Caroline, my big sister. There was something intoxicating about my mother. Everybody felt it; she was eclectic, naughty, impish, funny, irreverent and captivating. A very early memory I have of her – I guess from when I was about five – is of her driving across a cricket pitch in a Rolls-Royce. I am in the back playing with the electric windows, which I’ve never come across before. Mum is at the wheel. And she’s drunk. The game is in full swing and the cricketers are up in arms until they realise that there’s this very beautiful, smoking hot French chick in the Rolls-Royce. They go from shouting to asking ‘Who is that?’ I have no idea why we were driving across a cricket pitch, but it’s a vivid memory.

My earliest memory is also of my mum. When I was nearly four, she and a man I didn’t know took me to my granny Pippy’s house (my dad’s mum). ‘I’m going skiing,’ she said, in English with a strong French accent. ‘I’ll be back in two weeks.’ I remember being dropped off, no loitering, no long goodbye – the kind of thing you do when you don’t want your child to cry on the first day of school. I don’t remember kissing. I don’t remember tears. I just remember her going. She didn’t come back in two weeks. I never lived with her again. No one explained anything to me. I had no idea I would be living permanently with my granny. Much later I learned that my mum had left my dad for another man and that there was a court case to decide where I would live when my parents divorced. Dad won, which in those days was pretty unheard of. He was living in London and couldn’t have me because his job didn’t pay him enough to afford a nanny. Mum had a bad track record with drink and drugs and had already left Caroline with her parents in Paris. That, and the fact that I’d been brought up in the UK and didn’t speak French, made the court feel that it was right for me to stay with my paternal grandparents, Pippy and Mickey.

Since I’ve had children, I’ve understood that sometimes you do things that you think are right at the time, but years down the line your kids tell you it really messed them up! So I’m a lot softer on my mum now. I don’t think she found it easy leaving me. She didn’t just say, ‘Well, you have her.’ She fought for me in court and after she lost the case she probably thought she was doing the best for me, leaving with no fuss. I was young. Perhaps she hoped I wouldn’t remember it, but of course you’re going to remember that your mother hasn’t come back – and for a long time that was all I wanted.

Pippy was the matriarch and she kept the family close. I got comfort, roots and warmth from having them around me. It made me feel safe. Having all the family with me now re-creates that feeling for me. And I know it does the same for my kids.

Pippy lives near us, so my kids have their great-granny in their lives just as I did. My sister also lived with us until she died. If you don’t have a family yourself – and lots of people don’t – you can create one out of the very best friends you have. The people that have known you for a very long time are extremely precious.

DON’T SWEAT THE SMALL STUFF

I think this is a great saying. If you’ve been in a relationship for a long time then the small stuff – the little things that you once loved about somebody – can suddenly make you want to stab a pillow. They can drive you so mad that you want to scream. I’ve been trying to think of a good example of something that my husband Matthew does… I mean, there’s a list (only joking, Matthew). He insists on giving everybody a ridiculous nickname. It’s a family trait – I’m ‘Dickldax’ to his family. Everybody gets a big nickname. Normally they are shorter than your name, but his are always really long.

Over 18 years I have had at least 20 different names and they’ve almost all been horrific. In our honeymoon period he used to call me Puppy and I quite liked that. It used to make everybody else want to throw up but I thought it was really cute. Then it turned into Falafel and he’d say it in a really silly voice. In a supermarket, anywhere, he’d shout ‘Falafel!’ It sounded like he had Tourette’s because it’s quite a weird word to shout in the middle of an aisle: you could see people wondering whether he had a thing about shouting the names of vegetarian foods. I’d reply and people would look over and say, ‘Isn’t that Davina McCall? Did he just call her Falafel?’ It’s embarrassing. There’s been Schnaflank – which isn’t even a word – Schniebel and Schnivel, which I really hated.

I love the name Davina. It’s not as if I’ve grown up thinking I need to change my name to Scarlett. I like it when people call me Davina. I don’t need a nickname. Over the years I’ve asked him to call me by my name in sometimes quite direct language. He just says, ‘Sorry, Schnivel.’ He thinks that’s really funny. And the angrier I get the funnier he thinks it is and the more he does it. Recently he was calling me Kilimanjaro. I don’t understand why. I’ve never climbed Kilimanjaro. Now it’s just Kili.

Anyway, it winds me up… But on a good day I ask myself, ‘Is this worth getting yourself so riled up about that you want to divorce him?’ No. It’s not. That’s compromise.

WILL I REGRET THIS?

When I went to stay with my mum in Paris as a teenager there were no rules and no boundaries. I had no curfew. I could stay out all night. At one level I thought she was fantastic, the dream mother. As I’ve got older I’ve realised it was pretty destructive. I loved my mum. There was something exciting and magical about her, but when I look back there was also something a bit sad. She cut a tragic figure and I never knew how to behave around her. She

Davina with her ‘granny Pippy. I’m two. Look at the way she’s looking at me’