Miriam Margolyes’ autobiography was an interesting choice for our readers this month. At the age of 80, BAFTA winning Miriam has written her remarkable life story. From birth to (almost) recent day it explains how being conceived in an air-raid gave her curly hair; what pranks led to her being known as the naughtiest girl Oxford High School ever had; how she ended up posing nude for Augustus John as a teenager; why Bob Monkhouse was the best (male) kiss she’s ever had; and what happened when she declared her love to Vanessa Redgrave. It is packed full of famous names, she really does seem to have met almost everyone!
Our group overwhelmingly enjoyed reading the book, using phrases such as “interesting”, “I really enjoyed it”, “page turner”, “love her” and “Oh Miriam!”
There’s a lot of names dropped in the book- the weighty index alone shows the number of people she mentions. However we discussed how that was entirely due to her long and varied career, she really has met and worked with a HUGE number of people. The sheer breadth of her career was very impressive. We were particularly excited to find out that she’d provided many of the female voices for the classic show Monkey (if you’re of an age, you’ll know… altogether now “born from an egg on a mountain top, the punkiest monkey that every popped”), and that she was the voice of the Cadbury’s Caramel bunny!
We were surprised that some of the anecdotes and opinions expressed in the autobiography got past the publisher’s lawyers. One of us was devastated to hear how unkind Miriam found the Goodies when she was part of the Footlights crew at Cambridge. We admired her forthrightness, and it is entertaining to have her opinions and thoughts expressed so directly. A favourite anecdote was her being told to “shut up” by the Queen.
The group also discussed the emphasis on family and her history of growing up in Oxford, one of our number is a frequent visitor to the town and was able to visualise many of the places described. Her mother was a central character and we very much enjoyed the dynamics of their relationship and how it formed Miriam’s values and her ideas of what her parents would and wouldn’t approve of. We found the tale of her grandfather bribing the military so that her father wouldn’t have to join up fascinating on several levels- who knew they’d accept a bribe and that the story would be so freely shared. It was easy to connect the dots between her family life and upbringing and the vibrant character we know today.
Friendships were a key theme in the book, both the depth of Miriam’s friendships, the large number of friends she has and how she maintains her relationships. We thought she would be a good and steadfast friend, but also that she would be quite “full on”. Her personal life was intriguing and finding out that she and her partner of 50+ years live in different countries wasn’t surprising- Miriam seems to have a good grasp on what makes her happy and how she needs to live to be content.
We also talked about the exploration of class and that Miriam at times seems to be unaware of how her upbringing might have had some privilege. The words “champagne socialist” were mentioned in our discussion. Having seen Miriam on TV, we were expecting some of the potentially more shocking anecdotes, and in truth they weren’t a major part of the book. We thought perhaps they were included because they were expected by the reading audience.
We appreciated the way the book was written, it was accessible and the short chapters made it easy to dip in and out. As ever with any biography, we all loved the photos!
Miriam is definitely marmite- but our group was definitely Team Miriam. Our overall rating was 8/10 (although there was a full mark of 10 by one of our readers)!
Next month we’re having a free for all session. Come along and tell us what your favourite summer read has been, or perhaps your least favourite… or your all time number 1 book, or the book you’re desperate to dive into. We love recommendations and we’d love to know what’s tickling your reading tastebuds.
Find out more about our reading groups here
Take a look at the blog posts for our previous reads here.