84. Fame!

I’ve never wanted to be well known and I have certainly never wanted to be famous.  

One of the saddest memories I have from my years of teaching is a conversation I had with a fifteen-year-old girl who was drifting her way through school, achieving absolutely nothing and showing no intention of ever wanting to achieve anything better.

“What do you hope to do when you leave school next year?” I asked her one day, hoping to jolt her into a sense of reality and urgency.

“I’m going to be famous,” was her instant response.

“For what?” I asked, a little taken aback.

“People will know who I am and I’ll be on the telly a lot.” 

“OK,” I said, trying not to sound too surprised or patronising, “and what do you think you’ll be famous for?  Why do you think you’ll be asked to be on telly a lot?”

“I’ll be like Jade Goody,” she said.

“But Jade Goody doesn’t have any talents or skills. If there’s anything Jade Goody’s famous for it’s for being a figure of fun – a laughing stock.  She thought that “East Angular” is a foreign country.  Do you know what East Anglia is?”

“No, but everyone knows who she is, even you and she’s always in the papers and on telly.”

I gave up.

As I said at the start, I’ve certainly never wanted to be famous but a couple of months ago, fame came searching for me. It sought me out.  It came knocking on my door, pestering me with persistent phone calls, pleading with me to succumb and I was tempted to such an extent that, and I’m ashamed to say it now, but in the end, I gave in.

“All right,” I said to the beguiling and persistent young lady, “We’ll be there at ten o’clock.

“It’s both of you,” she said, “It’s no good if you’re on your own and don’t shave for a couple of days.  He likes a bit of stubble.”

“He” is Rankin and Rankin is a very well known photographer who has photographed everyone who is anyone from Kate Moss and The Rolling Stones to Her Majesty the Queen.  Now he wanted to photograph Caroline and me.

My liver transplant scar is spectacular.  There is “keyhole” surgery but there’s also “barn door” surgery.  My scar is barn door style and is a reversed ‘L’ shape.

It’s about 28cm wide and 24cm high – pretty impressive!  Dr Selvaggi, my surgeon, told me that they now use the Lexus and not the Mercedes logo pattern which had been the shape of previous liver transplant scars.

Rankin does quite a bit of work for charities and he had agreed to spearhead a campaign to attract organ donors.  I was earmarked to be part of that campaign.  To my surprise, instead of pairing me with Kate Moss, they wanted to photograph me with Caroline.  Oh well.

We were to become the second and third members of our family to be photographed by Rankin.  

A couple of years ago, 2-year-old Oscar, our nephew, had been riding his LIKEaBIKE on South Bank with Joanna his mother, when Rankin had stopped him and asked if he could photograph him.  He did and the result was a really charming photograph.

Now, it was my turn for life in the spotlight. How would I cope with seeing my photo plastered all over London buses?  What should my reaction be when total strangers nervously approached me in Waitrose and said, “It is you, isn’t it?”  Would my neighbours on the estate find excuses to visit and gawp at the celebrity in their midst?

We got off the train at Euston and instead of getting a bus to Kentish Town we got a black cab.  I’m sure that Naomi Campbell doesn’t get the bus when she’s on a shoot and so neither did we.

“Will you share the same dressing room?” asked the beguiling and persistent young lady I had previously only communicated with by telephone.

“A dressing room?” I asked.  “Why do we need a dressing room?  Are you asking us to dress up in different clothes?  Don’t I need to just unbutton my shirt?”

“You’re not wearing clothes,” she said.  “There are dressing gowns hanging up on the back of the door.”

“Naked?” stuttered Caroline.  “No clothes on?  No thank you. We’re off.”

And off we were.

Some people weren’t as self-conscious, bashful and coy as us.  This is one of the photos used in the series.  I don’t know what organ was transplanted into this man but it wasn’t his liver.

It's a shame that you'll never see my scar.  It’s magnificent!