You say you're incapable, and yet you take up the most demanding hobbies, such as flying?
Oh I'm very good at doing things like that. I'll always have a go. I'm not a very capable person at looking
after myself, though. I seem to need a lot of people to look after me. My one great talent that I'm very proud
of is my great ability to get people to do things for me!
Is Meg Richardson a real person in your eyes?
Oh yes ... in fact she's modelled on a friend of mine who does actually run a hotel in the country. When we first
started the series, we leaned on her quite heavily for advice. Her husband still acts, in a way, as an unpaid adviser.
We always had in the back of our minds the way she ran the hotel. I know jolly well that if we put into Crossroads half
the things that have happened at my friend's hotel, nobody would beleive us. The public are incredible the things they
get up to!
Do you put many of your own ideas in the script?
I think there's quite a lot of us in the show. We're always encouraged to make alterations if a line is difficult
or wrong. Also, we are encouraged to put up ideas, some funny incident that may have happened. For instance, I
went on a trip once and ended up in a hotel in Scotland that was a cross between Belsen and Dartmoor! Well, we wrote
it up in the show ... all the ghastlythings that happened at this hotel. We got letters in saying, no ... that couldn't
happen! But it did! Also, we are often consulted if we are going to be in a story line that they think we might
not like. For example, I was asked to comment when they were going to send me to prison. And when I was going
to be poisoned, the producer rang up one Sunday afternoon and asked, 'Hey, how would you like to be poisoned?'!
You've run through the differences between Noele and Meg. Are there any similarities?
Well, we do both make lists ... and then we promptly lose them. I think we have the same attitudes. I think
we're both pretty normal, average sort of ladies really. I would like Meg Richardson to be a bit scattier though ...
me, I'm demented!
What do you think of Meg?
I think Meg is marvellous ... a lovely lady! I wish she had a few more faults, but she doesn't seem to have an
Achilles Heel at all. Perhaps she will one day.
How do you live with your popularity? Do you mind people looking at you wherever you go ... talking
to you in the street and so on?
If they stopped doing it you might as well give up. It's a great compliment that people think I'm Meg Mortimer
and I find most people very nice. What is a bit disconcerting is that the people who see you every night on the screen
know you and they think you know them. Very often, usually very nice ladies, will say to me, 'Oh hello' and
I will say, 'Hello', and then they will realise and say, 'Oh God, of course, you don't know me ...!' But I love it,
I think it's a measure of the scucess of the programme.
You said before that Crossroads deals with many social problems. Do you think it has helped?
Primarily we do aim at family entertainment, but we have helped a lot of people enormously. One of the ways we
have done this, although not many people know about it because ATV don't want it publicised, is that we have set up a
small foundation which helps the relatives of handicapped people by supplying a helper who looks after a handicapped person
for a day or a week or a weekend to enable the relatives to have a rest. It's only in a small way at the moment, but
we are hoping it will grow. It's based in Rugby and they've got a group now of about six or eight people who go out.
This is something that has grown out of this programme. The story we did on decimalization when the change-over came
is another example of Crossroads helping. The Post Office thanked us in Parliament for that.
