"The worst television performers are men who are marvellous public speakers.  They get up and, as it were, address an audience of a thousand people in the town hall, and that's fatal."

 

After learning to project that big voice, and use those compelling eyes, Noele Gordon had to learn that "on television you have to be less than life".  And for a woman who sees herself as rather larger than life, this cannot have been easy, though the rewards have been great.

 

Nollie had singled out 'Weir End' as "her" house several years ago, while it was still occupied.  "I had a lot of friends in the area, and when we were out having a run on a Sunday afternoon I used to look at this house as we drove past and I would say 'That's my house.  That's where I'm going to live one day'."

 

Then, in 1963, while on holiday in Trinidad, Noele heard that 'Weir End' was for sale.  "Buy it," she cabled her mother.  Now, in addtion to 'Weir End', Noele has a small flat on the top floor of a new 31-story block of flats in Birmingham, one of the highest points in Britain, and a few minutes walk from the Crossroads studios.

 

"My mother and I enjoy each other's company, and we're never together long enough to get bored.  By the time I come home for the weekend we have all sorts of things to tell each other, but if we lived here day in day out I expect we'd get to screaming pitch."

 

In Crossroads Meg Richardson is a widow with two children.  In life, Noele Gordon has never married or had a family.  Are there regrets?

 

"I suppose ... yes," said Noele, after another pause.  "I suppose I'd like to have been married but ... I don't know ... I never really met the right man to marry.

 

"It isn't that I'm very choosy, but I get easily bored.  I don't think I'm the marrying kind.  I think, honestly, it would drive me mad.

 

"I don't feel that women are necessarily unfulfilled if they don't have children.  I'm not that absolutely mad keen on children.  I like them, but I have never had a strong maternal instinct at all.

 

"I don't think I'm likely to change my views now.  I have a lot of very good men freinds.  I love men's company.  I adore men.  And I also have a lot of very good women friends!"

 

There have, of course, been tempting moments.  "Yes, I was once proposed to at midnight in Times Square, New York, by a Hollywood agent, and I must say I was tempted.

 

"But I think it's asking an awful lot to expect me to see someone at the breakfast table and again over the dinner table at night, seven days a week.  It's just not on!

 

"Don't misunderstand me.  I believe in marriage, and I think this modern thing of throwing marriage away is a great, great mistake.

 

"But for me, marriage would be terribly restrictive.  I don't think now that I could tie myself down.  I'm terribly fond of my independence - though that's not to say I wouldn't like to have a man for companionship and to do all the very handy things that a man can do, like changing the tyres on the car."    

 

How does she cope with this sort of problem?

 

"Look helpless," said Noele, who looks anything but.  In fact, she recently blew a tyre while driving on the M5 to Birmingham, but was far less put out by the fact she almost turned the car over than by the idea of arriving late for rehearsals,

 

Puntuality is part of Noele's professional creed.  Patience with the public is another.  Her house stands above a scenic stretch of dual carriageway that takes traffic between Ross and Monmouth.  And in the summer, it's not unknown for holidaymakers, total strangers, to drop in unannounced.