Brandwood - Victoria Wood: the Biography

Victoria Wood was one of Britains finest ever performers, and her wit and scalpel-sharp humour endeared her to millions of people for over four decades.

From the filming of dinnerladies to each of Victorias stage shows across thirty years, Neil Brandwood watched, interviewed and meticulously researched Victoria and her contemporaries. In this book, he documents her rise to stardom, from her early years in Lancashire to the success of the sell-out shows at the Royal Albert Hall, and honestly portrays her final years, offering a sympathetic and insightful account of a true British treasure.

Neil Brandwood works as a journalist for the Bury Times Group.

Dedicated to Joyce Audus

Other biographies of Victoria might now be written but mine was the only one Victoria had the opportunity to read for herself. It is possible she may not have particularly welcomed the original edition when it appeared in 2002, but she made no objection to it in the fourteen years that followed its publication.

I have been a huge Victoria Wood fan since I first saw As Seen On TV. As a journalist, I had the opportunity to interview Victoria a number of times and it was these interviews, along with the fact that we shared a home town, which inspired me to write the biography.

During my research I spoke with several people whose memories of Victoria did not tally with her established public persona. This helped to give an honest picture of her. Victorias imperfections were part of her attraction; her faults and mistakes helped make her more human and therefore more relatable.

To portray her as a cuddly, working-class Lancastrian who chuckled her way through life dispensing one-liners and down-to-earth Northern common sense as she went, would be to misrepresent her.

Neil Brandwood,
West Sussex,
May 2016

I have enough ambitions to live five lives.

Victoria Wood

THE CHUBBY LITTLE girl is full of anticipation as she climbs into her fathers car for the one-and-a-half mile drive down the rutted track for the rendezvous at the bottom of Castle Hill Road. Passing Gypsy Brook and Hercules Farm on the right and Harwood Fields and the disused quarry on the left, she can barely contain her excitement at the thought of what is to come.

Back at the house her birthday buffet is laid out for the party. Games have been prepared and the candles stand on her cake ready to be lit, blown and wished upon.

It is not simply her birthday that makes it such a special occasion; for the first time her classmates will be coming to her home. Its remoteness usually discourages visitors.

Just before reaching the church the girls father turns right at Gallows Hill. The car continues on its journey to Jericho, a name inspired by the Cities of Judgement sermon given by the Methodist evangelist John Wesley on one of his visits.

When they reach the designated pick-up point the little girls joy evaporates. Only one classmate stands there Graham Howarth. She is crestfallen; the other children must have better things to do with their Saturday.

Happy birthday, says Graham, as he gets into the car.

The girl smiles bravely, but the agony and humiliation are prolonged by her well-meaning father who decides to drive to the home of Dennis Ford, one of the absent party guests. Mrs Ford says he is out playing somewhere.

The car begins the slow climb back through the bleak landscape to Birtle Edge House.

More than 30 years later the little girl now a woman makes her way up the same road. This time she is in the driving seat and knows that millions of people will share her journey.

She steers the Land Rover Discovery past a recently planted wood next to the church, little guessing the congregation had considered naming it in her honour.

She is accompanied by a film crew. They are shooting a documentary on her Britains best-loved comedienne. She has sold out more shows at the Royal Albert Hall than any other solo performer, an experience she described as instant gratification, like having two-and-a-half thousand friends round, and youre the funniest one in the room. She has been voted the person most people would like as their next-door neighbour, and it was rumoured that the most famous woman in the world, Diana, Princess of Wales, wanted her as a friend.

For the past 12 years her birthday has been listed in The Times.

I believe we all have a certain time in our lives that were good at. I wasnt good at being a child.

Victoria Wood

WHEN HELEN WOOD gave birth to her fourth and final child in 1953 the relief she felt at the babys safe delivery may well have been tinged with disappointment. It was another girl.

Helen and Stanley Woods first child, a boy whom they named Christopher, had been born almost a generation earlier, in 1940. Penelope arrived on 2 August 1945, and Rosalind followed almost five years to the day later, on 4 August 1950.

The two slim, dainty and dark-haired Wood girls had already forged a strong bond and developed a closeness that left the newcomer to the family in an unenviable position. Three was a crowd; another sister was not required and lacked the novelty that a baby brother would have brought.

The birth of Victoria Wood on 19 May was dutifully announced in the Bury Times four days later, more as a matter of routine than of pride. It was the done thing, and Victorias siblings had previously been introduced to the world in the same terse few lines. The fact that Helen had yet another baby was certainly no cause for celebration, and Victoria grew up suspecting her mother wanted a career instead of her.

Victoria was the only baby born in the upstairs delivery room of Holyrood Maternity Home that day. The building stood on Bury Old Road in Prestwich, a small town five miles north of Manchester, whose most notable claim was that it had one of the largest mental asylums in Europe. The Woods other children had been born in less comfortable circumstances, but Stanleys dedication to the world of insurance meant he could afford the 10 a week for Helens stay in the private home during her final pregnancy.

Mother and baby returned home 10 days after the birth on the day that Britains new queen was crowned. The coincidence influenced Helen and Stanleys choice of a regal name for their daughter, and it was a decision that newspaper and magazine subeditors have delighted in ever since. The reign of Comedy Queen Victoria, who was often described as amused or victorious, served as alternative headline fodder whenever the Wood wordplay dried up.

The name was highly appropriate. Marie Lloyd, the risqu star of music hall who was known for her saucy songs and is regarded as the very first British comedienne, was actually called Matilda Alice Victoria Wood. Years later, Stanleys daughter would joke in her own stage show: They call me Vic because Im blue and I bring tears to your eyes. It was a line worthy of her namesake and predecessor.

Marie Lloyd would no doubt have had fun with the name Ramsbottom. It is a word that has an irresistibly humorous ring to it and it is easy to understand why Victoria, never one to waste a comic opportunity, sometimes gave the impression that she lived in this picturesque village within the borough of Bury in Lancashire. In actual fact the first and only home Victoria knew in Bury was more than four miles away at number 98 Tottington Road. Stanley had bought the house on 22 January 1952 for 1,600. The end of a block of four spacious terraced houses set back from the road, it had the advantage of being just 10 minutes walk from Bury town centre while being elevated above its industrial and commercial heart.