27. London Travel.

It’s a week of travel problems. London tube strikes to a non-Londoner are scary and buses even more so. Diane is used to buses (she doesn’t have a car) so she cheerfully recommends how to get to Seven Sisters without the tube. I have to be there at 2.30pm each day, and on the first day of the tube strike I allow an hour and a half – and it takes all of that time. I wait for the no.4 bus to Finsbury Park for 30 minutes and get wet feet.

Foolishly I’d not worn my cowboy boots to London but shoes with some webbing on the top. And one of them has just sprung a leak. Sigh.

At Finsbury Park there is a tube running to Seven Sisters so I abandon buses and take that. No access to ticket office however, so I take a flyer and travel without one. At Seven Sisters I own up to the ticket office but they don’t have a machine for me to get to either so they just wave me through for free.

Wet-footedly I stomp up Stamford Hill. It’s a good time for the denial of the death wish. ‘I will not fucking die! I will not let this beat me! I bloody well will live to serve the Lord my God...’ I am helped by the sight of the Hasidic Jewish men who wear those black coats and incredible hats and have the ringlets of hair either side of their face. In the wet, they still wear the hats but they cover them with transparent hotel shower caps. It’s very sensible but I’m afraid it makes me laugh out loud.

Laughter is always good.

At the medical centre, I shamelessly take off shoes and socks and have them warming up on the radiator in the treatment room. Dr. W looks at them askance but quite understands. He is always happy to see me; he wants to talk a little philosophy and Kabbalah; he usually has something to share about his life.

But golly, the intravenous vitamin C does make me thirsty! It’s a known thing but I am amazed – I drink water and green tea and more water and my own bottle of wheatgrass-infused water. My stomach is full, I’m pulling the drip to the loo every half hour and still my body cries ‘drink, drink!’

Sod the buses, I take the tube back to Kentish town and walk back up towards Tufnell Park. It really isn’t any distance – maybe 20 minutes’ walk – or should I say ‘squelch’? And on the way I spot a charity shop.

Now I’m the woman who stood up on stage for Britain’s Got Talent dressed almost entirely from the British Heart Foundation and Oxfam in Okehampton so I’m obviously going to go in and have a sniff around.

(I would add here that the dressing myself from charity shops is a new departure but having shed so much weight there really wasn’t any point in spending good money on clothes that might not fit in a month’s time – very Taurean).

In there are two DVDs for £1 – Michael McKintyre and Tim Vine (I did the Premier Christian Radio news quiz with him and Paul Kerensa back in December). And a pair of kick-ass black suede boots with four-and-a-half inch heels. Now that was just what was missing from my BGT outfit. But are they my size? Hell yes! And amazingly comfortable.

It is a really frivolous purchase. I’m not going to wear them for my gigs in London because I’ve got to travel to those ... but any gig for which I just have to get out of the car? Perfect. Of course no one but me will notice them but I’ll know.

I may be a 57-year-old, silver-haired, rookie with a dis-ease but I will have kick-ass boots. In fact, I will have ‘don’t fuck with me boots.’ I need another pair of those right now.

Time, I think, to insert the story of the rattlesnake cowboy boots from Montana.

26. The Next Comedy Gig

So, here I am in London for the intravenous vitamin C therapy having driven straight down the morning after BGT. And on the Wednesday I have another gig.

Being turned down in front of 3000 people can be a bit of a knock to your confidence. So it was good that I did have another gig – and a high-profile one too – that following week. It was at the Stoke Pub in Guildford, a monthly comedy night compered by Paul Kerensa (co-writer of Miranda and Not Going Out). Paul is a Christian as well as a comedian and he asked me via Facebook. I was thrilled.

Getting there was going to be a bit of a problem because of the tube strike and my lack of knowledge of London. I was going to be very late back because I wanted to see the headline act – he’s an A-lister and very funny. I’m not going to name him here because I don’t have his permission.

I could get back to Diane’s with the night-bus from Waterloo but I was finding that prospect fairly scary. Although I’m very well, the vitamin C treatment is making things rather sore and I am tired – we came straight to London for the treatment the morning after BGT.

So, just on the off-chance, I emailed Paul to ask whether any of the other comedians was driving down from north London and, if so, could they give me a lift to Kentish town? I was quite confident walking from there.

The wonderful thing about spiritual people is that they are not like your average comedian on the circuit ... who are, I regret to say, a bit on the tribal ‘do we know you?’ side.

An email came back from the A-lister within two hours saying he was happy to give me a lift, door to door.

So, I went straight from the day’s treatment down to Waterloo and took the train to Guidlford ... walked to the venue, ordered some food, chatted with the other two supporting comedians and did my act.

It went well. All the jokes that hadn’t worked on BGT got big laughs. Weird.  I wasn’t sure whether to use them but I thought I’d see how it went. But I went back to my own favourite starting lines instead of the YouTube one that the producers wanted me to use.

And I was brave with the second half – I used a new joke about how the flooding was not because God hates homosexuals (a British UKIP member had said that the flooding was due to the government allowing gay marriage) but because he hates vegetarians.

I followed that with a Genesis based – hopefully funny – story about the Garden of Eden, Noah and the flood. I got some good applause.

And at the end, when I went to sit down again, the A-list comedian, who had been lurking out of sight of the audience, came and sat down beside me.

‘I really enjoyed that,’ he said. ‘I converted to Catholicism two years ago and I’d love to talk with you more. We can talk on the way back to London.’

He then went on and rocked them in the aisles with an act that kept my face aching for a couple of hours.

We drove back to London together and talked and talked and talked. I later found out that his astrological chart and mine have several important connections. We talked about how we found benediction; redemption and hope. How mysticism was the way forward. We talked about the life-enhancing disease and aspects of his life and youth. He asked me to recommend some books. We spiritually fell in love.

That’s not a sexual thing – at all. To fall in love spiritually is to feel a deep connection with another’s soul. When you’re young it’s hard to tell the two apart but when you’re getting on a bit, the difference is palpable.

We’re meeting for coffee in a week or two. He thinks what I do is amazing. He is fascinated by the independent Catholic movement. He is known for helping aspiring comedians. This could be a deeper synchronicity than I ever thought possible.

Thank you God

25. Britain’s Got Talent 4.

It’s lovely walking out on that stage into the spotlight with thousands of people hidden in the dark. It feels totally natural and right. What an amazing experience! I’m not nervous at all which is very strange. 

In bright lights at the front, David Walliams, Alisha Dixon, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell are sitting at the desk with the big red buttons. They all look very small and the women, perfectly smooth and made-up, look like dolls.

When I’ve visualized this (and I have, a lot – it’s been wonderful in dark nights when I couldn’t sleep) I’ve always focused on talking with Simon Cowell. That’s probably a bit silly because David Walliams is the comedian and Simon’s not at all likely to get someone like me. But that’s what I did. And that's what happened.

I liked him. I really did. 

Now I can’t remember it word for word, but it goes something like this:

‘Hello,’ says Simon. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Maggy Whitehouse from Dartmoor in Devon, where the moor is currently covered in newborn lambs.’

‘Okay Maggy. Tell me something interesting about yourself.’

‘I’m an independent Catholic priest – and no, I’m not  a bloke in drag. If I were, I’d have big hair and much better make-up.’

All four of them now are looking at me with open mouths right now. So I have time to follow the researcher’s advice.

‘And I once wrote a book about what would happen if the Messiah came to Earth today. And I wondered what kind of person he could most usefully be. And I thought Simon Cowell.’

Silence. Then David Walliams says, ‘More like the devil, surely?’

I answer that it’s a long book and it does have a twist.

Simon says, ‘Maggy, please would you send me a copy of that book?’

And that’s the moment when I knew why I am on Britain’s Got Talent.

There was more discussion about my being an independent Catholic priest. And some about what my ambition was – I said to be a successful spiritual comedian and Amanda said ‘that would be good.’

And then I did my act.

Which they didn’t like. 

Yes, it was an awful moment when I had finished, the applause was dying down and I could see that none of the judges was clapping. However Simon was looking at me with great interest.

David, Alesha and Amanda all say ‘no.’  David gives me some constructive criticism – and says I’ve been going such a short time in comedy etc. etc. and that they all really like me, just not the act.

And then it is Simon Cowell’s turn. Now Simon can destroy an ego in five cutting words. That is a rather anxious moment.

He looks long and hard at me and says, ‘Well I'm the one going to heaven, so I’m going to say “yes.”’

Not a word of criticism. Not a word. Just 'yes.'

So I didn’t get through. Not by a long way. But I surprised Simon Cowell  and he said ‘yes.’

I I have no idea what the other judges said to him afterwards. I have no idea if it will be televised. I was, obviously, disappointed that I didn’t get through – and that what the producers had genuinely thought was funny simply didn’t work on the night. One of them told me afterwards they were sure I'd go through. There’s lots to learn from that experience and I'm not entirely sure what it is, yet.

But I think I was there to talk to Simon Cowell.

Weird.

If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

24. Britain’s Got Talent 3.

After Lion has gone, I start talking with a young man who’s dressed in a fairly dramatic clown-type outfit. He’s not well endowed with charisma. Oh, he’s a lovely boy, but he doesn’t give the impression that he’s got an act that, at this stage in the process, would be expected to go through. I wonder if he’s a patsy – one of the acts that they put on to get four  redXs and good TV.  It’s incredibly cruel if so as he’s full of hope and expectancy. ‘I must be good if I’ve got this far,’ he says. I hope that my instinct is wrong.

In theory, yes, he should be good if he got this far. He's got through two previous auditions.  I’m aware that I was bypassed through the first two audition levels so I am almost certainly expected to be good or to be weird. But I’m not sure about this guy...

Finally, comes my turn to be interviewed. And this time (the dregs of the evening when all the posh presenters have finished) it’s an older woman who starts asking me intelligent and sensible questions. They are fairly intense including ‘why did you become a priest?’

I tell her the story of Henry and how the Catholic chaplain told me that he couldn’t go to heaven as he wasn’t a Christian and how I walked up the aisle in church behind his coffin, hearing him damned to hell. I tell her about the spiritual funerals I began to do so that no one else would have to go through that extra trauma after bereavement. There is a tear in her eye. I’m not sure this is the kind of thing that a talent show is looking for. But they wanted me, and this is my story.

We talk too about spirit, about religion – how God doesn’t fit into boxes and doesn’t follow the terms and conditions that we set – we talk about love and Lion and about life the universe and everything. I don’t mention dis-ease because right now I don’t have any, so what would be the point?

The second show is running late and it’s about 9.30 pm when I am taken down to backstage. There are a load of the other acts, waiting to go on. Before that, they want to film me talking with a young comedian in a baseball hat. I’m supposed to comfort him because he got four red Xs. This implies that they might think I’m better than him but I don’t know.  I do my best; tell him to keep honing and practicing and find his niche and tell him that some comedians work better in small, intimate circumstances and that he shouldn’t loose faith.

Then I stand with the Robbie Williams guy who’s thrilled because someone just videoed him on their mobile phone to say happy birthday to the real Robbie Williams (Ant and Dec know him). I’m glad for him. I’m sure he’ll do well.

He gets for red Xs. Apparently he doesn’t sound at all like Robbie Williams. The poor man is totally gutted. Five years of work gone down the drain. If it’s shown on TV he will be doubly humiliated – and it will be shown. He’s done so much filming for them today that they must have had him down for a featured place.

The young man I talked with in the holding room goes on before me. I can’t hear what he’s doing because now it’s my time for my televised ‘before you go on’ talk with Ant and Dec. The sound of another four red Xs however, is unmistakable. My heart bleeds for him.

For some reason, I say ‘bless you both,’ when I’m introduced to Ant and Dec and they are shocked. But they say ‘thank you’ and talk to me about something but I can’t for the life of me remember what.

And just as I am standing in the wings, heart in mouth, and microphone in hand, a researcher comes up and taps me on the shoulder.

‘Simon may ask you to tell him something interesting about you,’ she says. ‘Make sure you tell him about the book you wrote about the Messiah and America’s Got Talent.’

‘Really?’ say I, astounded. I would never have done that without being prompted. But I am directable, remember? And truly, that researcher was an angel.

‘On you go,’ says a member of the crew. It’s one of those ‘remember this for a lifetime’ moments. I say ‘Thy will be done,’ because I am here by God’s will and to be God’s vessel. And I walk out into the lights of the stage.

23. Britain's Got Talent 2.

It’s Sunday 2^nd February 2014. The day I audition for Britain’s Got Talent.

We are supposed to arrive at the Birmingham International Convention Centre by 1pm for the evening show, which starts at 8pm. The informational email (which only arrived on Thursday) says that once we are in, we won’t be allowed out, so Lion and I are armed with sandwiches and drinks for the day.

Of course it turns out that we can potter outside whenever we like as long as we let the crew know when and where we are going.

It all seems very haphazared. About 15 acts and their families are herded into a big conference room to start with. The judges are late so we can’t go into the holding room yet, for some reason. And we are not allowed to see the judges at all – so we can’t be kept in the booking-in area.

Once Simon Cowell, David Walliams, Alesha Dixon and Amanda Holden have arrived (an hour and a half late!) we are moved to the holding room where there are other acts who are performing for the afternoon show. There is a small performance area with big mirrors so that the acts can watch themselves perform, some dressing-room mirrors propped up on silver equipment boxes for us to use to make-up and, around the edges, TV-lit areas where the acts can be interviewed both for Britain’s Got Talent and Britain’s Got More Talent.

Lion and I seem to gravitate naturally towards a comedian in a crimson suit who looks like Elvis and a Robbie Williams impersonator who truly looks the part. We are all told to be dressed in our performance outfits from the very start so we can be interviewed in them. Scott, the Robbie Williams guy is in full tuxedo all day. I’m just in jeans, sweater and boots.

The two men are taken off to be filmed outside the ICC and to talk to Ant and Dec but nothing like that happens to me. I wonder a bit whether that’s significant but I’m not going to push anything. I’m quite happy waiting. To be honest, nowadays I’m always quite happy waiting because every time I can think ‘at least I’m not waiting at the hospital.’ Oh the relief of not waiting at the hospital. Every time I went there, my heart would sink.

I know, I know, those of you who are holistic would say  ‘put up protection; affirm; visualize.’ Oh I did all that. I blessed the angel of the hospital; I blessed everyone; I used protection – but it was still the last place on earth that I wanted to be. Here, waiting to perform, is just fine compared with that.

The room is very crowded. Water is provided but if you haven’t got your own food you can buy sandwiches or go outside. Lion finds out that the group sitting next to us is actually ‘extras’ so that it can look really crowded for the cameras!

We read our books; I rehearse again and again. It’s just 2 ½ minutes so it’s got to be tight. I don’t think I’ll forget it but oh, calamity if I did! Mind you, I am amazingly calm. I'm here because God wants me here; I've got some purpose that I don't know about. Yes, of course I want to go through to the semi finals; I'd love that. But none of it (apart from doing my best) is, in any way, in my hands.

But then one of the researchers comes up to me and tells me that the producers really, really want me to start my act with the equivalent of the start of my YouTube video. This is not the same as the beginning of my audition tape, which is what I have been rehearsing to do. This is a bit strange because the YouTube video has got ‘fuck’ in it. They say can I do that bit but with a substitute word? This involves changing the whole of the first minute of my act.

Do I do that? Or do I stick with what I’ve got? I decide to follow their direction so I have to start re-rehearsing. Perhaps it was the wrong thing to do, I’ll probably never know, but I have always been a good presenter because I am directable; I can change course when it’s needed. So I do.

Towards the end of the afternoon, my interview time arrives. It’s with a very dynamic-haired young man called Pete who asks formulaic questions to get me to say things like ‘I’m Maggy Whitehouse from Dartmoor in Devon. I’m 57 and I’m a stand-up comedian.’

But we can’t get far because one of the ‘certainties’ (you can spot them quite easily) is a man with Tourette’s Syndrome. I goes the equivalent of ‘YIKES’ every few seconds. If he’s in the room, no one else can be interviewed ... and he’s being interviewed next door to me.

So the interview is aborted. ‘Interesting’ thinks I. I suppose I should be outraged or worried but I’m not.  It will be what it will be. Anyway, I don’t have to do a thing; I’ve got Lion.

He is doing all the necessary checking and querying for me. Every hour or so he gets up and talks to one of the researchers/crew about what’s going on or not. Years ago he used to a steward for race meetings (and a drag racer himself) so this is one of his lines of expertise. He’s very good at it.

Time passes ... and then they come to take Lion away to place him in the audience where he can watch me. There is one hour to go and then it is showtime.

22. Britain's Got Talent 1.

Just when I'd had the scary diagnosis and when I was feeling really frightened, threatened and overwhelmed ... and when I was wondering at that deep inner 'you're not good enough' primal lie level whether this was divine retribution for 'bringing the clergy into disrepute' with my comedy, I got a phone call.

It was on a Sunday morning and it was a guy called Geoff Whiting who runs Mirth Control. I'd done a comedy course with his people six weeks before and Geoff had liked my act. He thought being a minister and a comedian was a great unique selling point.

Now Geoff's a bit of a chatty type—and a very entertaining one, being a comedian himeself—and even though we hardly knew each other he was off like a train so it took a minute or so to get to the point.

Which was that he'd been asked to act as a talent scout for Britain's Got Talent and had given them the names of eighty comedians he thought might be of interest to them.

They came back to him for contact details of fifteen of them. And I was right in there. I was to be shortlisted for the televised auditions before the judges (there are generally two previous auditions) and pretty much guaranteed a spot.

Thames TV got in touch within 24 hours. As a matter of routine, they asked for a video audition tape but the researcher said 'my producer has seen your YouTube video and was falling about laughing. We want you on the show.'

I can't tell you how much that meant to me. Yes, you can be all snobby and all 'bleah—I loathe Simon Cowell-y' and 'yeuch, reality TV-y' but if you are looking for a reason to get up in the morning and to start the fight of your life, trust me, something like this is a Godsend.

And, strangely, I had attracted it. I'd written The Miracle Man all about a Simon Cowell-type figure who became the Messiah of the modern day so I'd immersed myself in X Factor and America's Got Talent for research.

So, on difficult nights I started to visualise what that two-and-a-half minutes in front of David Walliams, Alesha Dixon, Amanda Holden and Simon Cowell would be like. And when it came to pass, it was just as much fun as I imagined it would be.

21. Laying Ghosts

I'm in London for three weeks for intravenous vitamin C therapy. And I am laying some ghosts.

Some of those ghosts were ones I laid before they were ghosts - in fact most of them. But no matter how those dream lives ended, and no matter how long ago they were, the memories are still deeply poignant. Today I've been drawing them out by walking streets familiar to my heart while listening to the music that was in my life at the time.

It's like deep-cleansing of wounds. It doesn't hurt; it's just emotional. But yes there have been tears, very cleansing tears.

I'm having the vitamin C therapy daily in Stamford Hill. Dr. W introduced my second husband (whom I'll call Jay) to Warren Kenton and Kabbalah and was very much in our lives at that time. What synchronicity it is that, when we were looking for somewhere to help with vitamin C, Lion found someone who was actually a friend of mine 20 years ago. He was a founder doctor with the Penny Brohn Cancer Centre (Bristol Cancer Centre) before moving back to South Africa. We lost touch but oh, what a joy to find he was exactly where I needed him to be. And to talk healing with him rather than trying to explain to a regulated, non-holistic medical doctor.

To get to Dr. W's we drive along the A1 through Stoke Newington ... Blackstock Road, Brownswood Road, Lordship Park, Queen Elizabeth Walk, Arbour Court... And I look out of the window and see young woman with tumbling red-brown curls getting off the bus. She's back from a shift at Capital Radio and walking home to her new husband full of news and happiness. She has no idea (how can she have?) that sixteen days after their first wedding anniversary, she will be a widow.

I watch her, seeing how unconfident she is of her talent as a radio reporter. I tell her how incredibly brave she is and how she will not only survive the terrible year ahead but find new life and love again.

With Dr. W, I talk of the emotional reasons behind cancer. He has also recovered from a malignant disease using only natural methods so he has experience as well as information. He nods and holds my hand and says 'you've got it - you know exactly why and what to do. Look at you - I've never seen you look so well and happy. Well done, well done. You can do this and I'm right here with you. We will do it together. I'm so glad God brought us back together. We must not lose touch again.'

And he tells me how just that morning, he had a phone call from a man with exactly the same diagnosis as mine. He took the RChop chemotherapy that I refused; it failed and now he has been given three months to live. He too is coming for intravenous vitamin C to see if it can be turned around but his immune system is shot to pieces. It's possible but...

Later, after the treatment, I take the tube down to Kings Cross where my Uncle Geoffrey died in the fire of 1987 and I stand a moment in front of the plaque commemorating the dead, remembering the black haired, jolly man who would swing me round in his arms as a child. Here's more on that story and its own particular synchronicity.

And then I take the Northern Line to Tufnel Park and walk up to Dartmouth Park where I'm staying with my friend and homeopath, Diane ... and where Jay and I lived for the last nine months of our marriage. I've re-built that area in my mind by making it the home of Josh, the much-loved hero of my novel, The Miracle Man, and I love it very deeply.

As I browse for a bottle of wine in what used to be George's Londis store (for Diane, not me - I'm not drinking now), I see the ghost of Jay walking past on the other pavement and, again, hear him saying into his mobile phone, 'Don't worry, darling, she's gone. We can be together now.'

And I walk along to the basement flat that we shared ... and see a woman surrounded by five dear friends and colleagues who are helping her move out of the flat. She's short-haired now, fatter and has a strained look and crow's feet. Well it's not surprising—she's feeling like an old mattress thrown out on the street. But just as the younger me didn't know her future, neither does this woman have any idea that one of those friends - a young woman called Karen - is considering her in depth.

Karen's mother had died three years before. As her father walks her home that night, she says to him, 'You've known Maggy quite a while now, haven't you?'

He answers, 'About six years.'

'Do you like her?'

'Yes. Very much.'

Karen takes his hand. 'Dad,' she says. 'I like her too. I really like her. When she's feeling better, why don't you ask her out?'

Her father, my Lion, did just that.