Paul O'Grady: 'I love all my animals, even the geesestapo!'
The radio and TV presenter who made his name via his drag act Lily Savage discusses life as a country bumpkin, his ever-growing brood and his very persistent elderly fans
When Paul O’Grady bought an isolated smallholding in the depths of the Kent countryside, complete with a barn, outbuildings and even its own wood, he confessed that not everyone was convinced he’d be suited to rural life.
After all, to the public at large he was known as his drag-act alter ego Lily Savage, a chain-smoking, harddrinking, peroxide-blonde Scouse bombshell. “When the villagers first heard Lily was moving in I think they were horrified,” he laughs with that distinctive 40-a-day cackle. “I think they had a vision of me riding through the fields all in black on the back of a coach with a whip and a gang of happy hookers in the back.”
Eighteen years later, however, the 62-year-old is a confirmed country bumpkin, so much so that he has even written a book about his experiences. Paul O’Grady’s Country Life is partjournal, part memoir and part gentle homage to the joys of pastoral living, albeit with flashes of the comedian’s trademark acid tongue.
On one page he describes enduring one of many power cuts: “It gets dark around four o’clock down here and this leccy better bloody well be back on before then as I’m not sitting here in the bloody dark with a couple of candles like one of those Brontës.”
When the villagers first heard Lily was moving in I think they were horrified
Perhaps even more surprising than O’Grady’s status as a countryphile is his enthusiasm for harvesting the fruits of his land: the book contains numerous recipes as well as sections on growing herbs and vegetables and chapters on ancient country lore.
“The thing is, you have to embrace it,” he explains. “And when you grow stuff you always grow too much.
“I hate waste so if I’ve got a wheelbarrow full of tomatoes it’ll be tomato this, tomato that, tomato soup with everything for a while.
“It used to be that I’d walk through a garden centre and everything would wilt in my wake. So when I eventually successfully grew something I was like, ‘My god! It actually worked!’ I’d go out every morning and talk to the plants, ‘How you doing? Still alive?’
“Now I’m churning out jam like Hartley’s. And the daft thing is nobody I know even likes jam. So I’ve got loads of jars of the stuff just lying around. It’s like when I’m milking the cow. Anyone near will get a pint thrust in their hand whether they like it or not. ‘Drink it! Drink that milk!’”
It’s all a far cry from the hardas-nails character that first made O’Grady famous. Lily Savage was the very epitome of working-class inner city life.
O’Grady himself was brought up in the rough streets of Birkenhead and after leaving school at 16 took a series of low-paid jobs while struggling to make it on the comedy circuit. Eventually, in the mid-1980s, he secured a residency at the Elephant and Castle pub in south London, where finally Lily’s act, which was notable for insulting the audience as much as anything else, took off.
In 1991 he was nominated for the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival and from there launched Lily’s TV career, most memorably as presenter of the revived Blankety Blank. A decade later, aged 45, O’Grady retired Lily.
“Putting all the gear on, it was getting too much,” he says now. “I remember sitting in a dressing room all dolled up. And I was watching two mice play with a Malteser and I thought, ‘I’ve had it. I’ve got to do something else’.”
The result was, on the face of it, a complete reinvention: out went the filthy-mouthed drag act and in came the animal-loving presenter of programmes such as For The Love Of Dogs and Animal Orphans. The career change also coincided with his move to Kent.
Before relocating he had been living in central London but, along with manager and partner Brendan Murphy, O’Grady embraced the idea of a quieter, rural life… even though the reality was often very different to any Darling Buds Of May-type visions he might have had. “When I first moved in I thought, ‘I’m going to keep a journal,’” he says. “And of course that barely lasted past day one. So you’ll have a whole diary for a year and all I’ll have written is, ‘Pipe burst in bathroom, ceiling fell in, f*** it’.
“There’s a real learning curve to living in a rural community. I wake up some mornings and open the curtains and there’s a thick fog and it is freezing and I’ve got to get out and feed all the bloody animals and the boiler’s packed in again, the electricity’s gone, the oil man can’t get out.”
Paul O'Grady reveals hilarious animal stories
He laughs. “It’s all part of the fun, though, isn’t it? I wouldn’t want it to be plain sailing, to tell you the truth. I look at magazines like Country Life and just groan. My place is like the Dingles from Emmerdale. For the first year we had a couch that was so knackered you had to crawl on to the floor to get off it.”
And most importantly, having his own land meant O’Grady could finally give free rein to his love of animals. In his two decades in Kent his home has expanded to include sheep, pigs, goats, donkeys, ducks, “a deranged cow”, chickens, geese (he has nicknamed them “the Geesestapo”) and barn owls, as well as his beloved dogs.
“I’m always being asked, ‘How many animals have you got?’ But I can’t stop. I was down in Battersea yesterday and this dog comes in, she was dumped on Hampstead Heath on bonfi re night heavily pregnant. So when she’s had her litter I’m taking her home with me. I can’t help it. It kills me. There’s this pitiful little dog sitting there and I think, ‘How can anyone do that to this poor little thing?’”
But with this love of animals comes the inevitable pain of coping with their loss. So much so that he admits he regularly questions why he puts himself through the agony of caring for them at all.
“It’s hideous sometimes. I can’t stand the heartbreak. When Buster [his Shih Tzu-Bichon Frise cross who regularly appeared alongside him on TV] died in 2009 I was like a grieving widow, honestly. Even when my chickens die it’s utter heartbreak. I’m like, ‘I can’t do this any more. I can’t bear it.’ But the problem is I’m constantly seeing abused animals and I can’t stop myself wanting to help them.”
Further heartbreak came in 2005 when partner Brendan died of a brain tumour aged just 49. However a year later he met ballet dancer Andre Portasio, 37. The two were married this summer and O’Grady professes himself to be the happiest he has ever been.
His professional life has also never been busier: with For The Love Of Dogs currently airing on ITV, he has also just returned from filming in India for a programme about the plight of animals there. He has been awarded an MBE for services to entertainment and his Radio 2 Sunday night show continues to excel in the ratings. “It’s all a bit strange,” he says, “These days I’m constantly grabbed in supermarkets by old ladies – and they haven’t half got a vice-like grip. They get you by the wrist and you’re trying to shake them off and they’re holding on for grim death. But it’s also kids wanting my autograph because of the animal programmes.
Tom Hardy on Paul O'Grady - For the Love of Dogs
“If you think back to the early days of Lily, those people would not have been my fans! I’d have been like a pariah. I mean, oh my god, this bit of rough standing up in a gay pub dressed as a prostitute, telling the fi lthiest jokes… and now I’m reading out letters from octogenarians on Radio 2!”
Speaking of Lily… with O’Grady’s metamorphosis into national treasure just about complete is it safe to say we’ve seen the last of the potty-mouthed old girl? There’s a distinct twinkle in his eye as he considers the question.
“I must confess I did wheel her out as a wicked stepmother in panto with Julian Clary a couple of years ago. I came on in a Gestapo car trailing fake furs. That was great fun. And if they do another one next year I’ll do it. But that really will be Lily’s last hurrah.” He laughs again. “The last kick of a dying horse – it’s how she would want to go.”
To order Paul O’Grady’s Country Life, published by Bantam Press at £20, call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562310. Or send a cheque or postal order made payable to The Express Bookshop to: Paul O’Grady Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, Cornwall, TR11 4WJ or visit expressbookshop.co.uk UK delivery is free.