Kylie Minogue has a very determined handshake. The pocket sex bomb – 5ft 1in and one of Australia’s biggest exports – stands up with out-of-bed hair and exerts a surprising pressure on the hand. Surprising in view of the fact that she is just about to talk about her nervous breakdowns. She has had two, the first in 1988, the second shortly after – both at the height of her popularity.

‘I don’t normally talk about them. When I think about it, it was quite amazing that I was just 20, and to have had so much stress and to have been in that kind of position, it angers me. There were so many people just thinking about themselves and really only thinking of me as a product, not a person. They’d forgotten that I had to go home to sleep and eat and to be able to think properly.’

There was a stage, she says, when she couldn’t turn on the radio or TV without hearing about or seeing herself. ‘And none of it was nice. As much as the people closest to you can say, ‘I understand’, they never can unless they’ve been in that position themselves.

‘I felt very lonely and I thought no one would understand what I was talking about. I got to a point where I couldn’t make sense of it any more. I was so mixed up and jumbled, I couldn’t even work out why I was angry.’ She says she didn’t take medication or seek psychiatric help. ‘I relied on family and friends. Normally I work and work until I fall over, and I needed someone to say, ‘You can let these people down’.’ And later: ‘For people who think that it’s easy and that I click my fingers and something happens, I would love them to to spend just a month with me and see what they think.’

It is easy to see why she feels so confused. In 1990, BBC/Smash Hits Awards voted her Worst Singer, Worst Dressed Person and Second Most Horrible Thing In The World.

How did that feel? ‘I wonder what was the first most horrible thing! Sometimes I’m voted best – sometimes worst. Oh, I don’t really know what to think.’

Can this really be the confident Charlene from Neighbours? The child-woman who made it into the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest female soloist to have had a No 1 British album; the singer who is about to release Let’s Get To It and has already sold out the first night of her October Wembley Arena tour?

Yes, indeed, but this Kylie is a woman in transition. A couple of years ago her audience would have been composed mainly of 10-12-year-olds. Now her fans have changed. She attracts more of the teenagers to mid-thirties, plus a big gay following.

The Kylie I met was getting over flu. ‘Today I feel old,’ she groans. She doesn’t really like interviews. ‘Because you’re meant to have an opinion on everything and to know yourself and be able to tell someone what you think in five seconds.’

She is vulnerable and indecisive. Ask about her character and she admits to being ‘very changeable and quite insecure’. In some ways – in terms of responsibilities – she seemed far older than her 23 years, and in others she seemed a child. Initially I found her really hard going and then I warmed to her. She’s a professional, and she really wants to be liked. She says: ‘I may not be secure or appear to be that strong, which may be partly to do with the way I am built . . . but to have lasted this long . . . If I were wimpish I would have stopped four years ago, as soon as I was getting criticism, or as soon as the workload became too much. I do have an inner confidence.’

She can’t be as stupid as her image – nobody could. Listening again to my recording of what she has said, she’s not dim-witted. Yet she presents herself as unfocused and unintelligent.

A few years back, the Press were wondering whether she was anorexic. Newspapers watched her food habits closely. One day she stood up at a Press conference, leaving behind a loaded plate of food. ‘What about all the starving Africans?’ yelled an oik from a tabloid. ‘Name two,’ she reposted. That was smart and snarly.

Today she wears black tights, a scooped T-shirt and a mauve skirt with a hem somewhere up by her knickers. She has the perfect bubblegum pop, reedy, flutey voice and a fairly enduring, dancing around, ‘showbizzy’ personality. She’s not a material girl. More of a guileless girl.

For most of the interview she reacts as if she is being interviewed by a male – all those smouldering looks and sexy body language. Now she’s putting her finger in her mouth. Now she’s cupping her head in her hand, exhaling orgasmically, and talking really slowly like some bimbo on Mogadon, with gaps between her words that are big enough to make a bed in. The whole sexy bit is an act, and she hasn’t yet learned when to switch it off. What was her childhood like? ‘Very normal,’ she says, and then goes on to say that she moved ‘about five times throughout my schooling years. Once I got so distressed and didn’t want to leave’. She says she didn’t have pushy showbiz parents – her father was an accountant. Yet she started her acting career aged 11. ‘When I was 16, I was working on TV and had a tutor on set.’ She regrets not having gone to university. What would she have read? ‘Read?’ she says, quizzically. ‘Read?’

She is the eldest of three children. Dannii, her sister, is over here singing too. One imagines sibling rivalry. ‘Not really, we are very helpful to each other. We are very different. If we were similar, that would cause a lot of problems. What she likes in clothes is probably not what I would like, so we are different enough to retain our separate identities.’ In terms of character, Kylie is most like her mother. ‘I find myself doing or saying things, and a split second later thinking, ‘My God, that was so much like my mother.’ I don’t know whether I like that or not.’ She says she feels ‘mushy’ saying it, but her family are so important to her. Who is she closest to? ‘I would say I’m Dad’s girl,’ and there’s a touch of Marilyn Monroe in the way she says it.

She is quite down to earth and wary of her superstar status. ‘I don’t like the judgments and preconceived ideas that people have. They expect you to be larger than life and live up to their every fantasy.’ She’s proud that she has forged her own identity. ‘People can only manufacture you to a point.’

Does she think she deserves to be a superstar? ‘There’s a bit of accident and luck. For every superstar – I don’t really like calling myself that – there are probably 1,000, I mean 100, well maybe 20 people who could do the job just as well.’

She finds it ‘a bit frightening’ – the idea that there are millions of homes playing her voice. She says she doesn’t know what it is that makes her famous. ‘I prefer not to know – if I were aware of it, there’s a good chance I would mess it up.

‘It’s scary that you’re only as good as your next single or video. And you feel insecure because you’re not sure whether you’re impressing this person or that. I’m certainly not my ideal physically. I won’t say what I’d like to be. Part of my job is about trying to cover up those insecurities.’ Trying to be someone she’s not, perhaps. And is she sexy? ‘I’m sexual. I’ve never said – thank God – that I’m sexy or raunchy or anything.’ The love affair is over with INXS singer Michael Hutchence, the man who has gone on record saying he’d taken drugs, experimented with heroin, and would like to have sex all day. The tabloid common sense is that he inspired all the changes in her life, turning Ms Clean into Ms Raunchy. ‘It annoys me that people think that it was just because of him.’

She has a new boyfriend but is reluctant to talk about him. ‘It’s nice and old fashioned.’ Does she have problems with intimacy and maintaining a long-term relationship? ‘I think relationships are difficult, because you have to work at them. And I’m travelling so much. But I’m not bad at them.’ Her ideal man – ‘I hate this question’ – would have to be ‘sincere, intelligent, compassionate, artistic and romantic’.

‘The only certainty about my future is that I want to have a family.’ Ask her about her ambition, and she says when she’s no longer performing, she will be doing some sort of business. She doesn’t know what. ‘I definitely wouldn’t do nothing. That would drive me insane.’ But she could do nothing? ‘I could do nothing – but I couldn’t do nothing and live it up. Maybe if I worked a bit longer I could do nothing and anything I wanted.’ She’s not short of a bob or two. Quite rightly, she says the amount is none of my business. But she admits she’s fairly comfortable for a 23-year-old. ‘Sometimes I would like to be quite frivolous with money, but it’s not really in me. I prefer to be sensible and realise this could end at any time. Money means security to me.

‘In some ways, the more you have the more difficult it gets. Sometimes I’m really envious of friends of mine who have a very simple life.’ What sort of simple life does she yearn? ‘Ooh, er, travelling around the world with a back-pack. Responsibilities drive me crazy sometimes. I guess my decisions can affect a lot of people. It’s like the top of a pyramid and all these people don’t exactly rely on me but want me to make decisions that are best for them, probably more so than what is best for me. I just don’t like having to make decisions. I’m very indecisive.’

Witty and self-mocking man who is married to Dawn French and started on New Faces. Affectionate and straightforward comedian who stars in True Identity and came from a West Midlands Jamaican family.

This is Lenworth George Henry, more commonly known as Lenny Henry. ‘Teachers called me Lenworth when they were cheesed off with me,’ he shrieks, in Roquefort tone. ‘I just think of myself as Len, the ordinary bloke.’

He’s wearing kecks (northern slang for trousers), a shirt by Betty Jackson and Italian shoes. ‘I’m not usually Mr Labels,’ he says, his voice rich and resonant. He used to wear corduroy trousers so massive that he looked like a ship coming down the street. ‘So huge you couldn’t get anybody else on the pavement.’

He stretches his legs out, and they seem to reach the other side of London. What sort of clothes does he like to wear? ‘I like to wear things that fit,’ he replies, hooting with a laugh that reaches the provinces. When he stands up, he seems to reach the ceiling. He’s 6ft 3in. ‘It’s cool being tall. You can always get into pubs without people wondering whether you’re underage.’ He’s 33.

‘When you see yourself on a big screen, suddenly you’re 20 times bigger than you normally are. If you have a big face, you suddenly look like a hippopotamus in Levis.’

So he got into shape for True Identity. ‘I’m big now, but not as big as I used to be.’ He grew up being fed meals so heaped that he says he could only just see over the plate.

He has a genial and lovely face which he pulls into theatrical contortions. He also has big eyes – they are very gentle, honest and alive – and close-cropped hair. ‘Laid-back flat top,’ he dubs his hair style. ‘Sometimes I’m vain. On stage I do lots of posing. I try to be a sex god on stage. But I’m usually a sex god with a shirt that is hanging out.’ In True Identity, he changes the colour of his skin to white to escape the mob. How does he feel about being black? He looks down, with serious expression.

‘I’ve always been aware of where I’m from. I wouldn’t want to be white.’ He sounds cross and defensive, then appears sultry and defiant, fleetingly. Ask him how he rates himself sexually – and he looks gobsmacked. There’s a pause big enough to build a pyramid.

‘Dunno. You’d better ask someone else. Ooh God, this is a cracker. Well, I think it’s got a lot to do with my sense of humour. It can’t be my looks that people like because they’re so odd.’

He is mostly easy going, uncomplicated – one couldn’t imagine him being devious – polite, endearing, genuine and amusing.

How does he see himself? ‘I’m a bit grumpy sometimes. I’m quite a disorganised person. I like to look good, but sometimes I can’t be bothered to be Mr Celeb in a suit.

‘I’m a very good audience, love to hear a joke, am quite gregarious and have quite a lot of friends.’ His friends range from printers to social workers.

He doesn’t know what makes him funny, but thinks it might be something to do with ‘knowing when to go bonkers’. He adopts lots of funny voices and roles throughout the interview. He also laughs at himself. ‘I hope that I’m quite self-deprecating most of the time. I don’t think I take myself that seriously.’

He says he doesn’t feel professional rivalry towards his wife. ‘It’s about being there for each other, not saying, ‘Sorry love, I’ve got a television series to do’.’

Anyone in showbiz must be egotistical. ‘Oh yeah, anyone in this line of business is, whether or not they throw up before they go stage. But I have to believe in what I do because I can’t plumb and I can’t mend cars.’ Does he think he’s gifted? ‘I think I’m jammy, very lucky indeed.’ He comes over as self-confident, balanced and determined. ‘Quite confident, yeah. Actually, I think you have something inside you that nobody else knows about. Deep in your heart, you know that you can do it.’ Later he says: ‘I’m tenacious. But I have my moments of self-doubt, anyone does. But I think you caught me on a good day.’

He was bought up a Pentecostalist and went to church every Sunday from the age of five to 15. ‘I used to be very good in Bible class. I believe there’s a God. And I think He’s like everyone’s psychiatrist. For most people, God’s someone you talk to when you’re in the crap.’

What does Lenny talk to God about? ‘I say, ‘Please make this gag work’.’ His childhood was tough and there is something in his make-up that suggests he is exorcising it by being a workaholic and getting it out on stage.

‘There’s an element of truth in that. It was a very working-class and hard-working home, with both Mum and Dad being at work. There wasn’t any money flying around and we didn’t have day trips to Blackpool. Posh kids could afford to have parents, but we just had a Mum and Dad.’ He went to work at 16. ‘Like being thrown into the deep end of a volcano. I once went to Sunderland and there were three people in the audience and two of them were staff.’

So what is the single most important thing about the character of Lenworth George Henry? Huge laugh. ‘I can’t tell you.’ Another howl. ‘I’m a bit of a groover on the quiet.’

Passionate, proselytising, innovative and controversial managing director of the Body Shop who has just written a manifesto of an autobiography called Body and Soul, which is printed on recycled paper and signed ‘Anita X’. Former teacher turned role model with financial acumen and vision. Enter, powered by very fast and lead-free feet, Anita Roddick – also known as Miss Mega-Mouth.

She’s sitting among her caring products wearing an Against Animal Testing T-shirt and Workers for Freedom trousers, plus Brazilian Indian bangle from a people who now gather nuts for her products – the sort of garb she says she wears for an important meeting.

She exudes enormous energy – she’s constantly picking and fiddling; she finds it hard to sit still – and a fan is stirring everything else up so that the entire room seems to be agitated.

‘I’m manic about comfort. So trousers, flat shoes, never comfortable with high heels’ – she abbreviates to get more ideas into a sentence faster. (Curiously when I see her later at her book launch, she’s wearing an A-line skirt and clumpy high heels.) ‘So what do I tend to do?’ She asks her own question, then answers it. She also often interrupts and starts to reply to a question before I’ve finished asking it.

She has appealing looks: wonderful wild hair, a strong face and deep-brown eyes. (Beauty, according to her tome, comes from an inner energy.) ‘I’m short, with untamed hair and quite good bones. I’ve inherited my mother’s skin. I’m Italian-shaped, dumpy’ – she doesn’t appear to be – ‘low-waisted and with an incredibly mobile mouth.’

At 5ft 2in, she’s yearning to be 5ft 6in. ‘God, wouldn’t you? I mean just being in a crowd for a start, I’m talking to people’s belly buttons the whole time,’ says this mini powerhouse, in an enthusiastic voice born of Littlehampton Italian stock with added American intonations. She speaks lucidly, with a wide-ranging vocabulary and histrionic emphasis; an almost forced energy in her voice.

She is a love child who’s said she is the greatest snogger in the world and that in the Sixties she bonked her brains out. ‘It’s ironic that the more successful I become, the less I’m perceived as sexy. But I’m so sensual,’ she has said.

‘You’re not flirted with and any sexual frisson has gone because you’re in a so-called leadership role,’ she says. ‘I’m constantly told I’m a role model. And when you’re a role model you can’t fart in company and you can’t scratch your bloody nose.’ She doesn’t think she’s sexy. ‘Oooh, absolutely not.’

She says she’s into her husband rather than ‘flesh, flesh, flesh . . . And when you’re told constantly that the world loves you, which I am by my staff, you end up wondering who really does’.

She reckons she bonds better with women and this seems to be a key. She says she feels more mellow and at ease with females, and less judged. ‘I’m getting increasingly less comfortable with men. And I have much more admiration for women.’

And what of her image? ‘I think I’m gentler than I’m seen to be. Every time I read an article about myself, I think I sound so strident. My great sense of humour doesn’t come out. You know, it’s like I want to say, ‘Get off the bloody bandwagon’, sometimes.’

She is not warm, though from the caring image one might have expected her to be, and she is very earnest. She has a single-mindedness – here’s a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it – and a driven quality born perhaps of a sense of loss when her father died when she was a child. She also comes over as rehearsed – she doesn’t really connect, she’s just doing her publicity. But she can laugh at herself, and she’s attractively directed and exuberant.

‘I’m incredibly passionate about some issues. I have a nine-year-old’s enthusiasm and curiosity’ – she has two girls, aged 20 and 22. ‘I don’t think I’m brave. I’m not elegant and certainly not mature. I dislike my impatience. I’m kind, caring, empathetic. I’m beyond self-aggrandisement. I sleep well at night. I’m proud of what I’ve done.’

She’s also Italian. What does that mean to her? Does she feel different? ‘Oh yeah.’ She feels very comfortable with loudness, passion, extended families and colour. ‘I also use it as a guise to get my own way. People excuse you because they say, ‘Oh, she’s Italian’. I use it as an excuse for getting incredibly emotional. And in business, to get your own way, you have to use as many guiles and tricks as you can.’

Is she manipulative? ‘I think I’d do anything to get what I want in terms of my vision for the company.’

She climbs on soap boxes to sell soap. ‘Abso-bloody-lutely right. If anyone thought I’d be doing anything else, they’d be living on another planet. The shops are arenas for social change.’ She is perhaps too earnest. ‘No, I don’t think I’m serious enough.’

She experienced her dark side during the Gulf War. ‘I felt a real abject loneliness then. I felt so isolated. This belief that we’re on the edge of great social change seemed just puffery.’

Why does she interpret nearly all her strong feelings in this sort of global manner? ‘Isn’t there a you that you experience separate and unrelated to these world issues?’ I ask.

‘What separates you is what you do,’ she replies, launching into a dissertation on the difficulties of galvanising support for the unexotic North Sea problems.

Yes, yes, but who is Anita Roddick separate from the Great Causes? ‘When I was 10 years old I was marching for CND. That is the character.’ So what’s the psychological reason for this need to be out there marching and so on? This need for Sixties activism.

‘Maybe it is emotional, I think, I mean . . .’ This is the first time she stumbles in the interview, as if something inside her is touched. ‘At 10 years old, it’s such a raw age anyway, my father died. He was such a wondrous person to me. And I know that the catalyst happened then. ‘I also got hold of a book on the Holocaust. So there was a loss and a shock. These two areas actually combined, emotionally triggering off that enormous anger. A kick-start into wanting to right wrongs.’

She fears death, but says that she no longer feels turbulent. ‘There used to be this sort of panic that went on, this frenetic ‘I’ve got to see more, I’ve got to do more’ feeling.’

And is she dictatorial? (One imagines she might be.) She walks off jokingly, as if to consult her staff. ‘I’m incredibly acquiescent on some things. But in the areas that are to do with the image of the company, I’m a screaming harridan.’ She delivers the line with a conspiratorial hiss to her audience.

And does she like herself? ‘Yeah,’ she says with a dismissive tone. ‘I love myself.’

Hip, controversial and publicity-keen priest who keeps beehives on his roof. Radical, blunt and flamboyant rector with the New Age Disneyland and counselling caravan in his church yard. Passionate man of rousing sermons and woolly sweaters.

Such is the image of the Rev Donald Reeves, the ‘Red Vicar’ and rector of St James’s Church, Piccadilly. He closes the curtains fully against the sun in his rectory study – a room lined with books, most of which he’s read – and asks me to sit in the Bishop’s chair.

He was going to dress specially for this occasion – and then he forgot. So he’s wearing a faded lumberjack-style shirt with missing button, grey trousers and 12-year-old shoes (polished by this former second lieutenant). He also wears a gold chain.

‘I have a problem with clothes because I live in three different places. I often find myself in the wrong place with the wrong clothes.’ He looks massively perplexed and speaks quickly, often emphasising the last word in the sentence. ‘I like to dress casually.’

When the photographer arrives, he changes into priest’s grey shirt and dog collar, ‘otherwise people will think I’m some worn-out headmaster or failed film star’. He reckons people ‘patronise, ignore or disdain’ him in such garb. ‘And I get sick of tourists asking me the way to Stratford-upon-Avon when I’m standing in Piccadilly. (He says: ‘Just turn left at the top.’) They think I’m some sort of unofficial guide.’ Does he like wearing dresses? He looks pensive, raising his eyes to Him Upstairs. ‘I do enjoy wearing a dress, which is what the cassock is. A cassock alb – which is like a white nightdress – covers a multitude of sins. And you don’t have to wear anything under it!’ He laughs. ‘It’s quite an impersonal garment, which is good when you’re taking a service.’ He has a voice that needs no microphone whether in church or cathedral. ‘I’m an actor, really.’ He later admits that preaching sometimes becomes an ego trip; and he loves doing television.

‘My voice is clear, passionate, not parsonical. I hope you wouldn’t think I was a priest by my voice.’ What else would he like people to think he is? ‘Ooh, the editor of the Observer.’ He actually fancies he looks a bit like an exhausted newspaper editor.

He has the face of a haunted ghost, with loads of M shapes engraved on his forehead and dark eyes with circles underneath to match. He appears tired and grey.

‘People always say my face is quite interesting. I eat all the wrong foods all the time, and I don’t exercise enough – but I don’t smoke or drink. (He used to smoke a pipe for effect. ‘That was a dead loss.’) I like my face. My body’s not too bad – I had a good look at it this morning, knowing you were coming to see me.’

He considers his eyes the windows to his soul. ‘Mine look troubled and quite deep.’ And why does he look so anxious? ‘Well, I’ve been through it a bit in my life. Also because of the hidden work I do with people, supporting and encouraging.

‘Of course, the Press always love this thing about my unhappy childhood – so I’ve changed the story now: I had the most marvellous, blissful childhood.’ He had psychotherapy for five years, to help him come to terms with his ‘desultory’ relationship with his family and to develop his vocation as a priest. He’s 57 and proud of it. ‘I feel I’m approaching the prime of my life. That’ll be when I’m about 80 if God allows me to live that long.’ Does he fear dying? ‘I think I’m frightened of a long illness, but I’m not frightened of the actual dying. Not at the moment, anyway.’ He’s a strong character with a delightful sense of humour and seriousness. He comes over initially as rather impatient, with a defensive crustiness that belies his obviously caring nature. (It’s almost as if he overcompensates to protect himself from being ridiculed or patronised.) He has a brusque, angry manner that hides his nervousness. He listens well, being very open to suggestions. And as the interview progresses, he softens – risking his vulnerable, gentle side.

He’s keen to dispel his trendy image. ‘It suggests one’s flippant at a deep level. But I am a passionate, serious man -probably too serious, but not solemn. I care for and bother about the truth the whole time.’ He’s also at pains to change the perception of vicars as those ineffectual, nice-to-everybody people who dodder through television programmes.

‘I’m not a do gooder or a sensitive, caring wimp – but I am thoughtful about people who are in a mess.’ Indeed, he’s doing a dedicated job, lots of good works, and has boosted his ailing congregation and placed his church on the map.

Is he the Red Vicar? ‘That’s absurd. I’m more to the Left than the Right – but there’s not much difference between the two now.’ The image, he says, came about because Ken Livingstone and Tony Benn spoke at St James’s. ‘But so did Norman Tebbit.’

And is he controversial? ‘I don’t seek it, but it is inevitable if you do the sort of things I do. Occasionally, I go over the top.’ And is he the loony vicar? ‘Well, they thought Jesus was pretty loony.’

So how would he describe himself? ‘I like my clarity about issues, my passion for people, my generosity and my imagination. I’m not in the least jealous of other people’s success – that’s a God-given thing. The more they prosper, the more pleased I am. I also regard it as a deep privilege to be of use to people who want to share their lives with me in some way. ‘My weakness is that my judge of character is sometimes questionable. I always see the best in people, even the rascals. And I’m also very impatient about meetings – there’s an ecclesiastical disease where people seem to need to have meetings about everything from collecting harmoniums to dead cats.’ Is he impatient? ‘What!’ he says, yet again. (Is he deaf? Certainly there’s an abruptness there.) ‘No, I’m not deaf. It’s just that I’m having to think on my feet. But I do suffer from tinnitus. I have a sort of impatience. I get very fed up with busybodies who criticise my work here. And I get really angry with rich, mean people.

‘I also get very angry about the lies that go on in religious circles and about the lack of truth in politics.’ Is he a hypocrite? ‘Oh, all the time. I think religious people are. I always say to people ‘do as I say, not as I do’.’ For example, he disapproves of private property. ‘But I have a house.’

Curiously, he comes over as rather hard. ‘I know I can be intimidating. People are frightened of me. I don’t like that. But it’s my armour. I’m strong, articulate and clear, but there is also a very private side of me that hardly anyone sees.

‘Inside, I think I have a longing to be comforted, to be held physically and emotionally.’ His face changes extraordinarily as he says this, becoming vulnerable and boyish. ‘There is a little boy inside me and I want to safeguard that inner child and prevent him from being squashed.’ He never married. How does he regard himself sexually? ‘I don’t’ – he stutters -‘think about this subject much. Because there’s not much to say about it. I’d call myself celibate, but I’m not a grim, ascetic, dismal person. I don’t want to talk about my sexuality . . .

‘Well, yes, there have been times when I’ve been lonely, but they grow less as I get older. I know a lot about friendship. But I think we go on too much about sexuality and personal relations. It’s one of the idolatries of our society.’

How long has he been celibate? His voice goes low. ‘Twenty-something years – I don’t know. No, it’s not for religious reasons. It’s really to do with my personality. Maybe it’s a sort of fear. I’ve often been quite frightened of a close relationship like that. I had them when I was much younger, but I’m fearful of them.’

People used to call him Agony Reeves. ‘I’m always agonising about things, worrying about them. But I’m not unhappy. I think I’m an integrated person.’

She’s the woman with flair and ability who flags down dustcarts when she can’t find a taxi. The lady who founded the Open Space Theatre, ran the Roundhouse and reckons she looks as old as God. And the guile-filled former thesp and erstwhile parachutist who is bringing the Ninagawa-directed play Tango at the End of Winter to London.

Enter top producer Miss Thelma Holt, the only female theatre producer in the West End at the moment.

We’re sitting in Ivor Novello’s bedroom, next door to Thelma’s office – wherein sits her assistant, Sweet Pea. She has her feet upon the bed. She’s wearing what she calls a pale brick sack – a Thirties dress that she didn’t pay for. ‘I prefer to barter. I swapped it for my two black lace ones with a friend who used to be a costume lady in the theatre,’ she says, nicely spoken. It’s the voice of a former actress – confident and convincing sounding.

She wears an artfully arranged flowery and glittery scarf – ‘it’s to cover hair that is filthy and scrunched up’ – perfect make-up and feet that are au naturel. Urban gipsy gear. What do her clothes reveal about her? ‘That I’m a slut’ – she giggles and slits her eyes. ‘But seriously, that I like Thirties stuff.’ In the Sixties she wore men’s suits; in the Seventies she was into junk clothes.

The initiated can tell a lot about her from her bohemian garnet earrings. They’re her birthstone. ‘I’m a goat – which means I’m tenacious and hardworking. They’re also ambitious and bad tempered – which I’m not.’ She moves into position number four – legs curled under her – in as many minutes.

She’s 5ft 4in with a pixie face, feline eyes and thin lips. ‘I’m small and dumpy,’ she says. ‘And I have very nice hands and feet.’ She says – 59 at Christmas – that she’s got used to her looks over a long time. ‘I like my hair, it’s very thick. And I’ve got good bones, don’t you think?’ She played a naked Lady Macbeth in the Sixties. ‘I was two stone lighter – I wouldn’t want to play one now. Yes, I enjoyed it. I didn’t mind being naked on stage. It wasn’t the first time – I was always naked. Everyone was naked in the Sixties.’ She simply imagined she was 12, felt vulnerable, and had no feelings of discomfort.

She moves her body again, leaning back deep and relaxed. ‘I move a lot. I’m only ever still in theatres. Normally it’s an expression of my anxiety that there’s something else I should be doing. You might find in 10 minutes that I lie down!’

She comes over as educated, strong, very clear, decisive and with incredible poise. She’s also rather daunting, very hard and tough, not at all the engaging eccentric I’d imagined. She seems an angry person, certainly today. And she’s very much the one in control – probably very manipulative and with eyes that flash challenges.

How does she see her character? ‘I’d like to be more tolerant – I don’t suffer fools gladly. I’m not resentful and have never experienced envy in my life . . . so I like helping people. I have a deep deep fear of mediocrity. ‘I feel terribly misunderstood – what I am and what I appear to be are very different.’ She reckons she’s not easily read. ‘I think people think I’m a lot tougher than I am. They misjudge my seeming confidence. But the truth of my real personality not being like the one I project is that I have an ulcer.’

And what of the slightly dotty, eccentric image? She says that hitching a dustcart late at night – when there was no other available transport – was nothing but practical. ‘But I suppose I do have my little eccentricities – like I have no doors in the flat, just curtains. The cat prefers it that way.’

And is she like her cat? ‘Ooh yes, I’m very cat-like. I look a bit like a cat. I walk alone the way they do. I don’t know if I’ve become like my cat – or my cat like me . . . but we’re both affectionate and tactile.’ They differ on the excitability stakes. ‘She’s excitable – but I never am in a crisis. I tend to think that where I’m not, chaos is.’

Toughness and confidence show in her face. ‘Nooo . . .’ (little girlie voice) ‘I think I look rather anxious and like a worried mouse – but you’re proving what other people also say to me. My assistants sometimes say, ‘It’s time to bring on the Big Gun’. For me to turn rough with someone. It amuses them ‘cos they think I’ll carve someone up – but it always amazes me that I can do that. I don’t think I do at all. I mean I never shout and I don’t think I’ve got a particularly nasty tongue.’

And is she as strong as she appears? ‘Yes, I am strong. You can rely on me – I won’t let you down.’ She says one shouldn’t be responsible for other people’s well-being if one’s not strong. ‘The weak may inherit the earth, but they won’t run the theatre.’ And mischievous? ‘I suppose so’ (little girlie voice again). And cunning? ‘Yes,’ she says, definitely. And what does she do with her anger? ‘I’m like the Jewish grandad. When people make me really angry, I just make them disappear from my memory.’ And what of her weaknesses? ‘My greatest failing is to expect from other people the same depth of commitment as I give. If I don’t get it, I get hurt – and I’m not nice then. I’m bitchy. But I never look for revenge. I expect God to do it for me – and he usually does.’

She wanted to be a priest as a child, for the frocks and ritual rather than because she was a good Catholic. But she still lights a candle for every new play. ‘I pray every night and morning.’ She also believes in the power of positive thought. ‘I think negative thought is harmful, dangerous.’

She has been thrice married. She loves getting wed, but finds it harder staying thus. After one wedding, she ended up in the bath with her gay brother-in-law. ‘Oh, he was only a brother-in-law – and he was only a baby,’ she says, in mock affronted fashion (he was 26). She has also said she wed her last husband ‘for his legs’. The marriage lasted six weeks. What’s her problem with staying married? ‘Because I keep going away. I have tunnel vision. When I’m working, nothing else matters. And I’m not at all domesticated.’

She also finds it hard when the time comes for the relationship to change. ‘The man has always been the more mature one, even though my last husband was a lot younger than I. They expect the love affair to grow into a mature relationship – and I expect it to go on being in a play-pen. And when it ceases to be playful, I go off.’

How important is sex to her? ‘Well, have you ever met an unsexy goat? They’re terribly sexy, goats – awful, oversexed. I like sex. My generation was enormously promiscuous. Certainly I enjoyed promiscuity. And if I hadn’t, I would have said I did! I like to conform a bit.’

Direct and honest Streatham-living subject of Personal Services. Money-mad erstwhile madam who will perform an Afternoon of Innocent Cyn at the Edinburgh Festival.

Celebrated former brothel-keeper who used to hate going to bed on her own and now does after-dinner speaking. Sex-fascinated woman who threw the famous luncheon voucher parties and would like to be Minister of Brothels or an agony aunt.

This is the image of Cynthia Payne.

Does she believe in God? ‘I’m a Spiritualist more than anything. I’ve been going to Spiritualist meetings off and on for 25 years. But I’ve never really had any proof of life after death.’ And is money important to her? ‘Yes, because I become very insecure without it.’

She’s wearing a leopard-skin print dress and black high heels. ‘I’ve always dressed a bit like the Queen Mum really. Go on, next question.’ She speaks in a cockney voice with a hard edge; a voice that failed at elocution lessons and which she calls racy and on the common side.

‘I like leopard skin and Loony Party colours because I go around to different elections with screaming Lord Sutch ha ha.’ She says ‘sex’ and ‘money’ – her characteristic trick – to produce a smile for the camera. ‘I’ve also got three nice fur coats. But I can’t wear them because I do a lot of animal campaign work – and you can’t wear a lovely fur coat when you’re doing that.’

She dons a tartan jacket and skirt to buy the groceries. She also comes equipped with elegant earrings, necklace and amethyst and diamond ring. ‘During the day I look very much like an ordinary Streatham woman. You’d never think I was a retired brothel-keeper if you saw me in the shops in my brogues.’

So how would she describe herself physically? She’s short with big boobs and wears a Margaret Thatcher-ish wig. ‘I wear all different types of wig . . . I’ve forgotten the question now . . . Oh yes, I am plump, but I’ve always had a nice pair of legs.’ She lets rip with a dirty laugh. ‘I’m busty, aren’t I?’ There is also a beady toughness in her eyes. ‘What would I change? Well, what woman doesn’t want to improve her body? I’d like to knock a stone off, but I’ve got no willpower. My outlet is eating.’

And what about sex? ‘Oh, everybody wants to know about my sex life!’ She gives another huge dirty laugh. ‘I’ve never found it embarrassing to talk about sex. I’m just fascinated with it. I understand men . . . ‘But English men are so inhibited, aren’t they? I find that I have to do all the running. Even more now that I’m infamous.’ She clearly gets on better with men than women – and both the male photographer and the taxi driver melted visibly in her presence. Does she think she’s sexy? ‘I suppose I could be with the right man.’

So what sort of man would she like? ‘Somebody like Inspector Colin White what raided me. Every time I had a raid, I got a police boyfriend out of it. I find policemen and firemen very attractive. But weak men seem to be attracted to me – which is annoying.’

For 25 years she had a ‘slave’ who idolised her and cleaned for her. ‘But I seem to fall in love with the wrong men – men who don’t give two hoots about me, really. Of course that hurts me.’

And does she feel shame about the things she’s done? Any hang-ups? ‘No, naaah, no. Other people have the hang-ups. I told a vicar recently that if there’s a heaven, I’m going there. I even went to an S and M party the other day – I thought I couldn’t be the Sex Goddess and not go to one – I found my parties were very tame by comparison.’

She’s 58. ‘Oh, I hate getting older – because I want to do it all over again.’ (Another dirty laugh.) ‘When you’re young you’ve got your life in front of you, you can be optimistic – but I’m not so optimistic now.’ I like and feel sorry for her and ask whether she feels sorry for herself. ‘No, but I feel sad that all this happened to me.’ She makes big efforts to be entertaining and fun. But this sense that she is tired, sad and disillusioned recurs frequently during the interview.

Is she? ‘No, naaah, no. I’m tired because I’ve been up since six. I do feel that I’ve had it all, that I’ve done everything. But I wouldn’t say I was disillusioned. I suppose I feel I’ve fulfilled my ambition – I’ve always wanted to be famous because as a child I was always seeking recognition and never getting it. But fame’s not all it’s cracked up to be – I can’t easily go away for a dirty weekend, for instance, because I’m too well-known.’ Later she says that running a brothel fulfilled a need in her. ‘I suppose for once in my life I felt wanted. But now it’s all stopped I don’t feel useful any more.’ She looks doleful.

So how would she describe herself? ‘Now what was it I said to you in the kitchen? Oh yes. My morals have always been low, but my ethics are high.’ She cackles then pauses.

‘I don’t think I’m prim, but people think I am. I’m kind, soft and tough but not hard enough. I’m tough considering what I’ve been through in life – most people would have had a nervous breakdown. But if anything terrible happens, like when I went to prison, I think ‘right, I’m going to learn from this’. I do tend to see the positive side and turn things to my advantage. ‘My warmth of nature is my most important characteristic. And what don’t I like? Well, I talk too much – but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be me. I don’t know why I do, it’s not even nerves. I’ve always been outgoing. In prison I kept quiet for four months – and it was very boring. The only people worth talking to were the murderesses – because most of them are on drugs in Holloway – who were very hard nuts, but at least I could have a conversation with them.’

The character of a madam is generally portrayed as being quite hard. ‘They always play me as being a tough businesswoman. But to be a successful Madame, I don’t think you can be hard. Men and the girls come to tell you their problems. ‘I think as a madam you understand human nature more.’

Kindly but firm columnist and author with the caring manner who is leaving LBC after 15 years. Pioneer of broadcast therapy with the unshockable ear. Clear, patient and concise Agony Uncle who has written books both on sex and Wagner.

Counsellor who has lived with another counsellor for 18 years and claims to be happily unmarried despite press reports about his love triangle. Man who won an open scholarship to Oxford and then had a drop-out phase cultivating snowdrops and selling apples in Devon.

On the couch today is Phillip Hodson, the unmarried marriage counsellor turned sex therapist turned psychotherapist. HOD-IN, as the registration number on his grey Mercedes estate declares.

He wasn’t specifically dressed for the part, wearing brick-coloured shirt, jeans, jokey yellow-framed specs and metal girly stuff around his neck and finger (a gold chain and turquoise and silver enamel ring).

‘I like jewellery and body adornment – but I worry it’s a bit wimpish.’ He is soft and markedly feminine in his manner. ‘I make a point of it,’ he says. ‘In my work I have to use a lot of the intuitive side of the mind and get away from straightforwardly male, competitive categories.’ And what do his clothes reveal about him? ‘That I ride a bicycle.’ He reckons it wrong to turn up at counselling sessions in tennis gear – so he dons a three-piece suit – but he likes to dress casually.

‘I have to question which I prefer and which is the real me. And I have to say the jeans.’

As a child, he got his parents to write a note to school saying that he suffered from ‘constriction around the neck’. ‘A load of baloney – but I was 11 before I deigned to wear the school tie.’

He sits back in his chair, in front of a feast he has generously provided. He suffered from obesity and then near-anorexia as a child – and he eats noticeably little for lunch.

He’s tall, brown-eyed and reasonably athletic-looking with a glowing complexion and receding hairline. ‘I carried the hang-ups of being a fat child for a very long time’ – he presses his fingertips against each other, and looks in the air to talk. ‘I went from nearly 15 stone aged 15, to 11 stone at 16: from feeling almost totally unacceptable to the opposite sex to being told I was fairly good looking. I didn’t believe that for years.’ He then goes on about his thighs and waist and the proportions of his body – talking without stopping, and answering questions more extensively than anyone I’ve ever interviewed.

He is an interesting man who fancies himself. He’s also truthful, very intense about his inner world – more than in touch with his feelings – and with a rather awkward sense of humour. He is also noticeably keen and leans forward enthusiastically.

Listeners have a fantasy of him. ‘They think I’m a dreadful corrupting fool who only talks about sex on the radio. Most people seem to think I have limitless sympathy, understanding and the patience of a saint. In my personal life, I’m often the complete opposite of the way I am in public, being impatient and quick to react, sometimes without thinking.’ He say he’s feeling a bit rough from the weekend. And that he’s not performing ‘much’ now. ‘But there’s that bit in me that says ‘you don’t want to screw anything up. What I say may be taken down and used in evidence both for and against.’ ‘

He gets more comfortable, and starts to look me in the eyes, when the male photographer arrives. They’re probably (he jokes) doing a bit of bonding, as they say in those circles.

So how would he describe himself? ‘I think fast and like a lot of stimulation and excitement, but I’m capable of backtracking and apologising. I have an enormous amount of energy which is almost a problem – I’ll work at something obsessionally until it’s done and then notice I haven’t slept for two nights. But I am able to relax.

‘I don’t really like change very much – I’m agreeable when someone says ‘do you want to come to the theatre in a month’, but the night before I’ll want to get out of it.’ (There’s a Sixties bit in him that wants life to go with mood.) ‘And I’ve worked very hard to have a unique job – and I like to have a lot of balls in the air at the same time.’

Is he as self-confident as he appears? ‘I find that difficult to answer, in the same way as I’m both extrovert and introvert. I can actually do anything. I can face almost any social situation. But the kind of work I do costs me. I still have a fear of failure.’ And does he think he’s intense? ‘I’m aware of it. It’s almost impossible in this sort of work not to be.’ So how would he describe his condition if he went to a shrink tomorrow? ‘I’d say that my mid-life crisis is defeating me. It isn’t actually – but it’s a struggle, and that’s why I’d be going.’ He’s 45 and says his crisis is not so much a physical thing as a feeling that he’s achieved certain goals that he was working towards. ‘And now I want time off. I’d like time for me.’

He speaks as if he’s broadcasting – a voice that is pleased with itself, slightly hypnotic and with a steadiness of pace. He talks articulately and quickly – and puts on voices, acts and does little role-plays. ‘My speech is leavened with bits of ‘sarf’ London or Oxford English as an ease-making thing.’ But which one’s him? ‘My mother always told me to speak properly. But it’s unfashionable to speak correctly – so I have to bend a bit.’

The former sex therapist had a reputation as a champion lover in his youth. ‘Malicious untruths were written about me. I never said ‘I can’t remember how many affairs I’ve had. You might as well ask me how many restaurants I’ve been to’.’ And, as he points out, even James Bond found himself impotent at Casino Royale.

Has this man, who was one of the first single marriage guidance counsellors, always had an ‘open relationship’? ‘No.’ He and his common-law wife are going to write a book on it. And what are his sexual signals? ‘At the moment, zero . . . But if I see someone I really like, I make it fundamentally and blatantly clear. I might even say ‘come away with me . . . ‘

‘I’m surprised to find that a lot of women like my very bigness.’ How big is he? ‘Ha ha 6ft 1in and very solid. Some people would say thick, ha ha . . . Sexuality for me is very much to do with moods, boldness, daring and imagination – not just appearance. I’ve never been conventionally attractive and people who’re attracted to me aren’t just looking for Mr Beefcake. ‘They like me because I’m very unpredictable and very funny. Humour’s high on the list of what’s sexually attractive. And some people like my big bottom.’

Why did he never marry? ‘The silly answer is because my father told me never to wed. I’m not someone who is over social. I don’t care too much for endorsement by other people. The marriage I have – though not legal – is the sort of relationship I want.’

He looks relaxed. ‘I like myself emotionally and psychologically. I’m on my side.’

Forty-seven years and 19,500 parties after Betty Kenward began writing Jennifer’s Diary in Harpers & Queen, she has handed it over to Sue Crewe, who admits to loving society gossip but, in the column’s tradition, will keep it to herself. She talks to CAROLINE PHILLIPS

SUE Crewe, unattached and the former shopping editor of Harpers & Queen, is taking over from Betty Kenward as ‘Jennifer’ of Jennifer’s Diary in the same magazine. Mrs Kenward, 84 and always ready with a withering semi-colon, has had 47 thrilling years of marvellous chronicling of charming partygoers, dear dear friends, looking radiant and living in a world of silk organza. It is said that the redoubtable Kenward went to 19,500 parties during her tenure and every Royal Wedding since 1944 except that of Princess Margaret. (A palatial oversight.) It was she who covered two consecutive days at the Royal Windsor Horse Show interrupted by a dinner party in Venezuela by Concorde. And there was that incident on the operating table when, minutes before the surgeon drew his knife, she insisted on reading her galley proofs.

As Crewe and I enjoyed a pre-luncheon drink (Nescafe), we looked out at the delightful grounds on the other side of the house which included no ornamental lakes but a few parking meters. Her W11 sitting-room is decorated in shabby Good Taste with a bit of exotic bohemia and brown wrapping paper on the walls. Henrietta, a charming old Kensington High School friend of mine, was staying there, between houses. Crewe also has a ‘tummy-turningly beautiful’ little grey rented cottage in Cumbria.

The relations-in-oil of her first husband, author and foodie Quentin Crewe, glower down from the wall. ‘They’re called the Spoonbills. That’s the Cavendishes’ generic name for other people’s gloomy relations,’ laughs Crewe, 41, nee Cavendish, and granddaughter of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire and second cousin to the present incumbent of Chatsworth. She says things like ‘oh heahverns’, ‘goooodness’ and ‘oh golleh’.

The regal Kenward would have presented the most glorious sight in black pleated dress, court shoes, immaculate coiffure neatly pinned with a large velvet bow and three-strand pearl choker. ‘Do I look all right? I’m very insecure,’ says Crewe, who is resplendent in unstructured gold Nicole Farhi cardigan, flowing burnished almond T-shirt and acorn-kernel trousers plus drop gold earrings.

If one works for H&Q, she reckons, golly, it’s rude not to be brushed and combed. ‘I’m naturally untidy. Some children are born with their nappies round their left ear . . . and I was. The Cavendishes are famously badly dressed. People go into print talking about their awful clothes.’ Her ‘wonderful cleavage’, on which H&Q editor Vicki Woods has gone into print, is not on show. But she is pretty, with lovely eyes, although she thinks she is ordinary. ‘In the first year, I expect I’ll go to absolutely everything I’m invited to. With any luck, I’ll lose a lot of weight. I used to be thin and nervous. Now I’m just nervous.’

She was chosen from 17 applicants for the job. She was approached; it didn’t occur to her to apply. She will take up her post on 5 August, editing her first diary for the December issue.

So how does she feel about taking over from the legendary Kenward? ‘A mixture of excitement, ebullience and trepidation.’ The indomitable Kenward got up at 6am and went to bed at 2am daily. And Crewe? ‘I’m hopeless in the morning. I can’t do anything useful until 11.’ She reckons it a hard act of stamina to follow. ‘She was like Mrs Thatcher.’

But, above all, she feels tickled. ‘I was so proud of myself for getting a career – and now a job!’ She was freelance before. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been employed since I was 19. It’s amazing! I get a pension!’ In addition, and this she finds the astonishing thing, she is going to have a secretary. She won’t have Kenward’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes or maid – she drives a four-year-old Citroen.

It all reminds her rather of that benchmark seven years ago when she got her first mortgage. ‘I thought it was such a grown-up thing to have. I wound down my window by some unknown passerby in Kensington High Street and said, ‘I’ve got a mortgage’.’

Kenward never committed the social faux pas of taking a pencil or notebook to a party – when one was a guest, one behaved like a guest, holding only sherry in one’s perfectly formed hand. ‘I think I’m going to do a lot of muttering into a small tape recorder. I’m very bad at remembering people’s names,’ says Crewe, endearingly.

In front of people? ‘Oh yes. I’m going to say, ‘I’ve got concussion, could you tell me your name?’ ‘ She laughs. ‘The more nervous I get, the more the memory completely evaporates, don’t you find?’

And will Crewe be writing nice things? ‘I see no point in being gratuitously unpleasant. I think it’s much stronger to be enthusiastic. It’s so easy to knock people,’ says Crewe. So she won’t change the style? ‘I’m not saying. I want it to be a lovely surprise when it comes out!’ She giggles.

She grew up at Holker Hall in Cumbria and went to St Marys, Wantage, before having a couple of marriages (the second to now chairman of TV-am news Nigel Ryan) and a couple of children (Nathaniel and Charity), and doing a variety of jobs which included selling sofa covers to the Army and microlights to Turkey.

She also studied dairy (not diary) management at agricultural college. ‘I got a cup for trying hard. But it was awful when I forgot to test the brakes on this bloody great tractor and, of course, we went sailing into the side of a barn.’

She’s a special person, deliciously nice. She’s funny, imaginative and kindly yet assertive. One imagines her easily wounded. She’s straightforward and the remark attributed to her (‘I know I’m getting old because all my friends who were marquesses have become dukes’) was actually said by a friend of hers, tongue firmly in chic.

She’s unsure of herself. ‘I have a very low opinion of myself. Don’t we all? I think English women particularly are not encouraged to look at their talents and gifts. And I was one of the last of a generation of girls not to be educated or trained.’

She is currently romantically uninvolved. And what of her marriages to famous men? ‘It’s a huge privilege to be married to interesting people who achieve a great deal in their lives. It wasn’t only a rare delight, it also made up for my paucity of education. It was 50 times more instructive than going to university.’

And did she prefer one marriage to the other? Quentin Crewe or Nigel Ryan? She snorts with laughter. ‘Both of them told me only to say ‘f*** off’ when you’re asked an impossible question and then nobody prints it. But nowadays they do.’ She hoots again. ‘Of course not is the real answer.’ She says she doesn’t know why either of the relationships broke up. ‘I really don’t know. I think about it a lot. But I don’t think there are any absolutes in love, marriage or divorce. No two-sentence answers to those sort of questions.’

But back to the job. She doesn’t think ‘social connections are the most important thing for the diarist. Connections are like multiple joints that plumbers use. They are no use unless you are a good plumber and you have the pipes’. She considers herself a good plumber, so presumably the parties must be the pipes.

So is she a great party gel? ‘I don’t think the person taking over the diary necessarily has to be a society person or party person. I’m not a mad partygoer.’

She’s interested in the sports or politics, or mating rituals that generates parties. One wonders if she’ll be writing about such Important Sociological Undercurrents. ‘Not necessarily. But I will be aware of them.’ Does she love gossip? ‘Love it.’ And will she write about her friends? ‘Yes.’ She has a huge range of acquaintances and a small group of intimates.

Is Crewe as discreet as her predecessor? ‘I have old-fashioned notions of integrity. And I’m also old enough not to be bullied or coerced.’ So she won’t reveal even the teeniest gaff? ‘Certainly not. I’m a repository for gossip, not a conduit!’

She doesn’t think there’s something a touch anachronistic about writing a compendium of high society’s race meetings and garden parties. ‘High society living it up is an endangered species,’ she smiles. No one works harder than the aristocracy.

Environmentally friendly and forthright presenter of Bellamy Rides Again who would like to be a graceful but tough birch tree. Big cuddly green and adventurous giant who has broken nearly every bone in his body and has a ballet company.

Clever and funny honorary Maori-cum-conservationist who spent 24 days at home last year with a menagerie, his child, four adopted ethnic ones and a wife. Affable and ebullient millionaire naturalist who once went to jail in Tasmania and has written 44 books.

Enter David Bellamy.

He’s foregone his habitual T-shirt and shorts in favour of casual mountaineering gear suitable for the Piccadilly clime. ‘I have 27 pairs of these trousers,’ he says, waving his arms at the garb he’s worn from the North Pole to the tropics. He wears Cornish pastie shoes on his feet. ‘I suppose my clothes show that I’m a pretty sloppy person really,’ he booms, in the voice of a nasal East Ender crossed with an animated cave man. ‘I don’t like wearing suits. I turned up like this at a lunch at the Park Lane Hotel at which I was the guest of honour – and they wouldn’t let me in!’ He laughs. ‘I wanted all girl children so that I could buy them wonderful dresses. So perhaps,’ – hopeful tone – ‘I should’ve been a girl.’ He talks as if he’s imitating himself – and doesn’t, he says, do it as well as Lenny Henry. He speaks to plants in the same way. ‘Just as I talk to people. I say things like, ‘You’re a hairy one for your sort of species’.’ The model for the caricature laughs.

And how would the bewhiskered botanist with the famous broken nose describe himself physically? ‘A moderate wreck,’ says the buffoon who doesn’t have one undamaged vertebrae in his neck.

Does he think he’s intimidating? He’s 6ft 2in with a rugby-toughened frame. ‘Not verbally – but physically, perhaps. Imagine, I have to look at it every morning – that’s why I don’t shave!’ He’s expressive with his body, using it (he later says) as an instrument of music.

And does he think he’s good looking? ‘Sorry!’ (surprised tone). ‘No. But recently I’ve found myself combing my hair before speaking to camera – which is awful. I never used to carry a comb. I’m getting vain in my old age.’ He later alludes to himself as the ‘ugly face other people use to save the world’. Does he think he’s ugly? He looks taken aback. ‘What is ugly? A wart hog is the most beautiful thing to a lady wart hog. And I really don’t think what somebody looks like is important.’

So ask him how he would change his looks. ‘I’d use all my muscles. I went to Pineapple Dance Studio and did a cardiac funk which almost killed me. I wanted to be a ballet dancer until I grew this big.’

I say, jovially, I can’t quite imagine this beefy bloke in a tutu, ho ho. David Bellamy as you’ve never seen him before, ha ha. ‘Males don’t wear tutus – though I have worn them many times at college dances. Do not mock – if there’s one thing I don’t like, it’s mocking. Mock me as much as you like – but don’t mock ballet, it’s far too important.’

He says he’s ‘58 heading for 60′. And what does age mean to him? ‘Desperate. I hate being old. I don’t want my end to be tranquil and wonderful – I want to go out with a bloody great bang. If ever I get to the stage when I cannot do all the things I want to do, I’m going to chuck myself off the Himalayas. I know exactly the place.’

He comes over, however, with an infectious enthusiasm, charm and immense energy. He is excitable, with a dry wit and greatly likeable. He is also clearly a sensitive, shy man who suffers from self doubt.

So how would he describe himself? ‘Oooh, I don’t know. What a terrible question! Bloody minded,’ he says, in a thudding way. He then talks slowly, with lengthy pauses. ‘Abrasive but not misguided. I think I’m 99.99 per cent honest. I try too hard sometimes – because the world’s in a bloody mess. Also I’m a baby sometimes, ‘cos I don’t like being kicked by my own side . . . I’m a big softie. I’m the Andrex toilet paper that isn’t really made from sustainable sources!’

And what does he particularly like about himself? ‘Nothing very much’ (long hesitation) ‘but I’m like a little terrier who stays in with his teeth as long as he can – that’s why I’m not retiring.’ And is he happy? ‘Yes, I enjoy everything I do – and if I didn’t, I’d stop doing it.’ He has one helluva impact. What sort of effect does he think he has on people? ‘I’m overpowering if I’m talking about environmental matters or ballet. If they’re talking about anything else, I simply opt out. I can just go to sleep and wake up in five minutes.’

He’s doing live television in front of me – without the cameras. But what’s the difference between his public and private persona? I don’t imagine he talks to his children in this way. ‘I do. I was told ‘when you’re at home be Dad and not David Bellamy’ – unfortunately it’s one and the same thing. I can’t switch it off.’ He says he first turned it on aged 21. So who were you before that? ‘A dispossessed ballet dancer.’

He’s also a workaholic who puts in an 18-hour day. ‘I really find doing nothing very boring.’ He feels such a sense of urgency because he reckoned he was a drop-out at school and that he let his parents down badly. ‘So when I finally got switched on, I’ve been working ever since.’

Such behaviour might indicate a low self-esteem. Certainly there’s a sense that he doesn’t feel he measures up. ‘Yes, it’s very low. I don’t think I’ve lived the sort of ethical life my parents did . . . I’m a worm. But worms are useful – they make soil.’

He talks loudly and blames it on genes. Is he actually shy? ‘Yuh. I still hate using the telephone and I won’t go into shops. The media has done a lot of good for me because I can step out of my shyness and Be David Bellamy, the telly personality. But sometimes I just want to crawl away and disappear.’

Is he intrepid? ‘Yes. I will go anywhere in the world as long as it’s not with nasty people. I’d rather go swimming with Jaws than come up against people.’

So how does he see himself sexually? How does he rate himself as a man? ‘I was immensely lucky. I met someone who could put up with me – with my workaholism, overt shouting and bigoted self opinionism. I found a really beautiful person who wanted to marry me. So I didn’t have to wave myself about all that much.

‘When I was a youngster, the only time you were going to get it was when you got married. Whatever anybody says, sex within a marriage – and I don’t know anything about it outside married life – gets better and better. Not as often – but by God it gets better.’

So what makes him tick? ‘Mars bars.’

Morose and hunky photographer who is compulsively attracted to gun battles and death and was once hit with a shell in both legs. Non-violent, courageous and honourable man who has worked from war-torn Africa to Vietnam armed only with a camera.

Dyslexic, tanned and sinewy co-author of Unreasonable Behaviour. Complex and contradictory character who is exhibiting at the Royal Photographic Society in Bath from 29 June.

Such is the image of Don McCullin, 56 – the John Wayne of Somerset. He’s wearing Docksiders, a lumberjack-style flannel shirt and hair that hits his collar. ‘I wear clothes that are convenient,’ he says, in a hesitant way. ‘I like rolling my sleeves up.’

The strange thing is that he has too many of certain items. ‘Like upstairs I have 60 pairs of new socks. I can’t bring myself to wear them, to take them out of their pristine wrappers.’ As a child, he wore secondhand clothes.

He’s also very neat and tidy – curiously, one of the things he’d like to be remembered for is his presentation – and as we talk, it feels as if he organises things in an attempt to order his inner chaos. (‘Yes,’ he says later, ‘I’m in permanent turmoil.’) ‘It’s to do with lack of confidence, I suppose. And I’m just trying to make up for things I didn’t have when I was a boy. We didn’t have a bath and we shared a loo.’ He is soft, unassuming and modestly spoken. He has the face of a rugged model, kindly with shaggy eyebrows and piercing blue eyes that are sad. ‘Mournful eyes?’ He laughs, and crosses his arms that end in workmanlike hands. ‘They’re what God gave me.’ His is a face that often has trouble at Customs; and in Africa they accused him of being a mercenary. ‘I often think I’m punished for other people’s misdemeanours,’ he has said.

‘I’m not what you’d call good-looking, not the kind of person to attract a second glance in the street. But I do suffer from vanity – and I’m always checking myself out.’

He’s not, he says, any kind of sexual thing. ‘Obviously, one knows one isn’t a sex symbol. I’m sure my appeal as a man is because of my occupation. It’s nothing to do with the way I look. I’ve known lots of beautiful girls – and they’ve all been interested in my work, not me. That’s what I think, anyway.’

He is, he says, yer average 5ft 10 man. ‘But people often think I look surly and don’t want to argue the toss with me . . . I have this strong feeling of confrontation in my make-up. I won’t run away from an argument and I won’t run away from fear.’

Why? His was a savage and underprivileged childhood – his father, an invalid, died when he was young; he was evacuated to violent homes; and he was tormented and bullied by schoolmasters and boys tougher than he. Fear, he says, has been his companion over the last 25 years, and there is a tremendous strain of adventure in him.

He’s overwhelmingly nice: accommodating, sensitive, telepathic perhaps, full of pain and sometimes martyrdom. He says he buttons up his emotions, but he’s actually very emotional. Apparently confused and depressed, he tends to be (in protective manner) self-deprecatory. And one also feels a sense of disillusionment: that his pictures didn’t change the world, partly. ‘A burnt-out and tense old bugger,’ is the way he puts it.

So how else would he describe himself? ‘People think I’m a misery. But I’m not.’ Certainly, he can be heavy-going. He says he’d like to be known for his photos and his fairness. And he then says he’d like people to consider him fun. ‘I bet that surprises you.’ He laughs. But it’s true that there are occasional bursts of humour and happiness.

‘I’m just motivated by intense thought and emotion. I can’t let anything past me without analysing it,’ says the man who compares his eyes to a combine harvester, taking in everything in the field. ‘I’m constantly thinking, like a 24-hour-a-day machine. I’m a kind of captive of my own eyes, mind and body.’

In bed last night, he was counting people. ‘A dozen really nice people I knew who’ve been killed in the last 20 years. And I thought, why them?’ His delivery is placid and there’s something in him that makes you want to mother him.

‘I know this sounds sinister, but the ghosts of those dead people are in those filing cabinets here at night with me. I really believe those pictures in there have some kind of effect on this atmosphere.’

He spends a lot of time alone, here in the house he dubs a private factory of emotion. ‘Yes, I am lonely,’ he flinches at the question. ‘I suppose that’s why I over-clobber this place and spend so much time polishing up. I am burning myself up all the time, I’m on fire. But let’s hope the fire engines don’t get me.’ Vrrrzzzzzooom-the Royal Naval plane from the nearby base screams overhead.

His guilt and conscience weigh heavy. ‘It’s like having two vests on a hot summer’s day.’ He looks bleak. ‘Obviously something nasty is going to happen to me for getting away with all these things’ – like escaping being murdered, photographing dying people and starving children. ‘That’s probably why I look worried all the time.’

That’s also why he works so hard, working to divert himself. ‘As a human being, I’m worn out,’ he says later. ‘I feel as if all my nerve endings are hanging out. I’ve almost been skinned alive, really.’

He’s passionate about his work – ‘I inject a pound of flesh into each picture’ – and inspirational. ‘I love it. And thank God I do, because I haven’t anything else to do.’

Central to his character is a desire to prove and overcome things. ‘I can’t overcome not being able to read the written word properly. But I try to overcome my photography: every night I go to bed and fear my darkroom.’ He’s racked by guilt at leaving his wife, Christine, for former model Laraine Ashton. His wife then died of cancer, ‘and the other person (he doesn’t name her) somehow went off me’. Christine died on the morning of his son’s wedding. ‘If you think I haven’t picked up the bill for this feast of misery over the last 20 years, you’re wrong. I have.’

Does he let people close to him? ‘They don’t get much chance, really.’ He later explains: ‘I’m a social outcast in some respects. People get bored with my downer conversations at dinner parties.’ He also says he’s so emotionally wound-up that he used to drink a lot. ‘And that broke up all kinds of relationships.’

Is he potty? He starts laughing and looks down. ‘I’ve walked a very fine line between madness, hypocrisy and contradiction. I’ve probably crawled through it all and come out reasonably balanced.’

And does he consider himself brave? ‘I’m certainly prepared to go a lot further than most people. But in some ways that’s just folly.’ He holds with destiny and fate. ‘I have looked at myself as some sort of Dalek that is controlled, although I don’t know who’s controlling me.’

And does he believe in God? ‘That’s your most important question. I behave like an atheist. But deep down, I find it hard to believe that this was not all created. Yet when I see people being murdered and men crying in front of me . . .’

The soviet space chief last night launched an extraordinary attack on women astronauts-including orbiting Briton Helen Sharman, whom he described as a loner who ‘works like an iron lady’. CAROLINE PHILIPS talked to the parents of the down-to-earth girl.

WHEN Helen Sharman arrived in the world 27 years ago, she weighed 6lb 12oz more than she does now. Currently weightless, Helen is the first British astronaut in space-aboard the Russian Soyuz TM12 rocket for a journey to MIR space station.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Helen the toddler didn’t let on she might one day be an astronaut. Instead, she said she was keen to become a nurse-like mummy- before she decided to be a doctor and then, of course, a ballet dancer when she took dance lessons aged eight.

What is striking about her childhood is its ordinariness. ‘She was a very normal girl,’ emphasises her mother, Lyndis. ‘It’s just that she’s gone and done this rather extraordinary thing.’

If there was a hint of individualism and unconventionality beneath her stable and composed exterior, it manifested itself in her early teens. When she wanted peace and quiet, she’d climb to the top of the tree in the garden to sit and read a book.

She loved Waltzers and white-knuckle fairground rides. And the signs that she wouldn’t suffer space sickness were good. ‘We could drive 500 miles without a problem,’ says her father, John, ‘while her sister Andrea (now 25) would be sick before we left Sheffield.’

We are sitting in the family home in Sheffield, a detached house in a leafy suburb, to which Helen was taken aged eight. In the sitting-room there are swirly carpets, flowered sofas, patterned walls and a chair which bears a plastic sign which reads ‘recliner’.

We’re drinking tea granules ready-mixed with dehydrated milk. On the mantelpiece stand congratulations cards and photos of Helen in the space capsule. On the table is a magazine cover reading ‘Don’t Dream It, Be It’-a diet magazine.

There are dogs in the kitchen. Helen was interested in animal welfare from an early age. The family kept dogs, cats and hamsters and she became a vegetarian at the age of 15.

Helen, who moved into her own flat when she went to study chemistry at Sheffield University, no longer has a bedroom here. But until she was 18 she shared the large room overlooking the street-now occupied by her brother James, 15, and with multi-earrings in his lobes-with her sister Andrea. Helen had the tidy half, and Andrea the messy one. She didn’t have posters of pop stars, she wasn’t keen on them. Instead she had pictures of animals-particularly elephants.

When she was six, her parents started fostering pre-adoption children, mostly babies: 24 infants who stayed up to four months, including two West Indians. They discussed the idea first with Helen. ‘She thought it tremendous and behaved like an older sister to them.’

There was sibling rivalry. But sensible Helen never competed with the sartorially interested Andrea. ‘She was always the trousers sort, not in the least interested in fashion,’ remarks her father. ‘Whatever was practical and no-nonsense, she wanted to wear it.’ So temperate Helen saved her pocket money and bought only music scores, books and occasional sweets. The news comes on the television-and suddenly there’s her daughter in a space capsule. Live! Lyndis watches it with one finger in her mouth. ‘Oh heavens! Look at Helen’s hair.’ (Appalled tone) ‘She’s got nothing to hold it down.’

If she’s anxious about the safe return of the mission, this mother-who has brought her daughter up emotionally secure and stable-doesn’t vocalise it. As soon as the broadcast finishes, she apologises for having turned away from the interview and recommences talking.

At Jordanthorpe comprehensive school, Helen’s former physics teacher noted that her looks hadn’t changed since schooldays. ‘She still wears her hair in the same style. She’s still physically slight and about 5ft 3in. She was always pale and you wouldn’t have looked at her and said, ‘Ooh, there’s a physical powerhouse’.’

So how do you raise an astronaut? ‘Children need security to know they are loved and the freedom to think for themselves. We’ve always given them the opportunity to do what they want,’ says Lyndis.

‘There was no great discipline-she went to bed when she was tired.’ Helen wasn’t raised particularly to believe in God-but she was confirmed when she was 13, at her own request.

She learned the piano, saxophone and played in the recorder consort; joined the Brownies and Girl Guides; represented the school at hockey; played tennis and badminton and cycled.

She never worried her parents. She never did anything wrong. She was never even naughty enough to have a midnight feast or go somewhere and not tell her parents where she was.

She rarely even got ill as a child-and never once went to hospital. ‘We didn’t,’ concludes John, ‘bring her up. She brought herself up.’ Helen has said: ‘I don’t get upset easily. I don’t get scared. I don’t get depressed, and I fit a lot into my life.’ Recently she has coped with solitude and social isolation in Star City near Moscow. She has displayed an unusual steeliness of character and a streak of emotional toughness. Were there early indications?

‘I always say she got her father’s brains and my insanity,’ says Lyndis. Helen’s father is a college lecturer. ‘Her calm, placid personality and the fact that she doesn’t get easily upset by things developed early. She very rarely flew off the handle. Instead she’d talk it out-she was very grown-up.’

‘She showed,’ says her father, ‘a scientific interest, a logical, enquiring mind and a preparedness to stand her own ground.’

Her grandfather once jokingly asked if Helen, aged two, would like to join him for the weekend. She went. It was just such a streak that manifested itself when she went off cycling in Norfolk with a girlfriend for two weeks when she was 15.

When she was at university, she dug-in her stubborn heels against parental opposition to her having a motorbike. ‘My mother expressed displeasure. But that didn’t stop me,’ she has said. She graduated to a 750cc Suzuki-and did her own repairs.

But the Soviet space commander, Anatoly Artsebarski, has said women do not belong in space; that more work can be done by men; that Helen is a loner who does not fit in well with the crew; and one who has no inhibitions about changing clothes in the presence of the male crew.

‘He’s sexist,’ says John. ‘He once insisted he drive Helen’s car when she was giving him a lift back to Moscow. She refused. And she wouldn’t have been chosen if she were a loner. Part of the selection was to ensure that she could get on with crew members. As for clothes, part of the training involves being taught to make a full change of garments in the capsule.’ Helen is used to an all-male environment. In some A-level classes, she was the only girl. Her former headmaster, Ken Cook-who knew her for seven years-remembers her as a high achiever. ‘But what stood out was her strong sense of justice. She was very respected.’

She would sit at the front of class, always handing in her homework on time. Nine O-levels and four A-levels at grade B-she was bright. She also got a 2.1 at university and has a grasp of six languages. And she got a thrill from watching crystals on her window sill.

Her physics teacher, Paul Pollard, remembers her determination. ‘People were in awe of her. The lads knew she wasn’t to be meddled with . . . she wouldn’t be the prime mover in social outings-but she’d join in.’ Another teacher, Geoff Wilson, recalls that she didn’t have a wide circle of friends. ‘And I was surprised that she opted for Sheffield University when she could have gone anywhere. I think she wanted the cosiness of her family nearby.’ Her best friend was-and is-Philippa Keeling. They stuck together from her first day at school.

And what of her boyfriends? She didn’t dally with those at school. ‘Her last relationship finished 18 months before she even started the selection process for the space mission,’ says Lyndis. ‘She had steady boyfriends-ordinary, likeable, young bank-clerk types.’ A child who grew into a woman of the Right Stuff, really.

International and egghead author of 34 tomes including Handbook for the Positive Revolution and I am Right You are Wrong. Self-contained and quiet Maltese originator of lateral thinking who can write an entire book on the London to Sydney flight.

Visionary and pundit who thinks about thinking, talks about thinking and lectures about thinking. Curious-minded, gentle and clever TV performer who, er, thinks he’s descended from Napoleon.

This is Dr Edward de Bono-or Bono de Edward if you want to think about it another way. The man who once had four working breakfasts with four different people before 9.30.

He’s wearing sober suit, striped shirt and de Bonoed tie. ‘Because I work in the field of creativity,’ he says, ‘I don’t want clothes that say ‘aren’t I creative-looking?’ That has a negative effect.’ Curiously, he cites advertising men’s open shirts and medallions as an example of such creative garb.

He travels a lot and likes to carry his luggage with him. So he holds on to one navy suit and wears the other. ‘To show that I’ve changed, I wear very bright ties. Then the focus is on my tie.’

He finds it extremely difficult to find striking ties, so he’s started to make them himself. ‘There’s a very simple way of doing it. Well, you take a long tube and you fold the top in two halves . . .’

On his mantelpiece are little fluffy toy ducklings, Hindu artefacts, pots of pollen and so on. And then there are books and papers everywhere. He sits in an armchair, emphasising with his right hand while his left eyebrow moves up and down; hand movements that he reckons he adapted to the early days of television. ‘If you used your hands a lot, they’d pop in and out of frame.’

He tends to use Americanisms. And he speaks in the voice of a smart Englishman; a lovely rich and even-toned voice. ‘I suppose I have a calm voice that shows I don’t get antagonistic or worked up.’ Certainly he appears equanimous.

He looks like the doctor he is. He has nice, swarthy Maltese looks (which he says come from his Irish grandfather-shipwrecked Armada chappies swimming ashore and all that), a touch of the genial uncle, a receding hairline, a bit of a tummy and hirsute hands. ‘I think I look a bit like Saddam Hussein,’ he laughs. ‘Dark, I mean . . .

‘And I think I weigh more than I should,’ he says, with his hand under his lip. Characteristically he looks down to speak. ‘One’s writing and getting bored so one eats whatever’s put in front of one.’ He squirms in his chair talking about his overeating. ‘I look very ordinary. Tallish, not stocky and intelligent-looking, I hope. I’m neither florid nor muscular, of football or wimp build.’

So why-in seemingly underconfident gesture-does he turn away to talk? ‘Interesting . . . The reason for doing that is so that when you look back it makes more of a point.’ He punctuates with a look at me.

He likes to categorise himself as a thinker. ‘Of course, some people think I’m mad. And others just think I’ve just done very well with a simple idea,’ says the lateral thinker who wakes up in the morning with ideas for improving his coffee percolator and irrigating the Sahara.

Ask him to describe himself and a smile crosses his lips. He has a rather sluggish feel to him, perhaps he’s slightly lonely, and he doesn’t dazzle with brilliance. He’s genial and mild. And with the practicality of a doctor.

‘I’m interested in designing. I’m active, constructive, positive, easy-going, calm, sensitive and simple.’ More? The son of an entrepreneurial, active mother and pensive father laughs. ‘I’m interested in things, curious, very bored by chores and administration, organised, disciplined and not neurotic.’

And what does he most value in himself? ‘Three things’-he looks up-‘My being constructive, curious and striving to end up with something as simple as possible.’

And what does he most dislike? ‘My overeating, that sometimes I run out of energy and, probably, my laziness. Also I’m probably not ruthless enough.’ He says he’d like to be hypermanic. Does he lack energy? ‘Yes. I’m just driven by interest in what I’m doing,’ says the man who once said he could well do without cinema, theatre or galleries. And is he easily bored? ‘Not by people. I suffer fools gladly.’

Does he think he’s brilliant? ‘No. I think I’m more interested in thinking than other people. Sometimes I can see things more clearly. And I’m more able to hold onto different points of view at the same time.’ So speaks the Rhodes scholar whose books have been translated into 24 languages. And how many marks out of 10 would would he give himself for his thinking? ‘About four.’

In one year he spent 230 days away from his wife. That, he says, is the nature of his work. ‘I think that families settle down into the modes that are available.’ One assumes he doesn’t have a close relationship with his wife. But no: he looks at things in a different way.

‘Relationships that are very enduring don’t depend on whether you’re around or remember their birthdays or whatever,’ he says, citing the example of a friend who he called in Sweden after a 25-year break. They spoke as if they’d talked the day before.

‘It’s probably true that I don’t have intense relationships. I regard those as a hassle. I hate the demands. There are lots of things I’m interested in and want to get on with.’

So people aren’t important to him? ‘They are. But not on the level of needing them. I grew up in a big family and you learn to be independent. You develop your ways of dealing with the world. You certainly don’t rely on anyone or expect people to do things for you.’

So is he lonely? Sitting in his chilly chambers in the Albany, he shoots me a challenging look. ‘Not really. Only in the sense that you travel. Not lonely in the sense of sitting around saying ‘poor me, poor me.’’