It was a highlight of Sunday evening TV back in the 70s - so what happened to Follyfoot star Gillian Blake and how did she end up in Norfolk?
From 1971 until 1973, Gillian Blake starred in ITV’s hit horsey series Follyfoot. It was so popular that, even though she quit acting in the 1980s for family life in Norfolk, Gillian still gets spotted today.
“I walk around Holt and people say ‘Hi!’, my granddaughter asks me: ‘Who’s that?’ and I go ‘I’ve no idea!’ I’m recognised quite a lot, which is amazing and fantastic’ she says, further cheered by websites devoted to Follyfoot.
Follyfoot swiftly made Gillian very high-profile, but that made her uncomfortable back in the day. “It was difficult to go anywhere without being stopped. I didn’t like it and shied away. I got a lot of very unpleasant fanmail, some shocking, fantasising things. I also had stalkers. And everywhere I went, people sang the theme song to me. I’d be walking along a street deep in thought and suddenly I’d hear someone sing it... and they’d keep walking as they sung. It was weird. I loved the work but that’s all I wanted – the rest of it didn’t please me.
“In the mid-70s, a German magazine I did an interview with at home published my address. I then got Follyfoot fans walking up and down outside my house.”
This partly explains why it’s taken me many years to get an interview with Gillian, now 70, and why I suggest meeting at a hotel in Hethersett and taking photos there and at Keswick Riding Stables in Norwich with her son Jake, 44, and his daughter Yasmin, seven.
Born in Buckingham on May 10, 1949, Gillian was the only child of Frederick and Vera Shedd. There was no history of showbusiness in her family, but a trip to see Judi Dench perform at Oxford Playhouse captured Gillian’s imagination. “The first time I saw her walk on to that stage and own it with her charisma made me think “That’s what I want to do!”
She took part in plays and poetry readings at her school who arranged for her to audition for Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she trained. Given the stage surname Blake by her agent, Gillian’s first job was a brief appearance in the 1969 film Goodbye Mr Chips starring Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark.
“That was amazing to be involved with,” she says, “But I remember being told: ‘Don’t speak unless you’re spoken to!”’
Prestigious stage work followed with The Philanthropist at the Royal Court Theatre, but an opportunity to act alongside the legendary Laurence Olivier in The Dance of Death at the National Theatre was denied Gillian when he suffered a heart attack and the production got cancelled.
“99% of auditions I went for then, I got the part” recalls Gillian who also worked on screen with the likes of George Cole and Daniel Massey.
Follyfoot, ITV’s family series set at a rest home for old or unwanted horses, was inspired by a novel by Monica Dickens, great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens. Casting directors also had Zoe Wannamaker in mind for the lead role of Dora Maddocks. “I’m sure lots of actresses auditioned to be Dora, but it was between the two of us in the end,” says Gillian, who benefitted from having ridden from the age of five. “I always had a thing for horses.”
Follyfoot was filmed on the Harewood family estate near Leeds. Gillian’s co-stars included Desmond Llewellyn of Bond films fame, and Arthur English who later became a regular in the classic sitcom Are You Being Served? Guest actors included David Hemmings, Kathy Staff and Pam St Clement, and among the distinguished directors were Michael Apted and Stephen Frears. Follyfoot spawned five annuals, a picture strip in Look-In magazine and a UK Top 40 entry with its theme song, The Lightning Tree.
In a late Sunday afternoon slot, the BAFTA-winning show got millions of viewers in the UK, and was sold around the world. It became so successful that Dora’s distinctive hairstyle was much-copied. “My hairdresser in Leeds told me people came in saying they wanted a ‘Dora’, so that’s what it got called,” Gillian laughs.
For most viewers the main attraction was the chemistry between Dora and Steve played by Steve Hodson. Their apparent desire never came to fruition on-screen, but off...?
“No, no, no, never, we were just great mates. I was married,” says Gillian, who’d wed photographer Michael Amory in the late 60s. “When I was in Follyfoot, I was told I must not get pregnant – something nobody in TV would dare tell an actress today.”
Unfortunately, during Follyfoot, their marriage fell apart, though they remain friends today.
After Follyfoot ended, things were looking up for Gillian thanks to its executive producer Tony Essex. “Tony had got a big production in Australia called Luke’s Kingdom that I was going to go out and do with Oliver Tobias playing opposite me, then we were going to come back and make a Follyfoot movie.
“Tony returned for a visit, walked into his London flat and dropped dead of a heart attack. It was just terrible. So I obviously didn’t go out to Australia, and the movie didn’t happen, though he’d given me the rights to it and I still have it.”
Gillian met second husband Peter Whitbread, an actor/writer 20 years her senior, when he played an auctioneer in series three. Her first job post-Follyfoot was an Alan Ayckbourn play at The Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and Peter happened to be in the cast as well. She moved to his home county, Norfolk, in 1974, they had a son Jake in 1975, and married in 1980.
“I took to Norfolk straight away” she says. “When I first came here, I thought I might miss other places I’d lived and worked, but I never have. To be near the coast is a dream. Peter had a boat at Blakeney we used to go out in.
“I had the greatest career pre-Jake. And I did a few things when Jake was old enough, including recording children’s bedtime stories, a play for Anglia TV and two for the BBC,” adds Gillian, the latter including Hallelujah Mary Plum in which she appeared naked. “That was fine, except the local villagers were outraged when they watched it!”
But Gillian was soon to quit acting. “Jake’s father was very old-school in so far as the man earned the living and once you’d had a child you stayed at home, so that’s what I did. However, I didn’t do it grudgingly. I was grateful. My career took off at the start, whereas a lot of people build up to their careers.”
Sadly, their marriage ended in 2002. “Peter was quite a difficult man to live with,” Gillian confides. “Although the divorce was acrimonious, over time we became friends. I took him out for dinner on his 76th birthday. I got the call the next day.”
Peter had been for a walk near his home in Briningham when he was involved in a collision with a car and was killed instantly.
Has Gillian found love since? “No. Not interested. Been bitten in both marriages. I’m better on my own. Love male friends, but they know if they overstep that’s it, they’re out! I’ve been on my own for 20 years now, and living on your own you become very selfish, you get used to having your own life. I can eat what I want, I can go to bed when I want... But that doesn’t mean I’m unsociable.”
Gillian’s life largely revolves around her son, who’s a single parent, and granddaughter, who live in Norwich. Her own home is a two-up two-down cottage with walls displaying pictures and posters of her career, one TV series in particular of course.
“I’m so proud of Follyfoot” she declares. “I think it’s ageless – the stories in it are as relevant now as they were then.”
