It was New Years Eve, I'd spent the evening at my friend's house playing board games and eating. It struck me how this was a real thirty something's way to spend New Year. I must also really be a grown up as I was enjoying it. After midnight we watched Jools Holland's annual Hootenanny show. In the audience were two people I once knew. One was a guy I went to drama school with; the other talking to him was someone I shared a flat with, both of whom have become successful TV and film actors. It was odd to see the two of them talking. Would it be important to them that they both knew me? I doubt it; I was having that familiar strange feeling I feel when I see people who are no longer in my life on TV and film. Having worked in theatre with actors for this long, and known rock stars and comedians, you would think I was used to this feeling by now. However I had never really put my finger on what this feeling was. I worried it could be the green eyed monster called jealousy. As it's a new year I felt it was time for a new start and to analyse this emotion and see what it could be.
I thought back to the first time I tried to break into 'the fame game'. I was nineteen and I put forward my friend and myself for a TV show. He got it and I didn't. Yep that feeling was jealousy, and nasty 'what if's' filled my mind. In the end, the event never made any difference to his life at all; somehow I had thought that it would. I first wanted to be famous when I was at school. At school the main topic of conversation is last night's TV. I felt if I was on TV that I would get some respect and people would like me. The first time I was on TV as part of a studio audience and then later to do a talk on drugs, I heard word back from a girl I hadn't seen since school three years before, who said 'Becky Walsh hasn't changed at all, she is still as crap as she was at school'. So the illusion of fame was gone.
At drama school I studied stage management. I have worked with many actors, both famous and not so famous. I have found the famous ones tend to be (on the whole) nicer than the non-famous ones. It seems to me that the less you have to prove, the more you can be yourself. This is with the exception of Rupert Everett, who I will never forgive for an incident at the Hampstead theatre involving a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. Though my life I have found myself falling into work on stage and TV. Doing stand up comedy, talks and bits of theatre. My most significant moment was Co-writing, performing and producing 'Wretch' a one-woman show at The New End Theatre in Hampstead. I had never done anything so scary, but so wonderful in my life. I was truly changed by it. The feeling it left me with stayed for many years. Like the one thing I had ever done in my life that was really worthwhile. Until I realised that it might just become the only thing I ever do in my life that is worthwhile. As more people I once knew became publicly recognised I realised I didn't want to have an ordinary life. I found the odd feeling I had in my stomach was worse when it was a person I had helped in someway in the past. Their life moving on without my friendship and me feeling like I wasn't moving at all. A few odd things had happened. One was seeing my ex-boyfriend be married by Robbie Williams. The other was, having lived under the same roof as Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, watching the Channel Four sitcom 'Spaced,' which had more than one reference to our time living together in Cricklewood.
I realised that whatever it was I wanted to do with my life, it was to make a difference in someone else's life. My psychic Mediumship work was coming on strongly. I was running it alongside my theatre career. I had found that the feeling this work gave me matched up to the feelings from 'Wretch'. I remembered why I had always wanted to get involved with theatre. It was to give the audience that feeling when you leave the auditorium seeing something that has really changed you. I get that opportunity everyday with my work. I also realised that channelling spirit message to an audience or on TV or Radio would get the message out there and touch more people. The true purpose of why I have always felt drawn to the media became apparent. It's a fantastic tool for healing.
Taking all this into account, I realised that part of my feeling was indeed jealousy, although more so in the past than over New Year. People fulfilling their dreams remind you that yours are also possible. So you can be positive and make it happen, or you can be negative and wish it were you. But apart from the slight pang of envy, sitting watching my old friends celebrating with a host of other glamorous celebs live on TV, I realised what it was. You know when you see someone you haven't seen for ages in the street, there is always a weird feeling. But if you get to stop and talk at least for a short time a connection is made again. By seeing these people on TV, I still have a connection to them, as if I still know them. They have no connection to me and I am in fact a part of their past, one I guess they don't look back on much. I look back on it, as I am seeing them, I can't help it. Like all of your old photos being displayed on TV when you don't expect them to be there. I always find it hard to let go of people, and seeing them is like a tidemark on the bath, visibly and sometimes painfully showing how much you have changed. When someone is famous they are often changed. There is less chance of bumping into them in the street and if you did you might think they wouldn't want to speak to you, or they wouldn't remember you. You would probably be right. I feel it must be hard for actors bumping into other actors. Because when you have got somewhere your friends want to be, you may feel apologetic about it, making both parties uncomfortable.
As a psychic, I have friends who knew me when I worked in theatre. These are the people I can say anything to; without them thinking it might have more meaning than the basic opinion of Becky Walsh, who let's face it, can be wrong. The channelled message is correct, but when I'm not working, of course I can be wrong in my opinion. I was once at a friend's house for dinner, a couple were having a bit of a row. As I left the house I was asked if I thought the couple would stay together. I said 'I doubt it the way they went on tonight'. That then became a psychic prediction! I love my old friends for not doing that, and the new ones who are clued up. So being famous must be a bit like that; it feels like you can only be yourself with fewer and fewer people. Having famous friends can become a definition of yourself, because you know them it makes you more interesting. Of course this is an illusion. I went out on a dinner date with a man who was in a famous band in the 80's. As we sat talking three men came over and joined us for a short time. My dinner partner was disappointed that I didn't recognise them, as they were at number one in the charts with 'Spaceman' two weeks before. I'm sure it made him feel more interesting to me because he knew them.
In truth we don't have the connection we feel we have with the people on the TV. But that doesn't stop us feeling it. I've done it myself when I've said hello to a face I recognise, only to find out I've only known them from TV. The feeling you have for old friends who do well is a mixed up one of pride and loss.
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