Pam Ayres: ‘I think I would look like a Suffolk punch if I tried to dance!’

Pam Ayres is affectionately described as the ‘people’s poet’ - her comedic verse has entertained millions over the past five decades.

Still passionate about making people laugh with her wonderful poetry, Pam has no plans to retire any time soon – so long as she remains healthy. Readily admitting her biggest fear now is if she starts to lose her memory or gets diagnosed with something awful, she says she will ‘pack up’ should that ever happen. “What I am afraid of is if I get something wrong with me and I won’t be as quick,” she admits.

“I do my best to learn everything and I have to be realistic that I am not always going to be as sharp. I am 74 now and when those things start to fail, then I will pack up, I don’t want to disappoint people but I love what I do so much.

“If people are fond of me, I am delighted and I hope I have given a lot of people a laugh as that is a great experience – to laugh!”

Thankfully it’s not a prospect Pam needs to worry about at the moment. Fit and healthy, the poet – whose famous works include ‘Oh I wish I’d looked after my teeth’ and ‘They should have asked my husband’ – is very busy with work. She has a new four-part series, which is currently airing on Channel 5 and sees her travelling to different parts of the Cotswolds plus a new book has just been published on her love of animal poetry.

Pam's husband and family

Pam admits she wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for the incredible support of her husband, Dudley Russell.

The couple, who live in the Cotswolds, have been married for almost 40 years and Pam confides she still feels incredibly lucky to have met the theatre producer.

Reflecting on why their marriage works so well, Pam reveals: “I don’t know what I would do without him. We are just attuned. When I first met him, we laughed and laughed. It’s so lovely when you do find someone who has your sense of humour and I feel very lucky to have met him.

“Ours is a good partnership. We have a bust up every now and again like everyone else but he has got a great overview of life. I tend to react to things that are in front of me and he takes the long view. We are so very good for each other and we get on so well.”

Their two sons, William and James, are now both married and have five children between them – something the doting 74-year-old cherishes. Family, she explains, will always be her top priority despite still being one of the most popular poets and comediennes whose one-woman shows have seen her perform in front of the Queen, receive a MBE in 2004 and publish many books over the years as well as countless appearances on radio and TV, including fronting a new series for Channel 5 on her beloved Cotswolds.

“I am really very happy on my own and with my husband and family,” explains Pam. “Family tops everything for me.

“I remember being frantic at the start of the pandemic last year as I was over in Australia doing some performances. Suddenly shows got cancelled because of Covid; then they started to close the borders and flights. It was a mad scramble to get out. I love my home and my children and grandchildren live nearby - I was desperate to get back. Thankfully I managed to get on one of the last flights back and when I got home I felt like kissing the tarmac like the Pope used to do!”

As a grandmother of five – aged nine months to seven years – she says the hardest part of the past 18 months has been not being able to see her grandchildren as much, let alone hug them. “The thing I found the most distressing was not spending time with them,” she adds. “I love being with them and cuddling them and I couldn’t do any of that. It was awful and I am sure grandparents all over felt like that too.”

The Cotswolds with Pam Ayres

Pam's most recent adventure sees her set off on a journey around the part of Britain she calls home – the Cotswolds.

“I really enjoyed doing my new Cotswolds Channel 5 series. I jumped at the chance to do it as I love living in the Cotswolds so much.”

She says she is getting a lot better at saying ‘no to projects’ –because her time with her family is so precious to her and the idea of doing something like Strictly is not something she can ever envisage either despite being approached by the BBC in the past.

“With what time I have got, I spend with the people I love,” she says. “Strictly have asked me to do it but I think I would look like a Suffolk punch if I tried to dance! I am not sure that I will ever do that!”

RAF Seletar’s Theatre Club

Pam served with the WRAF in Singapore. The posting – from 1965 to 1969 – changed her life. Aged 19, she joined RAF Seletar’s Theatre Club where, every Friday night, people did a turn. “A book called Verse and Worse, full of funny poems, was very popular,” she recalls. “I remember poring through that trying to find something. There wasn't anything that suited me, so I wrote a poem.”

The audience laughed, so she wrote another. People requested more. On her return to the UK, Pam began performing at folk festivals. “It was so thrilling to find people fell about laughing,” she says. “That fires you up. You want to write more and better.” Winning talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1975 brought wider acclaim and her thoughts on life’s absurdities and irritations have tickled us ever since. A sense of mischief, she says, gets her creative juices flowing. “It's just a way of looking at life.”

Up in the Attic

Her latest collection, Up in the Attic, covers such topics as the stress of hosting dinner parties, failure to find a parking space and chefs’ gimmicky serving trends. “They’re just my own feelings,” she says of her poems. “And I hope other people will share some of those feelings – like disgust at having my food put on a roofing slate that hasn’t got raised edges so the food falls off. That’s a hobby horse of mine,” she laughs. “Food on an old breadboard with a load of cuts in it or a slate or tile. Why?”

Next year, Pam is planning to publish her entire collection of poetry in one book. “When I first started doing poetry I thought it was a laugh and something everyone can do,” she chuckles. “Then I realised perhaps that wasn’t the case!

Pam is a keen gardener. “I particularly like growing food,” she says. “Potatoes, all manner of brassicas: Brussels sprouts, purple sprouting, cabbages. I’ve got a bed of roots: carrots, parsnips, beetroot, radishes. I’ve got tomatoes, beans and an asparagus bed and a good clump of rhubarb.” Cue the making of many jars of rhubarb and orange chutney.

“It’s lovely to work with nature because everything wants to grow. It’s not rocket science,” she says. Though it isn’t without trials. “There’s a million pigeons here, it’s like Trafalgar Square,” she says. “Anything you plant gets eaten, so I’ve defied them and put a big cage over my vegetable garden. They’re outside gnashing their beaks.”

5 best Pam Ayres poems

1. They Should Have Asked My Husband

We all know a know-it-all whom this poem could be about

2 A Poem About Physical Exercise

Pam Ayres recites a poem about physical exercise on The Main Attraction TV programme in 1983.

3. Wedding

Who doesn't love a wedding? Well, Pam apparently!

4. Snore

The joys of sharing a bed in later life.

5 Oh I Wish I'd Looked After My Teeth