“There you are, Megan. Did you have a good day yesterday?” “Err, yes, thank you.” “And have you finished that article about Aurora? I need it on my desk in an hour. No later. Got that?” “Yes, Sir. It’s just that…” “One hour.” “Sir, I’ve got a bit of a problem with it.” “Well, solve it, then.” “Yes, Sir. I can do that. No problem. It’s just that…” “What is it?” “I got rather more material than we need.” “Well, edit it, then. That’s what you’re paid for.” “Can I send you what I’ve got, and you can see the issue for yourself? I’m just e-mailing it to you now, Sir,” Megan continued, without giving Mr. Jenkins the chance to say no. “And then I’ll grab myself a coffee and that should have given you enough time to read what I’ve written. I’ve had several ideas of what we could do, but I’d like to run them past you for your decision.” Megan knew full well that Mr. Jenkins, the editor of Spotlight on the Stars magazine, liked to feel that he was in charge, and one way to stop him from simply barking orders at people was to give him a decision to make. Once Mr. Jenkins had retreated to his office, Megan Libbsey was able to relax a little more. She took off her coat, turned her laptop on, and e-mailed her article immediately. She knew it would take him ten to fifteen minutes to read, as it had turned out rather longer than she had anticipated. Either way, it would buy her and her colleagues several minutes of peace and quiet, and she might even be able to enjoy her coffee, without rushing off anywhere. “So how was yesterday? How was Aurora?” asked Sophie Baker, whose desk was immediately opposite Megan’s. “It was great. Aurora was lovely. Really friendly and very … normal. I hadn’t realised quite how far Ramsgate was from London when I agreed to meet her there. It took over two hours by train.” “Couldn’t you have caught the fast train from St. Pancras? Wouldn’t that have saved you some time?” “Maybe, but I’d have had to get across London first, and Victoria’s only a two-minute walk from here. I’d have had to leave the office at the same time, and if I’d missed the train, I’d have had to wait an hour for the next one.” “So what did you do when you were there? How did the interview go?” “We did the photos first, and used some of the yachts in Ramsgate harbour as a background. Then we wandered up the hill to Charles Darwin’s house and took a few more pictures there, as you get more of the sea in the background. After that, we went for lunch at the Royal Victoria Pavilion, and did the interview there.” “That sounds very upmarket.” “I’m not sure about that. It’s a Wetherspoon’s – the World’s largest, so cheap and cheerful, but it was very impressive inside. Fortunately, we got in about 12.30, as it was absolutely heaving by the time we’d finished. Then, I caught the train home, and carried on working there. If I’d come back here, I’d have done about 20 minutes’ work and then packed up to go home again. It didn’t seem worth it.” “Did you get enough material for your five hundred word article, or will the readers have to make do with three hundred and fifty words and a couple of extra-large photos, like last month?” “You cheeky… It’ll be more about what to leave out.” “Why, what did she say?” “You’ll have to buy the magazine and read it yourself. I need to go and get that coffee before Jenkins comes looking for me.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ML: So, Aurora Davidson. Is that your real name? AD: No, actually it’s Dawn. Dawn Marie Davidson. ML: Why did you change it? AD: I wanted something a little more exotic for my acting career. Also, somewhere along the line, people starting calling me DeeDee, which then became Double D, and then Double Dees. I could see complete strangers looking at me as if Double Dees was some reference to my bra size. I wish. ML: Any other nicknames? AD: Cheddar. ML: Why Cheddar? AD: Someone thought that Davidson was a bit like Davidstow, so they started calling me Cheddar. I was rather cheesed off about that. ML: Very clever! So have you always lived in Ramsgate? AD: No. I’ve only been here for a couple of years. I wanted somewhere that was mine, and this was as close to London as I could afford. ML: Really? AD: Well, maybe not, but I do love being near the sea. I sometimes get up really early, walk down to the clifftop just up there and just sit on one of the benches and watch the sun as it rises from beneath the waves. It’s magical. I also find that the peace and quiet helps me to learn my lines, and when I’m sitting there, I’m not distracted by thoughts about having a cup of tea, or wondering what the cat’s up to. ML: So, if you’ve only been here a couple of years, where do you come from? AD: Well, I was born at King’s College Hospital in Denmark Hill, nearly 28 years ago. My parents lived in a flat above a shop at the time, but it was a bit cramped. When I was about six months old, we moved into a terraced house in Penge, and stayed there another three years. That was when my sister was born. After that, my parents bought a house near Orpington, which is where I grew up. They still live there, but the house is getting to be a bit big for them. I think they’re hoping there will be some grandchildren coming along soon. ML: Is there anything you want to tell me? AD: Me? No. ML: So, who’s that man you were spotted with in Bristol last month? You seemed to be getting on very well. AD: You’re very well-informed! ML: Your boyfriend? AD: What? No. That would have been my brother, Aiden. He has been living there with his wife for the last four or five years. But no grandchildren for my parents, yet. ML: So, do you have a man in tow? AD: That’s for me to know and you to find out. Let’s see what your other sources come up with! My lips are sealed. ML: So, it’s just the three of you? AD: What? Oh, yes. Aiden – he’s two years older than I am, me and Sienna. ML: Do you suffer from Middle Child Syndrome? AD: Not that I know of. I like to think that I’m pretty well adjusted, but maybe that’s for others to say. We all have our little quirks. ML: What would you say yours are? AD: (Pause) My cat talks to me. At least, I look at his face, and then try to put words to the expression on it. Mostly, it’s a case of “I’m hungry; feed me” but sometimes it’s “I’ve brought you a nice bird. Aren’t I a good boy?” or “Make it stop raining. I want to go outside, but I don’t like getting my fur wet.” ML: So, how did you get into acting? AD: By accident, really. I went to school in Orpington, did my A-levels, and then went off to university in Exeter to study English. When you’re studying plays as part of your degree, it helps you to learn them if you can act them out, and I found myself involved in a number of impromptu performances during my time there. After I left, I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to go into journalism or teaching, and missed the boat for applying for the relevant courses. I did all sorts of things in the first few months after graduating, wrote a few articles for the local paper, spent a morning a week listening to children reading at the local primary school, did some low-level catalogue work for a friend who was trying to make it into the world of fashion journalism… ML: So you like your clothes, do you? AD: Well, I prefer wearing clothes to not wearing clothes. Ramsgate can get very cold in winter, when the wind’s from the East. ML: Spotlight on the Stars readers always like to know about what the people we feature are wearing. What can you tell us about your outfit today, and your fashion sense in general? AD: I like to shop locally if at all possible. If we don’t use the shops we’ve got, we’ll lose them. There’s a tendency to think “I’ll nip up to Bluewater,” but even that’s over an hour away by car, and more like two if you go by train. Also, I’m still near the start of my career, so I have to ask myself “when am I going to wear it?” before I buy anything. I got this red blouse from a shop on Ramsgate High Street a couple of months ago - £20. It looked ideal for those occasions when I wanted to look smart, without being too formal. The black skirt, I’ve had for a couple of years. Actually, I think I did get that at Bluewater, but I haven’t the faintest idea how much it cost. ML: What about your shoes? Are you a shoes girl? AD: I’d like to be. It’s great to be able to dream, and there are some lovely shoes out there, but I’m not sure I’ll ever earn enough money to have someone fetching and carrying shoes for me. You can only wear one pair at a time, and if you’re going to be wearing them all day, they need to be comfortable. I got this pair when I was visiting my brother the other week. £40, reduced from eighty. This is only the second time I’ve worn them. ML: I’m sensing that you like a bargain? AD: If I can get one, why not? Most people can’t tell the difference between high-end fashion and high-street fashion, and down here, it doesn’t really matter. ML: What about your glasses? How long have you had them? AD: That’s an easy one! Two weeks. I paid £199 for them. I’ve probably still got the receipt in my purse. ML: So, they are prescription glasses and not just a fashion accessory, then? AD: I suppose they’re a bit of both really. I’m a bit longsighted, so they do help me to see a little better. I don’t really need to wear them all the time, but it’s less hassle if I do. It also means I’ve always got them for the times that I do need them – like reading the menu in here. As for a fashion accessory, well, I suppose they’re that, too. I’ve just ordered a couple of different pairs online, just so I can change things around, when I fancy. I quite like the way they magnify my eyes slightly. Of course, it does mean I have to be extra careful with my eye make-up, as they magnify any mistakes, too! ML: So, have you worn glasses since you were a child? AD: Good gracious, no. I thought my sight was perfect as I grew up. No-one in the family wears glasses. Actually, that’s not quite true. My parents have both started wearing reading glasses in the last couple of years, but neither my brother nor my sister do. ML: What made you get your eyes tested? AD: Ah, now that’s quite a story. Do you want the long version, or the short one? ML: Can I have a sort-of medium version? AD: I’ll try, but I can’t promise anything. ML: Go on. AD: Have you ever seen The Making of Calvin Starr? ML: No, I don’t think I have. AD: Okay. Well, it was in the year after I graduated, that one of my old uni friends got in touch. They were making this sitcom, Calvin Starr, and they wanted someone to play his geeky sister. And he thought of me. I’m not sure whether that was a compliment or not, but I wasn’t doing anything else, so I went for an audition and got the part. It was only a minor role, but I was in two or three scenes in most episodes, and it meant I was going to be earning a bit of my own money. You’ve got to start somewhere… AD: Anyhow, they had this idea of what my character, Maisie, looked like. Basically, I was meant to be an 18 year-old, who dressed more like she was 80. Floral blouses, mustard or beige cardigans, pleated skirts, long white socks and glasses. Really thick glasses. They’d found a frame in a charity shop that they thought would be ideal, but one of the lenses was cracked. The frame was large, round and plastic, somewhere between olive green and light brown. It looked awful. They’d taken it into an optician’s to see if they could get new lenses fitted into it, but were told that they would do better to take me in, so that the lenses were right for me. AD: A week or so later, I found myself learning how to put contact lenses in, and not so that I could see better, but so that I could see worse. That was bizarre. Whenever I’d tried on a friend’s glasses at school, they had changed what I could see, but nothing had prepared me for the blur that those contact lenses plunged me into. I then had to sit around, almost completely blind, for twenty minutes or so. I couldn’t even see the time on my phone, my vision was that awful. Then, I had to be helped into the optician’s chair, where they checked the fit of the lenses, and only then did they do the sight test to work out how strong I was going to need the glasses to be. After that, I was shown how to take the contact lenses out, and was able to go home. AD: I picked the glasses up several days before we were due to start filming. They had warned me that they would take quite a bit of getting used to, and only to wear them at home or on set for the first few days – only in places where I was sure of my surroundings. They weren’t wrong. The lenses looked to be over a centimetre thick in the middle, and they were quite heavy. Of course, I couldn’t see anything when I put them on, as I had left the contact lenses at home. I could just about read my phone, but only from about 10 centimetres away – and only then if I didn’t breathe and fog the screen up. Once I’d got home, I put my lenses in – that took the best part of quarter of an hour – and then the glasses on. Straight ahead was fine, although everything looked enormous, but if I looked to the side, it made me feel really dizzy. It was like my head was in a goldfish bowl. When I looked at myself in the mirror, my eyes were magnified so much that they almost filled the space behind the lenses. AD: I decided to make myself a cup of tea, as I was thirsty. Going down the stairs was a real challenge, as they seemed to swim into vision. I ended up holding on to the banister, and going down really slowly, like an old lady. Once I’d got my drink, I decided I had better do something which involved a bit less movement, and ended up watching a film. The screen seemed really clear, and about twice its normal size. But do you know what the sobering thought was? ML: No. What was it? AD: The sobering thought was that I was wearing these glasses and contact lenses for an acting part. There are people out there who have to wear these things to see. I had made some comment about them giving me the strongest possible contact lenses, only to be told that they were only a -10, and that you could get a -12 in the same brand. I hate to think what the glasses would have been like if I’d gone for the stronger contacts. AD: Anyway, I managed to get through that series of Calvin Starr without falling over too many of the props, and the satellite channel got enough viewers that they asked us to make a second series. We made three series in all – eighteen shows. One of them, in the third series, was more about me, but I digress. I needed more contact lenses for the second series, so I popped in to the optician’s to see whether they could order me some more. The lady who had fitted them and done my sight test was there and remembered me. She wanted to give me a proper check with the lenses, to make sure they weren’t damaging my eyes, and then do a normal sight test. She felt the lenses in the glasses were stronger than they would have been if I had had perfect eyesight. AD: I must have looked a real sight when I went in to be tested. My clothes were the sort of thing normal people in their early twenties wear – jeans, tee-shirt, trainers – you know? And then this pair of really thick, old-fashioned glasses. I had no choice but to wear them, as they wanted me to have had the contacts in for at least a couple of hours before my appointment. I hadn’t worn them since we finished making the first series, and was a little nervous about going outside in them. In the end, I dragged my sister along for moral support. Anyway, the upshot was that the lenses were fine, but that I really was a little long-sighted as well, and had been since I was a child. It probably took the best part of an hour to choose a frame for my own glasses, and I was glad Sienna was there to help me. I’ve worn glasses pretty much full-time since I got them. ML: Have you never worn contacts in your own prescription? AD: Yes, I’ve got them, but I like the look of glasses on my face, so I only wear lenses when they’re more convenient – when I go to the gym, or when it’s raining hard outside. ML: So, what work have you got lined up next? AD: Well, there’s the second series of St. Beatrix’s Animal Hospital which starts next week on BBC2, and we’ve already been asked to make another series of that, and I’ve been booked for a couple of chat shows and an episode of Casualty, so I really shall be resting in between those things. ML: So which character is more like the real Aurora Davidson – Maisie Starr, or Juliette … I can’t remember your character’s surname in St. Beatrix’s. AD: It’s Brownwell. I think I’m somewhere between the two. I can be quite geeky, like Maisie, but am also more outgoing, like Juliette. At least, as Juliette, I get to wear my own glasses – and her dress sense is rather more like mine. ML: Thank you very much for giving up your time. It’s been absolutely fascinating. AD: I hope I didn’t bore you too much about the glasses, but you did ask. ML: No, it was fine. But if that was the medium-length version, I’m glad I didn’t ask for the long one. You’d probably have been telling me the letters on the sight chart! Now, what’s the quickest way back to the station from here? AD: It’s okay. I’ll walk you there. It’s on my way, anyway. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ “I see what you meant about the quantity, Megan. So, what are these ideas you were talking about?” “Well, there’s several possibilities, Sir. I could leave all that stuff about the glasses out completely. I could edit it down to two or three sentences, and leave it in there. We could use it as part of a feature next month and ask a number of celebrities about how and why they got their first glasses – maybe two or three pages with pictures of them in their first glasses, and some more current ones. Then, we could ask the readers to write in and tell us the same sorts of things about their first glasses – and that might fill another couple of pages the following month.” “I like your thinking, Megan. Readers like to see their own names in print – it helps us sell more copies, as they get their friends to buy our magazine, too. Oh, and as you wear glasses, I’d like you to write those features. You could even include your own story. We’ll do the Celebrities and their Glasses next month – four pages, with a couple of ads. See if we can get Specsavers or Vision Express or someone like that for those ads, and then the Readers’ Responses the month after.” “Yes, Sir.” “Well, jump to it. I still need the article about Aurora ready in half an hour, and then you can start working on who we’re about to interview for next month who wears glasses.” “Yes, Sir.” “And the bigger the names, the better. Also, have a look back at who we’ve featured in the last six months, and see if you can add them in, as well.” “Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
https://vision-and-spex.com/spotlight-on-aurora-davidson-t1704.html