I had to start dealing with my alcoholism on my own. My loved ones could not understand why I drank so much until I told them what Rolf had done to me for so long. Fortunately they believed what happened to me.
I was then strong enough to get help for my alcoholism. I have been dry since the year I am still suffering from panic attacks and severe anxiety and as a result, I am unable to communicate and socialise with people. I therefore confine myself to only my immediate friends and family. This has made my world very small.
Rolf Harris, knowing what he has done to me, put me through the ordeal of appearing at court. Not only this, but his arrogance has put my elderly parents, who are over 80 years old, through the worry and stress of giving evidence. I feel that he has tried to humiliate me by getting me to talk about the abuse I have suffered in a public arena. He has tried to make out that I was lying. I believe he thought he would make me crumble like I used to.
But I am better than I was and having gone through the court process will continue to recover. His demeanour and attitude has shown a total disregard and respect for me and others. His flippant behaviour in court I find astonishing. Somehow, he manages to eat his club sandwich while demonstrating how to play a Jew's harp.
I try to remember if Val Doonican is still alive. He is a one-man band, and I am a one-woman audience, but at least I am an audience, and a very appreciative one. It is being appreciated that matters to him. It's no use pestering Rolf about the meaning of his work. There is nothing behind and beyond what you see.
Questions that attempt to be penetrating, to extract meaning, are answered in exactly the same manner, as straightforward factual enquiries. Everything is turned into a story accompanied by a one-man rhythm section.
There is only one level on which Rolf operates, and it is not deep. His appeal is primal. His songs reach parts other songs just don't reach. Being a child, of course, is a universal experience. We've all been there at some point; we all at some point long to return.
But we can glimpse that lost place singing along with Rolf, who reminds us that we were once innocent, lovely little beings "little" is a recurrent word in his lyrics who liked to play and make up silly rhymes, just like he does. There must be a Mr Nasty somewhere inside that Mr Nice. There just must be. But try as I might, I couldn't find him. Rolf had just got off a nine and a half hour flight from Vancouver, and was leaving in a couple of hours to film the video for Fine Day in Cannes, with no time for even a shower between flights, yet it was me, a stranger, he was concerned about.
Perhaps his greatest crime is being anodyne. He is a bit too easy to like - not exactly a trait to be listed alongside the deadly sins. He is utterly inoffensive, with the single exception of having a reputation for telling right-off jokes, particularly about the Irish.
I beg him to tell me one. Harris claims he heard the joke from the comedian Barry Cryer. The matron on the other end of the phone says, 'Is this her first child?
Harris chuckles. His response is swift. It seems to be an excuse for not being funny. Rolf Harris just didn't speak like that. The prospect of Rolf Harris being rude and crude is just too tempting. He didn't really want to book into a hotel, he wanted to get himself a little house and rent it. Which he did. He bought himself some el cheapo furniture, just some minimum things, and he's arranging them in this house.
Then this guy arrives in this big Cadillac, he's in work clothes, dungarees, then he gets out and puts this big Stetson on, comes up to the Australian bloke and says, 'Hey, I'm your nearest neighbour, and I just called round to say howdy. Now, I'm throwing a barbecue tonight to welcome you to the area. All this is recounted, of course, in an extremely convincing Texan accent. Plenty to eat, plenty to drink, music for dancing, and later on some sex and some fighting, maybe.
But thanks for the invitation. What should I wear? There'll only be the two of us. If he considers that a dirty joke, he obviously hasn't heard much of the comedy going around the clubs these days. If I think his success hinges on failing to offend anyone, Rolf has other ideas. You've got to know what's happening out there.
If you make eye contact with just one person, everybody in the place, by some indefinable magic, is sure that you're talking to them personally.
I learned that very early on. Hermione Gingold - remember her? That's why my stuff works at these big rock venues. A lot of the bands come on and they just sing at people, they never look at them, they never involve them.
If you're not singing to them, if you're just singing to a point on the wall, you might just as well be a record playing. A record playing would be better, actually, because the quality's going to be better. Whatever Rolf is doing, he does it live. When he was asked on to Top Of The Pops following the phenomenal success of his didgeridoo version of Led Zeppelin's Stairway To Heaven in , he performed without a backing track. The production staff was so unprepared, they had to hunt around for spare microphones and monitors.
Even then, live acts were rare. Harris may have his hand on the mike, but he doesn't have his finger on the pulse; it's rumoured that he had no idea who Led Zeppelin were when he got involved in Stairway To Heaven. Its success, and the subsequent tour around student unions, forced Harris to form his own band for the first time, nicknamed The Roo Brothers. Is Rolf Harris, aged 70, reaching his musical maturity?
To be able to say, 'This is what I want to do. It's probably the first time in my life I've had that happen, in the past three or four years. Before that, you're always being told by other people, by other musicians, 'Well, musically, it's not really very good. I was never quite confident enough to say, 'Well, look, this is what I want to do. While his younger audience was being regenerated in clubs and at festivals, on the television he won the contract to present Animal Hospital, a job for which Ken Livingstone was first considered.
It was not an instant success. The first two programmes went only reasonably well. But on the third day, a tough-looking guy dressed in denim came in with a very sick German Shepherd called Floss.
Floss had to be put down, and her owner became very distressed. Rolf offered comfort, putting his arm around him, and was soon in tears himself. The next night our rating shot up to nearly 10 million. Was this a case of false sentimentality? Was this a ruthless TV personality, desperate to secure his foothold in popular broadcasting after his Cartoon Club had been axed, making a calculated display of emotion to boost the audience?
I suspect not. With Harris, what you see is what you get. Sienna Miller has lots to smile about as she returns home from New York - maybe because of a man named Archie Lucy Liu rocks olive green bomber jacket with black slacks as she steps out in New York City with a gal pal Prince Andrew's ex-girlfriend's year-marriage is 'hit by the curse of lockdown' Under her thumb!
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