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Preventing the Civil Guard from doing their job during the disputed referendum B.B.C. News read by Charles Carroll Sarah Millican describes the life changing moment she discovered her talent for comedy that's in a couple of minutes now they tell us chef and I go has the weather forecast for us out of us hello there Tom thank you we still have some severe weather around across the country river the remnants of Hurricane Ophelia moving across the far northwest of the pretty sheilds as I speak in fact the worst of the winds currently moving through the Irish Sea around the coasts of nor the Nile and Southwest in Scotland and we are still going to have some very rough weather during the early morning rush hour across the north of the country I want to start the forecast here so Scotland and the North of England very windy first thing in the morning gusts could still approach sixty or seventy miles an hour certainly around fifty or sixty in Glasgow and Edinburgh but the northeast of England up to seventy miles an hour and these winds are still capable of producing some structural damage and might bring some trees down and certainly course some delays on the roads so take it steady if you're traveling first thing in the morning across northern and northeastern areas by that stage in the morning around the rush hour the winds really will have died down across Northern Ireland still blowing quite hard around the Irish Sea and the coasts of Wales northern Wales but further south it really is a different picture and has been a different picture no winds to talk about in the south. And then Tuesday afternoon most of England Wales should have bright skies there will be a little bit of rain around later in the afternoon in Cornwall and Devon in Northern Ireland and Scotland they'll be some showers around during the course of Tuesday afternoon but a bit of sunshine too and the temperatures will range from thirteen degrees in Glasgow Edinburgh and Belfast fifteen in Cardiff and around seventeen degrees in London and it looks like we should all end the note on a fine note on Tuesday and the outlook for the week ahead is looking pretty unsettled and just a little heads up I don't think we've done with the storms yet come the weekend it could turn very very windy with heavy rain once again back to you and that's good snow in advance thanks very much indeed Thomas this is B.B.C. Radio four where is now time for The Book Of The Week use part or all part autobiographical part self-help manual the comedian Sarah Millican reads from her frank funny and occasionally outrageous memoir how to be champion. Please stand up stand up. Having been a very quiet child had a book very few friends it must be odd to those who knew me then that I now do stand up comedy is a job until my first gig I performed in front of a group of people only a handful of times. I was Mary in the Nativity and reception but had no lines patriarchy going mad I had to sit down as well because Joseph was a short ass I was five and had to be encouraged by Miss Charlton to cuddle the baby Jesus my arms were loose and the baby Jesus was slip and I clearly hit it kids even then or maybe it was the religious bullshit I could smell she kept saying Could him could you the baby Jesus and I reported the complained that he had penned on him snobby child Taitz an atheist at the age of five I was the narrator of the Nativity when I was ten I auditioned for the Angel Gabriel because she got to go up a ladder they said I had a good speaking voice so I was given the red to roll I wore my sister's thick blue color necked dress which was far too hot for the occasion I must have looked forty I was in the third year and the sure performed by third and fourth year juniors was an evening performance while the first and second years had a matinee I was pulled out of my lesson because the narrator for the matinee had stage fright look at the Nativity is generally the same across the board no matter what your take on it a banged it out no fear. In the first year of senior school the drama teacher a terrifying woman called Mrs McHugh decided we'd do a Christmas carol because most of the boys had little interest or were a bit crap my friend Kimberly got the lead role fairly redress in the balance of my silent sitting turn as Jesus mom I wanted to be involved but didn't want to big role I mostly like being there and watch me or I've never been great at learning lines your own show that you've written is a totally different deal so probably good that my rule third child only had the one he is not the mother which I nailed each time in my little mockup. Then there was the time I talked to someone I knew on the Metro about how I was taking my grandest books back to the library I distinctly remember the people all around us laugh and along that what I would say in sort of my first gig on a team building day should as when I was working for the job center we were put into groups did some exercises and had to report back our findings at the end of the day to everyone else the rest of my group bottled it and pushed me to the front I did it it was a very dry subject but somehow I managed to make a whole room of civil servants laugh my love for my favorite theater which is Live theater on the quay side in New Castle is strong I spent many a night there just after my divorce keeping myself occupied and soaking it all up I did a six week play writing course with Jeremy heaven and Jess Casey that put much fire in my belly and love to write a full length play for life the it is some day but time hasn't allowed it so far I see it involved with a scratch night's The idea behind them was that you'd send in five to ten pages of something you were writing and should be chosen it would be read aloud by proper actors in front of an audience it was a total thrill I was always leaning towards the funny and because of that mine always got picked and I'd sit there at a cabaret style table alongside people I didn't know and hold my breath hear in your words which sound so flat on paper brought to life by wonderful wonderful actors is a maison the actors would act the audience would laugh and I would skip home Jeremy Herron bloody lovely man would gather votes in at the end for people's favorite and I invariably won not because I was the best writer but because I had made fork laugh and often my conversation between two pensioners was started after a tense seven minutes of nuns in a war comedy wins. Creative Writing was my way out it was my release from the heartbreak I was beaten down by from jobs I hated I used to regularly say to myself I'm going to write myself out of this shit all and eventually over many many years I did but back then I was a bit lost I think I was looking for something but I didn't know what it was I was working six days a week killin every spare minute I could shorten it all down read in self-help books and then one day during my lunch break at work I booked myself in a bloody performance workshop I have no idea why it was for people who had written but never performed before then I had written a film column for the free paper a few short films a few short plays I hadn't performed at all save the previous examples I'd written but never performed so I qualified there was a gap between book in the course and doing the course so I forgot all about it I just got on with work and all the cry and I had days when I felt like I could do nothing I was just broken my whole future gone I had that what the hell must post to do now feeling that it only previously had when confronted with a massive run in Spider when a truck dogged it all over a friend's house and lie that it wasn't me I'd go to work but outside of the actual job I was barely function and I was convinced I would at some point run out of tears and never did the numbskulls control in the tear ducts must have been knackered. I also had days when I felt like I could do anything and felt pretty much invincible and never experience this feeling before I think most of us live our lives somewhere between the two between can't do anything and can do everything I call them my she road days and expectedly as a moral Wonder Woman era I wake up full of energy ready for the day a week properly a week if someone had said you have to climb this mountain I've asked for time to pop to Millets for the right sucks and then given it a bloody good go I signed up to this course on a she wrote Day The day came along and I was excited and nervous it was a half day workshop in Gateshead run by Kate Fox the poet stand up and all around brilliant woman followed by a performance that even at Kidman whole talk about being chucked in at the deep end it was a very practical course less about what you'd see more about how you'd see it we were encouraged to bring something we'd written so mine was a monologue about the breakdown of my marriage cheery hey you have to remember that this wasn't standup it was just a monologue just me trying to thing it never tried and in my new found freedom the possibility of anything was sexy I knew I had potential but in what most of the others on the course were poets who wanted to become performance poets we walked around we even in and out of each other saying words out loud the sort of thing I hated but really needed to do Kate had created a very safe space where no one would be anything other than supportive poets Oh in my experience a smashing bunch gentle generous interested it was a great environment to be myself in my new self and we did a show that night God knows how to a lovely receptive crowd I read my monologue aloud. The paper I held shook with the aftershock of my crazy heartbeat that's why if you see me do new material now every day from a notebook or index cards books and cardboard do not shake like paint the does look I stopped there and didn't end up with a plank of wood or a brick with my notes scrolled on I read the monologue and parts of it were brutal and parts it turns out were hilarious I went into the ladies' loos after my set and jumped up and down in a cubicle identifying I was terrified of and it felt amazing what was so terrifying about standing in front of a roomful of people and telling them about your personal horror the scariest thing in the world had already happened I was at rock bottom it turns out people laughing at something you've said feels like nothing else and that your friends the people who don't know you who have no obligation to laugh at you who have paid to be entertained I jumped in the lose and on the walk back to the Metro I rang my dad and simply said I Did It My family must have seen a turning point in me then for me it was a thing ticked off my list never to be done again no need done it four months later I rang Kate out of the blue I suppose I just rang and told her I wanted to try stand up and she said I know actually been waiting for the call she got me a gig and offered to meet me there before it to give me some tips they gave was at the Cumberland arms and bike and run by John Cooper I had five minutes on stage and went straight from work and realised on the way that I'd forgotten the page of jokes had written it was the bits from the monologue the crowd laughed at and a few more I'd written since I had no time to go home so I just decided to busk it remember what I couldn't see what happened Kate as promised met me at the PO before the audience came and I stood on stage mike in one hand and cable in the other as I learned on the course. With no idea what to weigh I brought a Moxie's Batwing long sleeved black top and jeans the way comedy gigs usually work is that the new people go on in the middle and this was no different the opener then the newest in the middle and the most experienced or best at the end John the Booker was MC and Ben's go for it was open and with the late Mark rough close and when I went on the audience sat there a lot of arms folded and for the first two and a half minutes remained much the same I remember silence but maybe it was less harsh than that than it did a joke about my dad being the voice of doom and my life changed the room went from silence to a roar of laughter a big wolf of recognition pity acceptance and poor booka but laughter all the same and at that moment I realize that even though my ex didn't love me fifty people upstairs in a pope in biker did or at least liked me a lot to find out what the joke was you have to buy my book turns out no one cared about the but when top that's one of the things I love about stand up no one cares what you wear and I can do a photo a and get a couple of people and social media ask away me dresses from and two hundred nineteen thousand nine hundred ninety eight people who couldn't give two hoots as long as I was funny then Scoville came up to me after the gig and said Are you willing to travel I said yes and he gave me the number of the matches to promote it to contact for a gig I smiled and as he walked away I deleted the number I was going to travel for this was he mad Can I just remind you that I've sensed in show business trailer and New Zealand. I left my leather gloves at the gig and when I mentioned that to comic radio host and all round good egg Stephan Petit he offered to drive by the pope to see if they were still there and then give them to me the next time we get together one adorable man that was after meeting him once I thought he was trying to get my pants as it was just a nice bloke my second gig is significant as it was where I met the love of my life if you don't cut the dog which I shouldn't but sometimes do it was at the courthouse in New Castle and run by Warren speed the opening act was supposed to be neck open but he'd been replaced by a bloke called Gary something today's how to be champion tip is if there's something you really want to do work out how to do it and get cracking sometimes vocalizing what it is you want to do makes it all seem much more feasible my friend and I used to make an annual list of what we wanted to achieve that year and the rule was that it had to be achievable goals so we couldn't say I want to come on the B.B.C. But we could say I want to write a simple sitcom script and get it on the desk of someone at the B.B.C. She also added in domestic stuff like new carpet for the living room whatever it is you want write it down and do it with a friend is a great idea then at the end of the year look at the list and see what you managed you'll be surprised we'd usually take it off at least half. Pinpoint what it is that you want look at how to get from way you walk to where it is just get started there's no magic involved be focused and work hard. Sarah Millican was ready for my mom how to be champion the book is a bridge produced by custom Cameron tomorrow the award winning comedian will set out her reasons for choosing not to have kids so the shipping bo's'n is just around