When I got divorced from my first husband, Paul Merton, in 1998, I moved out of our home in southwest London into a two-bedroom flat on Poland Street, in Soho. It was on the top floor of a new-build that was jammed between a Yo! Sushi and an old-fashioned London pub. There was also a post office, which has since gone, a restaurant and several businesses.
I loved being in the centre of things. I’d known the area all my working life because I started in theatre in the West End. Berwick Street market, Dean Street and all the voiceover and advertising studios in the vicinity were familiar to me. There were a lot of agents around there at that time, although not so much any more. For someone working in the acting industry, it was a great place to live.
Back then, Soho was less bohemian than in previous decades, but it was still fairly rough and ready. A lot of people there had drug problems and there was a high level of prostitution, but I still found it exciting and eclectic.
You entered the flat via a small hallway. On the left, there was a kitchen and a sitting room, on the right were two bedrooms and a little bathroom, and ahead of you was another little guest bathroom.
I’m a great homemaker and I had already bought and renovated quite a few properties by then, so I loved decorating and buying new furniture. This being the 1990s, the decor was neutral, with pale wood and pale floors, so I set to work introducing bold colours. At that point, I was buying a lot of large art pieces for the flat by Alison Lambert and David Leverett from the Jill George Gallery around the corner.
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It was a fresh start in lots of ways, because it was while living there, not long after my divorce from Paul, that I met Sam Farmer, my future husband. I was filming the TV series Men Behaving Badly and he was the new runner. The attraction was immediate. He asked if he could get me any breakfast, and I just thought, “Oh my God, I love you.” He was tall, handsome, warm and adorable.
We hardly knew each other when he moved in, and we had a daughter, Emily, just over a year after meeting. A few people were sceptical that the relationship would work, because there was an 11-year age difference, but we’ve been together for 18 years now and I really enjoy being with him.
Although it can be difficult moving into a home someone else has created, Sam adapted surprisingly well. If I cook a meal, there is armageddon in the kitchen, but Sam is as tidy as I am untidy and he just cleared a path around me.
It was a manic time professionally. After giving birth, I pretty much went straight back to work to film Jonathan Creek, as well as other TV dramas and single comedies. Sam, who by this time was an assistant producer, became a househusband and raised Emily.
We left the area when it became a bit clubby. Once there’s a baby in the flat, it’s no joke when people start screaming and shouting outside at 4am, just after you’ve drifted off to sleep. I was a keen bird-watcher, so we decided to move to the marshes in Suffolk — an area I knew a little, because it’s where Jonathan Creek was filmed.
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I walk past our old flat quite a lot and always look up. I wasn’t sorry to leave, but I have fond memories. It was such an important time in my life — I met my darling husband, I had a daughter and my work revolved around the area. That flat was very much about a new beginning for me.
The World’s Most Extraordinary Homes, co-presented by Caroline Quentin and the architect Piers Taylor, continues on BBC2 on Friday at 9pm