Playing Grace by Hazel Osmond
A ten year anniversary is a big event and I have no doubt that Female First will still be going strong in another 10 years – I hope I’m still here to write something then too.
When I was thinking about what to say about my interpretation of ‘10’, I was going to write about a Wedding Anniversary – but it’s hard to make tin sound interesting. And then I remembered what the number‘10’ used to mean to me when I heard it.
Some of you may be a bit too young to recall a film called ‘10’ starring Dudley Moore. It came out in 1979 and was an instant hit, not least because it featured an incredibly beautiful woman running along the sea shore and a stint of love-making to the sound of Ravel’s Bolero.
But I grew to hate that film.
Why? Because the incredibly beautiful woman was called Bo Derek and my maiden name was Derrick and so I was constantly getting my leg pulled. These days I would just laugh and say ‘I wish’ when people in shops asked, ‘Are you any relation?’ But then, as a self-conscious nineteen year old, it was excruciating. It didn’t matter if I pointed out that the spelling was different, or that I was English and she was American, or even that my short hair wouldn’t support two pigtails, let alone a load of beaded plaits …
I’d have to tell people my name in a new class at University and some joker would call out ‘Hey, Bo!’ I started work and wondered why so many men just happened to be ‘passing’ the office – later a colleague told me that they wanted to come and see if I lived up to the name. I was, oh mortification, in a pub and got introduced to a guy who was a bit worse for wear and he announced loudly that he thought I wasn’t bad, ‘but more of a 5 than a 10’.
You get the picture. So for a long time, ‘10’ was not my favourite number. Now I think the whole thing helped me toughen up a bit until I could hit back with, ‘Hey, while we’re handing out marks, pal, what’s a smaller number than zero?’ Indeed, those memories make me laugh – I look back on them fondly and, really, I only had to put up with being compared to an impossibly beautiful woman until 1985.
That was the year I got married and became an Osmond. After that no one asked me about Bo Derek, they were too busy asking me if I was Donny’s sister and was I any good at singing. And, best encounter ever, a dear old guy in a shop asked me if I was a moron too.
I’m still hoping he meant Mormon.
Check out my other interviews with Hazel Osmond now!
The First Time I Saw Your Face
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