Many moons ago, I appeared on the face of Golden Vale sliced cheese box. Thirty-three years on, I interview the lady who made it all possible, ensuring decades of both ridicule and awe.
So mam, how did we get involved in all of this?
Well, when I met your father in the bank, as was done at the time, I gave up work to stay at home but decided to continue with a bit of modelling. I used to bring yourself and your brother with me, so they all knew you in the studios, running amok on the sets. So you guys used to get involved in the odd one, too… I think this was your biggest one, apart from that other one where you were a baby crawling around in the nip on the carpet for a few minutes on the telly.
God yeah. But moving on, tell us about the day itself…
You’re going back so many years. I remember we got a taxi in to O’Malley Studios along the Grand Canal, I thought it was only you they wanted but when we got there they said they wanted me as well. I wasn’t ready at all! My hair wasn’t done or anything, I was mortified looking at that hair on the box for the next 10 years. I was in the same clothes and everything. Oh god.
And how did the shoot go?
[Long pause.] Well, you know, you’re very good now, but you were so bold, like a little diva. You wouldn’t sit still at all, screaming the roof down you were. I think the man in the studio couldn’t wait to get us out of there!
So was I a hero arriving home?
God no, we had to hide the box from your brother so he wouldn’t get jealous! One day, he opened the cupboard and saw your face on the cheese box and started bawling. So later that week we got him to open the cupboard again: your father had cut out a picture of him and put it over a minstrel on the Lyons Tea box and he was over the moon!
