Carol
Harrison
Interview
Danny Dyer calls her mum, she
counts Patsy Palmer, June Brown
and Nadia Sawalha as friends,
she’s starred with Ray Winstone
and worked with Bill Nye. Now
actress, writer, producer and teacher,
Carol Harrison, is happily settled
in Brighton and working on the
production she’s written called All or
Nothing, celebrating 50 years of The
Small Faces.
Could tell us about your childhood
and your early memories?
I was brought up in the East End of
London. My earliest memory is going
down hopping, hop picking in Kent, and
I really remember that distinctly and
singing Valderi Valdera around the hops.
It was a very traditional sort of East End
upbringing, except for the fact that my
mum was a single parent and in those
days it was quite rare so it was more of
a struggle. We were really quite poor
but my mum worked as a tailoress all
her life and I always remember she was
an amazing dressmaker so I was never
went without a nice outfit… if there was
anything that I had to go to that was
special, the sewing machine would be
going because she’d make me something
8
out of remnants and stuff like that. It was
so I always looked nice and she always
drummed that into me. I had to look nice
and I had to be somebody as well. That’s
what she wanted. I think she left school
at 13, although she got a scholarship
she felt it was a lost opportunity in a
way because her parents couldn’t afford
for her to go there. She had to go out
and work and bring money in. My mum
always instilled in me that I had to be
something, be somebody I guess.
Do you have siblings?
I’ve got a sister who actually lives out
Lancing way - obviously she’s from the
East End too but when I moved down
here ten years ago she followed me
down. So, it’s just me and her and my
nephews from the family down this way…
they had to come as well, I couldn’t leave
them there!
I remember a few different things from my
childhood, I was growing up in the 50s
and 60s, and things were very different
then. I was born in the year that rationing
ended. One of my favourite places in the
East End is where I lived for a long while
before I came here to Brighton and that
was in Victoria Park. I always remember
going there because I lived in West Ham,
(near the football ground that’s why I’m
a West Ham fan), and I remember going
to Victoria Park for the first time and
thinking it was heavenly and I remember
sitting there thi nking, “one day I want a
big house here and all my friends can