An Alan Rickman anecdote (personal experience)

In 2005 I got involved in the Ken Livingston London Mayor re-election campaign. I have vast experience when it comes to running call centres so they asked me to run the phone banks in a building attached to Euston Station.

Volunteers would come in, I’d give them a list of people to call, pointers on what we needed to know, and a script to get them going.

We had a regular volunteer who was a labour counsellor in Hammersmith, a lovely woman called Rima, we bonded over fag breaks on the fire escape outside the office.

One day her partner came to pick her up; yes, you know it, Alan Rickman. I was a fan, but because I lived in London where we are all super cool I managed to greet him with a smile, and when she told him she hadn’t quite finished I gave him a list, pointed at a phone and told him to make himself useful!

He said “With this voice?” I said go on, let’s see how long it takes the person on the other end… call one; he barely got out the name of the campaign! Calls 2, 3 and 4 similar, whilst we were all in fits of laughter.

He took it in great part and we all retired to the pub and drank a LOT of gin. He was as charming as he was reputed to be, very down to earth and very, very funny.