“OOH, yes, they are impressive,” Miriam Margolyes says, adjusting the angle and peering into her camera as I hoist my breasts up so she can inspect them. I’ve just ‘met’ her on WhatsApp video call. She’s in the passenger seat of her car on her way to Bradford, driving through tunnel after tunnel — not ideal for an interview as we both keep freezing on each other, and, as every word out of her mouth is interview gold, I don’t want to miss a single one.
She is the most wondrous, warm conversationalist. She says everything with a mix of earnestness, enthusiasm, and fierce expression. No more so than when she’s talking about bosoms.
“I always had a large bust,” she says. “And you’ve got them as well.” I was advised recently to get a breast reduction, I confide in her.
“Oh NO!” she exclaims. “You should never have an operation you don’t need to stay alive,” she says, firmly. “Keep them.
They came with you, keep them with you.” “I will, Miriam,” I promise, and I push the girls back out of view — Cagney and Lacey to their friends. “I don’t usually start an interview by presenting my boobs,” I assure her, but I did notice in my reading of her new book, Oh Miriam! that she extols the marvels of the mammaries.
“I used to leave a list on the kitchen table, to remind a potential lover about the order in which my body liked to be touched. Number One: TITS FIRST. My breasts had to be wooed before I was.
” She tells me she doesn’t m.
