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screen went back, their grandmother was revealed, by now covered up in a dressing gown. At first the kids were mortified, but then they joined in the general hilarity and were on the floor laughing.
    Of the six shows, only one was aired. Why? It was thought to be in poor taste. As indeed it was, but that was the point. What made it all the more surprising was that the guy who commissioned the series also ran the network. In the end the one episode that was broadcast – and then only via a few local affiliates, and only after ten o’clock – did really well, getting audience figures in excess of ten million. The rest were scrapped, and are now gathering dust in some warehouse somewhere, I assume. But there were no hard feelings. It was a great payday, and it’s not like our lives were depending on it. You just move on.
    The world is much smaller now than it was when I was Kelly’s age, and it had been naive of me to imagine that she’d drop all her London friends just because she’d returned to LA. It wasn’t long before a boyfriend moved in. She became remote, answering the phone in monosyllables, if she answered at all. Kelly was hibernating. The phone was always engaged. And when Kelly hibernates, she’s either depressed or feeling guilty about something.
    It was two friends who alerted me to what was really going on. Her house, they said, stank of pot and beer. But was it just him? I couldn’t bear it.
    I was desperate to say or do something, and fantasised about marching round there, grabbing him by both earlobes and dragging him to the airport and on to a London-bound one-way flight. But I kept putting my head in the sand and telling myself tomorrow, I’ll address it tomorrow. I would always put it off. I didn’t want to have a fight with my daughter.
    Jack was really worried too. He was convinced it wasn’t just the numbskull boyfriend, and it was extra hard for him because he worked such a rigid programme with his own sobriety. He has a very dry wit, so his way of dealing with it was to bring it into the conversation, hoping it might permeate the pot fog at Kelly’s. But they were both so off their tits, he told me, that they weren’t taking anything in. Kelly’s response was to call me and say, ‘Mummy, do something, will you? Jack’s picking on me again.’
    Once Reloaded was out of the way, Ozzy and I had a really serious talk and came to the conclusion that we needed to stage an intervention with our daughter, to save her from herself. An intervention is where family and friends decide that enough is enough. You go to where they are living and face them with the facts. It’s all done in the presence of a trained therapist and there’s an exit plan in place – a rehab or clinic of some sort is expecting them. Having discussed the situation with the therapist, and knowing she wouldn’t go into rehab of her own volition, he agreed that this was the only way.
    I’ve done interventions before, both with my husband and my son, but Kelly’s was by far the worst. Knowing her penchant for the dramatic, I wasn’t surprised.
    Kelly’s house was built in the 1930s by an architect called Peter Bird, and it’s way up in the hills. These ‘Bird houses’, as they are called, are famous. They are usually quite small but always have the most amazing views. From hers, you could see all the way down Sunset Strip to downtown LA. Her actual address was Hollywood Boulevard, but streets in LA are long, and this was old Hollywood – her stretch was a long way from Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Kodak Theatre where the Oscars are held. It was a little gem, all on one level with just one bedroom, dressing area, kitchen/dining room and living room, with gardens back and front.
    So we get there and Ozzy knocks. It was just the two of us at this stage. It was noon, not a time she would expect us to drop in for a cup of tea or to ask her advice on where to have lunch. The moment she saw us she knew this wasn’t a