The Business is never finished - Memories of Debs in Tanzania

The funeral was massive. It was for an old friend - Debs. She's had cancer all the time I've known her. 16 years, but I’ve known her for ten. Another wondrous Scorpio.

Back to Debs. We worked together in TV. Badly. Or rather, I worked for her and Brian. I was briefed before meeting her, “She’s the matriarch. Work out if you like her, respect her, can work for her. She’s the boss.” Often in the early days I was treading on quicksand: I loved her easy warmth, her quizzical relentless questions, her twinkly eyes and her cats. I loved that she found out it was my birthday on the first day at True Vision and immediately suggested we all go out for a pub meal. That was one of the many many things she did that was just kind. Just kind. Simply. So in the early days: I found her unpredictable: at times the attention to detail frustrating, fussy and a bit ‘negative’ (before I had the insight to see that I am exactly the same, which is why it hit such a nerve).

I remember her going off for a break after an exhausting, poverty-steeped shoot, on a luxury private island off Zanzibar with Brian and complaining ‘about the noise’ from the mainland. I remember seething at her “imperious, colonial, pompous, difficult attitude”….in between crying my heart out because I just couldn’t get it right, I couldn’t do what was needed, professionally, and I was exhausted and felt inadequate

And then another leftfield shot: all the Tanzanian staff on the shoot adored her (they told me)… I felt stupid, I’d misjudged it all, misjudged her.

It changed on that Tanzanian shoot in Temeke - a slum in Dar es Salaam. We were waiting in the minibus. I was smoking too much, she asked me why. Tentatively I started asking her about having cancer, and how that changed her view of herself, her body, her approach to people. Slowly, like a young horse adjusting to the saddle, I relaxed into seeing this person who’d rather terrified me, was actually candid, brave, insightful: she knew herself well. Better than I’d anticipated.

She was good at talking. She was good at listening. She could be stroppy, and funny - outraged at bad manners or poor service. She could really shine and her enthusiasm could change a room’s energy. She was endlessly supportive about my work - and delighted when I talked to her about doing work with sexual abuse survivors in Kisumu, where she is from. She was brave and honest without being confrontational (a skill I’ve got now too, at last, from her) and she got much much better at being vulnerable, and admitting her mistakes- at least to me.

And with that the connection and conversations really took off: she was creative, lateral, captivating, and always able to justify what she thought. Her questions - at first in a work context - utterly hijacked me: it took a few years for me to admire, and then actually start to enjoy, these odd poignant reflections, which always made me think. In the last few years ‘Debs’ take on things’ was something I relished, would seek out. How marvellously ironic that the thing that I felt was nearly destroying me at first, came to be something I sought out as vivifying treasure.

Some Buddhists believe that certain people have accessed their ‘transformational’ side more than others: Debs I think lived her whole life transforming: combatting bad cancer cells, turning dreadful injustice and inequality into good stories, audiences, attention, and ultimately awareness leading to change. That ability, to take real human anguish, and walk side by side with it; and better, to turn it into a story that an over-educated privileged TV exec can commission, is nothing short of heroic. To stick with people, to not just view them as protagonists in a flickering drama, is also very under-rated, culturally. Debs had it in spades.

I think, now, clearly she adored me, she was consistently interested, curious, supportive, and persisted with friendship when at times I was downright miserable and obnoxious. And drip by drip I came to see that firstly I'd misjudged her, (she's just older, and therefore quite a lot clearer than I was when we met. And had better boundaries and was more observant than me). And secondly, we were a great deal more similar than I'd acknowledged. She's creative, passionate, and extremely compassionate, really took time with people, and didn't hold back. She was also riddled with a bewildering see-saw of lack of confidence (and being intimidated by the same sort of people that I am too) and brave resilience.

We are very much on the same team - politically, culturally, ethically. And people like that are rare. A relentless pro-poor advocate and champion, and a feminist. Fearless, in a graceful, clever way. Able to reward herself, acknowledge her talent, and enjoy the good life, in a beautiful, almost flamboyant way. I came to utterly adore her, and those days wandering around in Kew stopping to sit and talk about life, her gurus, her spirituality, will stay. As she got sicker and more frail and lost her voluptuous red mane of hair I saw a person who really wasn't afraid to go deep. I value that this person, who was essentially very private, trusted me.

She died on Sunday November 22nd. I find myself replaying the many conversations we had, and realised that only later in her life had I really allowed myself to engage with how much I loved her. The last time I saw her she looked shockingly ill (so thin, no hair, so frail, incontinent). It was so difficult. I kept rushing off to the kitchen to make tea. And cry. I couldn’t meet Brian’s eye. I was cross with myself: what use was I blubbering and being wet? That wouldn’t do.

And she made sure there was no unfinished business. She asked again and again if I held any resentments from our early days of friendship, and if there was anything I needed to say. I asked her the same.

We were good. She regretted not being able to direct more TV. Somewhat coyly, almost flirtatiously, she said “You know, it took me so long to realise I was a good director, I was a bit in Brian’s shadow”.

So we ate cake. I dithered about what to get her for her birthday. Finally settling on a white silk/mohair wrap that had been hand-knitted. It was delicate, a work of art, made by some Afghan women’s co-op or something, and classy. Worthy, beautiful, just right. I was due to go and give her a late birthday present on Thursday (just gone) because the previous week a Richmond blonde eejit reversed into me. Motorbike was a write off, and I was weary and done in.

So I cancelled. Her text says “Aww so sorry, Can I get back to you next week. I’m pretty sure it will be fine.” 

And she died.

There is no unfinished business. The business will continue: and that is to accept ambivalence. To not be too hasty to judge. To be compassionate. To try and meet every situation with love, creativity and patience.

And occasionally be stroppy, weepy, melodramatic, demanding, and a bit fussy.