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London Dog Forum > Dog Fun, Fact & Entertainment > Celebrity Dog Lovers > Celebrity Dog Lover Special (Part 3)
Celebrity Dog Lover Special (Part 3)
The final part of a trip to meet the cast of Benidorm
“ I’ve got a little dog” piped up a voice with a Scouse accent as thick as treacle from the other side of our dinner table.
“ I’ve got a little dog” piped up a voice with a Scouse accent as thick as treacle from the other side of our dinner table.
“ She’s never barked......no honestly. It’s true. She has never ever barked...!”
This was Chrissie Rock who plays the long suffering holiday rep, Janey York in 'Benidorm'. And before I go any further, I must add that Chrissie’s delightfully caustic wit extends far beyond the camera lens. She is a favourite in the Spanish clubs as a stand-up comedienne.
“ She doesn’t bark but she likes dressing up. You should see her at Christmas!...........Oh!...and St Patrick’s Day, we both dressed up. She had little green beard and everything! You should’ve seen us!”
‘What breed of dog is she?’ I asked, wondering if her dog was a Basenji, a breed that doesn’t bark but sings. Somehow it wouldn’t have surprised me if Chrissie had a dog that sung!
“What Tilly?...She’s a miniature Schnauzer? She’s gorgeous. I love her. When I was terribly ill a while ago, she would snuggle up to my face and kiss my cheek as if she knew.”
The close relationship between Chrissie and her dog was confirmed to me later when I spoke on the phone to her partner.
“She’s a completely different dog when Chrissie, isn’t here,” he confirmed.
“When she was little I used to take her to work in a pram. When I say pram, it was proper doggie pram with a gauze across so she could breathe and look out. She loved it!” Chrissie said.
Naturally I was intrigued to see Tilly in her pram, not to mention dressed up as a leprechaun. Chrissie rushed off to get her laptop. Furthermore, once she got her ‘wonky dongle’ working she e-mailed me the pictures to share on London Dog Forum.
Tilly in her pram Chrissie with Tilly on St Patrick's Day
Derren Litten with Tilly Jake Canuso and Janine Duvitski with Tilly Tilly in her pram Chrissie with Tilly on St Patrick's Day
Having finished our Sunday dinner, most of us trooped back to Derren’s place to catch up on the latest ‘X Factor’ results. Siobhan Finneran promised if she saw Janine, she would send her over to finish our interview.
Janine (Duvitski) appeared almost immediately looking a fresh as a daisy and clad in shorts and a tee shirt, having just completed a walk on the ‘Pharo’. This is a fabulous walk that takes a coastal path along the rocky cliffs of Albir to Benidorm where there are stunning views across the sea to Calpe.
I was going to say that I continued the interview, but talking to Janine was like having a good old doggie gossip with a chum!
Janine always loved dogs but unfortunately her mother suffered from asthma so, as a child, she hadn’t been allowed to keep one. Instead, she told me, she had the Observer Book of Dogs and named them all. To satisfy her need for personal contact, she would take a neighbour’s dogs, Sally and Scamp out on a regular basis.
It wasn’t until Janine went to drama school that she ‘owned’ a dog. In fact, to be accurate, the dog, Taffy was adopted from Battersea Dogs and Cats Home by the boy she was living with at the time. When they went to collect the dog, he dashed out of Battersea like a bullet out of a gun, but as he reached the road he sat and waited on the pavement. Taffy was brilliantly trained!
At this point Chrissie chimed in, “I had a Dobermann once. I could balance a biscuit on his nose and he would sit there drooling like a bungee!”
Janine split with the boyfriend and, as her mother had died, Taffy shared his life exclusively with Janine, even to the point of winning a role at the National Theatre. However, like most dogs, Taffy ‘upstaged’ the other actors and caused such a distraction that he was fired! The stage hands got up a petition to get him reinstated but unfortunately to no good affect!
Taffy lived to almost 16!
Janine has three children and it was decided that the family would get dog to coincide with her son’s 7th birthday.
“This time it was to be a ‘chosen dog’.” Janine told me this almost apologetically. However, she wasn’t going to incur my wrath for not opting for a rescue. My Berkeley was a ‘chosen dog’. I researched her breeder carefully and took all the recommended steps, and she is a wonderful companion that I hope will be with me for many years to come. However, it doesn’t mean that a rescue will be out of the running for adoption at sometime in the future!
“Out came the Observer Book of Dogs again!” Janine continued,
“We decided on a bearded collie – the Divine Lily. We were living in Richmond then, right on the park and it was idyllic.
“Lily’s only fault was that she had a penchant for chewing the feet off Barbie dolls. Each time it happened, I would replace my daughter’s doll but she never threw the old one away. In the end she had a vast collection of Barbie amputees!”
“We weren’t going to get another dog but my daughter became desperately ill with a virus. She had to go into hospital to have a kidney biopsy. Usually young children, unlike adults, are given a general anaesthetic for this procedure but as my daughter was eight, they were going to try with a local.
“ I said to her, ‘now darling, if you stay very, very still I will give you the very best present. You can have anything you want in the world’. To this she replied, ‘Can I have a spaniel puppy?’ I hadn’t expected that answer, but of course, I said ‘yes’. In the end she didn’t stay still and had to be given a general anaesthetic after all.”
I could see the memory of this episode was still upsetting Janine even though it had happened many years previously and her daughter is now grown up.
“As I sat in the waiting room, I thought, well at least I won’t have to get a puppy now. When my daughter was wheeled out of theatre I was allowed to sit with her. As she came round, she looked at me and her first words were, ‘can I have my puppy now?’ Needless to say, I said yes.
“The little Golden cocker died while I was in Benidorm filming the last series. She was 13.”
As I got up to leave, Derren (Litten) said, “What about me and my Charlie?” (Charlie being Derren’s adorable little terrier cross.)
“Next time Derren. I think I have enough to right a book here!”
With notes safely intact, I made for Alicante airport, sad to be leaving the crowd who, through their love and respect for Geoffrey Hutchings, have become my dear friends.
No doubt we will meet again soon, but in the meantime, there is the ‘ Benidorm Christmas Special’ to look forward to ....and I promise, that is a treat in store!
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