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Headline:

The lost child - Voluptua's last secret

Synopsis:

News Review interview: The girl at the centre of the Russell Brand scandal reveals how her loving, middle-class upbringing gave way to drugs and porn.

Imagine a typical middle-class family. Dad runs a building firm and does a spot of acting; mum is a voice-over artist. They have two children, Georgina and Billy. It’s a happy, secure setup with grandparents who live up the road in north London and provide heavenly Christ-mases with lots of presents. Grandad, as it happens, is quite well off, chiefly because he played the waiter Manuel in that peerless sitcom Fawlty Towers.

What child wouldn’t be proud to have Andrew Sachs as a grandfather? Georgina Baillie nods. “When I was about eight and I said, ‘My grandad is Manuel’, my friends were like, ‘Who’s Manuel?’ But when I got to secondary school it was a very cool thing.”

Did she ever watch Fawlty Towers with him? “Only about twice and only because we begged him to put it on.” He’d sometimes do Manuel impressions for her – but “only after hours of begging”. She giggles. “They were amazing grandparents and my brother and I were spoilt to death by them.”

There was one great occasion when Sachs was booked for an after-dinner turn as Manuel in a big Bath hotel. At Sachs’s insistence the grandchildren went along. “He was dressed as Manuel! It was awesome,” says Baillie.

Publish date:

9 November 2008

Author:

Rosie Millard

Source:

Sunday Times

Media:

Access Interview