28 Feb 2024
We ask a different figure from the local community to choose 10 questions to answer from a list of 50. This week: Sarah Clarke, a BAFTA winning series producer who has made a number of entertainment, reality and kids shows in a 26-year career. She is also a resident DJ at local Indie Club Nights, Common People, Get Free and It’s A Sin (www.indienights.co.uk). She grew up in St.Albans and is now raising her own family here.
What is your most missed St Albans shop, pub, café or restaurant?
Full disclosure: I’m about to cheat massively answering this question. Not only am I going to choose more than one place – I’m even going to allow myself a pick that wasn’t even in St Albans. I’ll accept whatever punishment comes with such flagrant disregard for very clear rules.
All of the places I’ve picked are not just nostalgic throwbacks to my youth, but they are places I wish were still here for my own kids. There’s such a lot to love about St Albans – but not so much if you’re a teenager.
The In Shops: What’s now TK Maxx used to be an emporium of what any teen wanted from their local town. Records, posters, band tees, cheap makeup, shoes, clothes, jewellery and all sorts of random trash. Great to browse and spend a bit of pocket money. There really isn’t anything catering for the kids now. Other than the whole of the internet, which to be fair is probably slightly better than tacky indoor shopping precinct, but lets ignore that for now.
Rocket: Rocket was the coolest place to buy gifts, was a big step up from the random trash of The In Shops and sold cool clothes too. Plus it was owned and run by the much-missed ray of sunshine, Annie Hunniset. OK my kids love Shaken Cow, but I bet they’d have loved what was there before even more.
The Marlborough Club and The (original) Hatfield Forum: My 17-year-old daughter’s head almost exploded when she found out that Radiohead played at a social club in Cottonmill in the ‘90s and I didn’t even go.
Somehow I missed that, but was there to witness Whigfield play the Hatfield Forum, which still seems like an incredibly strange booking for an indie club full of teenage goths.
Yes, The Horn is still going strong (and put on some great band nights for 14+) and the new investment in The Pioneer Club is really exciting too. But there’s no regular teen music night, and that makes me sad.
I met my lifetime best friends at The Forum indie nights on Friday and Sunday nights. And while it wasn’t my scene, even Batchwood put on underage club nights every Thursday. What a shame our kids don’t have the same.
CD, vinyl, download or streaming?
All of the above. And let’s not forget cassette tapes, which are making a big retro comeback.
My first love will always be vinyl: our small house has records stuffed in every orifice, of all genres. So many of them collected trawling record stores, charity shops and car boot sales when no one wanted them. It makes them extra special, the sheer effort involved in finding them. Despite having lost so many of our independent shops over the years, it fills me with joy that St Albans still has Empire Records. There really is nothing better than flicking through vinyl in a record store and we’ve got one of the best.
However, no music lover can deny the magical convenience of having access to literally all music on your phone as a walk-man upgrade. And no DJ who has lugged around flight cases of vinyl can deny the sheer convenience of having your entire collection of music on a MacBook.
I wonder if there’ll ever be a Mini Disc revival?
Who is your favourite St Albans musician or band?
I’m a big fan of Friendly Fires – their homecoming gig at the Alban Arena last summer was absolutely epic. And I love Aluna George too.
But my actual favourite St Albans-linked band are The Metatrons (www.themetatrons.co.uk) who are incredibly talented friends of mine, making the exact type of music I love. Which is very handy for me really. Go check them out!
What TV did you watch as a child?
I could fill this whole edition of the St Albans Times with nostalgic memories of watching TV as a child – but don’t worry I won’t.
I loved TV. So. Much.
My first favourite TV show was The Muppet Show – a strong start. I adored Worzel Gummidge and his many heads. I had a letter read out on The Wide Awake Club and almost exploded with excitement. I fought hard for permission to watch Marmalade Atkins. I loved the US soaps via osmosis from my Granny – not just Dallas and Dynasty, but their spin off shows too: shout out to Knots Landing and The Colbys. And I was the exact right age to be fully obsessed with Neighbours and Home & Away when they came along. I still know all the words to Suddenly by Angry Anderson and I’m still not over Daphne dying.
My Dad used to moan at me for spending hours “rotting my brain” in front of the box. Turns out I was actually in training for my future career, so ha, in your face Dad! (And also – hi Dad – thanks for inspiring my obsession with comedy – love you).
My first paid job in TV out of uni was on The Big Breakfast, which I’d actually studied as part of a Media Studies GCSE at school years before.
I started as a runner and was a producer by the time the show finished. I felt so lucky to be learning my trade from the people who’d made my absolute favourite show from my teenage years, The Word.
Ironically, now I work in TV I don’t have time to watch as much TV as I’d like and live for podcasts. And also for sleep. Strange how things work out.
Do you ever Google yourself?
I’m not famous, and have incredibly ubiquitous first and last names, which I share with a pretty well-known American actress. So yes, of course I’ve Googled myself. If only to check and confirm all of the above.
Who was your first best friend?
Technically, my first best friend was a boy called Francis from whom I was inseparable until my family moved to St Albans when I was six. I actually think we’re still engaged. But as this is a St Albans publication, I’m going to shout out to my first St Albans best friend, who is still my best friend today: Sara Hill.
Sara and I both joined St. John Fisher primary school in Marshalswick in what would now be called Year 1, but what we (far more logically) called Infant 2. We immediately bonded, probably because we had very-nearly the same name. Or possibly Sara was simply an incredibly astute six-year-old, with the foresight to know I’d be the perfect future companion for backpacking around Thailand; attempting to smoke at the bottom of my garden using A4 lined paper and loose leaf tea; or successfully bunking off school to buy a jumper from Benetton on Oxford Street that she literally could not live without, or indeed wait for the weekend to buy.
Despite going to different secondary schools and having different friend groups, different careers (and Sara now rather inconveniently choosing not to live in St Albans), she is still a much loved and appreciated ever-present in my life.
Should we both find ourselves single or widowed in later life, the plan is to recreate The Golden Girls. Which sounds so much fun, I have to remind myself that my number one choice is actually for my partner to stick around and grow old with me. Perhaps I need to prep him for the possibility of needing a Sara-annex built on the side of the house…
How often do you check your phone?
All the time. Genuinely. But I’m not one for denouncing all screen-time as evil. Why are they even still called phones? The last thing I want to do with my phone is phone someone on it. I want to listen to music, podcasts, watch TV, take photos. To read the news, follow the football, chat to friends on socials. I want to play Pokémon GO (I’m very committed and I have not yet caught them all, because they keep releasing more).
But for me, it’s also a medical device. My son has Type1 Diabetes and via a monitor in his arm, we get constant blood glucose readings to our phones. This tech is not just a game-changer, but a life saver: alerting us when his blood sugars are headed dangerously high or low.
Am I nostalgic for the halcyon days of freedom and being unshackled from a devise? Absolutely not, I love my phone and feel very lucky to have it.
Do you remember your first kiss?
Surely everyone remembers their first kiss? Or perhaps not everyone returns to the scene of their first kiss with quite such regularity as me.
I had my first kiss at a STAGS/Verulam disco. They were the height of the social calendar for school kids in the late ‘80s/early ’90s; and would alternate from being in the banging venues of the Verulam Canteen and the STAGS hall. This particular disco was at my school, STAGS. And after dancing together to classics like Ride On Time and Pump Up The Jam, my dance partner – let’s call him Alex (because that’s his name) – asked if I’d like to “go outside” with him. That was the height of romance for a tweenager back then. And that’s how I ended up having my first kiss outside my school canteen, to the brilliantly incorrect soundtrack of I Feel The Earth Move, by Martika.
Unfortunately, despite my thinking “bye losers, never gonna come back here ever again” when I left school after my A-Levels, it turns out I have spent most of my adult life living very close to STAGS, and my daughter goes there. And every time I drive in, and pass the outside of the canteen, I’m reminded of that seminal moment.
The recipient of my first kiss emigrated to Australia, which I hope was unrelated.
What object would you save first if your house was on fire?
In reality this is a wholly impractical item to save in an emergency situation, particularly a fire; but I’d be gutted to lose my grandfather clock.
It stood for years in my Irish grandparents’ house in Berkshire, but was made by a friend of my great aunt, in St Albans.
I’ve done my research (phoned my Mum) to refresh myself on the details, and this is the story:
Mr Grisson had a shop on Victoria Street, which sold typewriters and chocolate (there aren’t enough office supply and confectionery stores around these days if you ask me).
It turns out that Mr Grisson was also a talented carpenter in his spare time, and in 1908 he made a grandfather clock from an oak tree that had grown locally. My aunt worked for Mr Grisson and inherited much of his belongings when he passed, with the clock finding a home with my grandparents, and now me.
I love having a little bit of local history in my house.
If you could go back in time and offer your younger self some advice, what would it be?
As a child of the late 1980s, I think the only correct answer to this question is that I would gift myself a Sports Almanac and advise myself to take up gambling.
