Pam Ayres' Bio notes
Pam will appear at Clacton & North East Essex Arts & Literary Society
in the Autumn
 It was November 1975 when Pam Ayres made the first of her multi-winning appearances on the ITV talent show, Opportunity
Knocks, and this proved to be the start of an incredible career for a unique entertainer. There is no other contemporary entertainer
whose career was established by writing and performing comic verse.
Pam Ayres always wanted to be a writer. At school she shone brilliantly at English and Art, but was pretty useless at everything else. The
youngest of a family of six children, Pam Ayres was born in Stanford-in-the-Vale, Berkshire, during the long cold winter of 1947.
After leaving school Pam joined the civil service as a clerical assistant, a job in which she soon lost interest, and which prompted her to join
the Women's Royal Air Force. It was while Pam was in the WRAF that she developed her love of singing and acting, and slowly the wild idea emerged
that she would like to be an "entertainer".
On leaving the WRAF Pam set out to achieve her ambition. By this time her poems and verses had become a hobby, to be written and performed for
the local folk club in Oxfordshire, where she had returned to live and work as a secretary. In 1974 a friend arranged for her to go to the local
radio station, BBC Radio Oxford, to read one of her poems. Pam's first broadcast for Radio Oxford, in 1974, was selected for BBC Radio 4's
Pick of the Week, and subsequently repeated on the 1974 Pick of the Year, by which time Radio Oxford had asked Pam to return
and recite some more of her poems.
After receiving rejection slips from several well-known publishers, Pam decided to publish her poems herself, and thus was printed The Entire
Collection (Eight) of Masterpieces by Pam Ayres, Famous Poet and Washer of Jamjars, which sold very successfully in her local area. In 1975,
after much prodding from friends, Pam decided to audition for television's Opportunity Knocks.
Since then Pam Ayres has appeared on virtually every major TV show in the UK, has had her own TV series, and filmed Christmas TV Specials in Hong
Kong and Canada. Other highlights include BBCTV televising one of Pam's solo stage shows, and appearing in the Silver Jubilee Royal Variety
Performance at the London Palladium. In October 1996, Pam performed part of her stage show at a Royal Gala Charity Reception at St. James'
Palace, attended by HM The Queen.
Pam performs her solo show in theatres throughout the UK, doing about 50 concerts a year. She has taken her one-woman show to Ireland, the Middle
East, Hong Kong, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia. 1997 saw Pam on her tenth Australian concert tour, as well as tours to New Zealand and
Ireland, and entertaining on P&O's cruise ship, Oriana.
Pam Ayres has published six books of poems. Sales of these have exceeded two million worldwide. Her latest book, With These Hands, a
collection of poems, monologues, and sketches, was published in paperback last year (1999) by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, following its hardback
publication in 1997, when it spent several weeks in the Sunday Times best-sellers chart. Pam has also written many books for children, of which
six have been published in the USA, two have been translated for European countries, one into Japanese. Parn's latest children's book, a novel
entitled The Nubbler. was also published last year in paperback by Orion Children's Books following its original hardback publication in
1997.
Pam Ayres has recorded seven record albums, and has silver, gold, and platinum records from sales in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Pam's
last recording, The Pam Ayres Poetry Collection, a collection of fifty of her best-known poems, was released in 1997.
In autumn 1995, The Pam Ayres Radio Show a series of six half-hour programmes, was broadcast on BBC Radio2. The series was based on
Pam's live stage show. From March 1996 until June this year Pam presented a two-hour music and chat show every Sunday afternoon for BBC Radio2.
One of Pam's poems, I Wish I'd Looked After me Teeth, has recently been voted into the Top Ten of the BBC poll to find the Nation's "100
Favourite Comic Poems"
The year 2000 marks the 25th Anniversary since Pam Ayres started her career, and to mark the event a new variety of lupin is being named after
her and will be launched at the Chelsea Flower Show in May. Pam Ayres is married to concert agent & theatre producer Dudley Russell, and they
have two sons., William and James, aged 16 and 15. The family lives in the Cotswolds, where Pam is a keen (and knowledgeable) gardener,
chicken-keeper, and beekeeper.
In October 2006 Pam Ayres entertained a packed Princes Theatre for an Arts and Literature evening. Her unique form of humorous
verse and stories takes a look at the joys and tribulations of daily life.
Pam Ayres started her career around 36 years ago after she went on Hughie Green’s ‘Opportunity Knocks’. She still gives 60 concerts a year
in this country and travels in Europe and Australia.
Pam's back in October
|
