Barbra Streisand is 81 and hasn't had any fun - I'm 87 and I know that's a tragedy

Barbra Streisand, whose new memoir runs to nearly 1,000 pages (Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty/Dwight D Opperman Foundation) — Barbra Streisand’s new memoir runs to nearly 1,000 pages (Photo: Kevin Mazur/Getty/Dwight D Opperman Foundation)

The entire Western world must be hanging its head in shame that it has taken so long for us all to reassure Barbra Streisand that we love her. In an interview with the BBC this week to promote her 1,000-page memoir, My Name is Barbra, she said that at 81, she hasn’t had much fun in her life. To which I would say, aged 87, that this is a tragedy, and add that it’s surely never too late to start.

Streisand spoke of the torment of being able to forget being poor when she was a child. Or having a horrid stepfather. Or working as an usherette when she was 16.

Not that she’s blaming us Brits for all her woes. She said she finds us a “less sexist” country than the USA. “You had a Queen and Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister. In other words, you weren’t intimidated by me being a woman.” That’s quite a thought.

Am I intimidated by Barbra? Not so you’d notice. Her high notes in slow ballads tend to make my teeth ache but I’ve been her faithful fan since the 50s. I devoured all the brilliant notices of her historic Broadway debut in 1962. I loved her in the Funny Girl film. It was great to have a female star who wasn’t all blonde and bubbly or dark and bitchy. I cherished her film version of On a Clear Day even if the critics weren’t kind.

Barbra Streisand told the BBC she found her tough upbringing hard to overcome (Photo: BBC Breakfast/PA)

There is a tenderness about her on screen that makes her seem, well, recognisable, sympathetic. Even though she’s extraordinary. She’s not conventionally beautiful but she radiates positivity and, in the fictions of film and song at least, she makes success seem possible.

Yet somewhere between a miserable childhood and worldwide fame and fortune she has turned into someone who has soared into the superstar galaxy, far, far beyond us fans still gazing upwards at her trajectory. Probably, on the way, she learned about intimidation. She speaks of it. It seems to haunt her. Legend has it that she’s more a practitioner than a sufferer from it these days but let’s examine the two examples of women she salutes while congratulating us Brits for not being intimidated by them. As it happens I met both of them.

I met the Queen at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. Paul McCartney was the third person in this conversation. His paintings were on show. Her Majesty, having looked at them carefully, said: “You do photographs too, don’t you? “Yes,” said Paul, smiling, “So do you. I’d love to see yours.” HM looked up into his eyes, smiled and murmured “I bet you would”, before, smoothly, moving on. McCartney was speechless. No intimidation necessary.

Streisand in the film 'Funny Girl', 1968 (Photo: Silver Screen Collection/ Getty) — Streisand in the film *Funny Girl*, 1968 (Photo: Silver Screen Collection/ Getty)

Margaret Thatcher understood intimidation but, as importantly, when to put it to use. She also knew when not to. I was chairing Channel 4’s Face The Press on a very difficult weekend for Mrs T. We were at No 10 and there were problems with the Cabinet.

Off camera she was preoccupied but kind and hospitable. On camera she was fierce. Not even her press secretary Bernard Ingham, prowling nonstop out of camera range while loudly snapping his notebook, was as ferocious. The minute the camera stopped she took a sip of water and asked to be excused, apologising that she couldn’t offer us a drink because of pressure of business. Intimidation? Who needs it?

But to get back to Barbra. She spoke of her miserable childhood. She’d have felt quite at home in mine. There were 10 of us living in my grandma’s three-bedroom council house in 1939. My mum, dad, little brother and me in one bedroom; the other two shared between uncles Harold and Bud, aunties Nancy, Doreen and Pearl, plus Gran herself.

It was the end of The Slump, the start of The War and, soon, we were learning to go to bed in the air raid shelter as the bombs rained down on Liverpool’s docks a couple of miles away. Actually, I don’t remember a single miserable moment. Even when rationing started.

Just think, Barbra, if you’d been born a Brit you’d have had all the post-war austerity that went on for ages after. There was bread rationing and shortages of everything and redundancies in every industry. But you’d also have had the benefit of the 1944 Education Act, the National Health Service, the BBC and at least two or three inspirational politicians.

None of that would have made up for an unloving mother and having to start work at 16 (although that would have been at least a year earlier over here than in the USA). And if trouble made you a better artist you should actually think of including it in your list of blessings.