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Blondes are supposed to have more fun and Fiona Spreadborough can
certainly see the funny side of life. That's not surprising, given her background and the
fact that she runs a shop called 'Junk and Disorderly' in Church Street.
 Born in Guilford, Surrey, and subsequently adopted, she lived there until she
was fifteen. She ran away to join a group of actors called 'Silly Billy Pickles and the
Peanut Street Gang', entertaining kids at Butlin's Holiday Camps. Adding a year to her
age, she told them she was sixteen. Rupert Graves, the award winning local actor, was also
in the troupe.
Like most actors, she found that work was sporadic and turned her hand to a number of
other ways of making a living. These included working the markets, including Walthamstow,
selling clothes, pots and pans and even dressing up as a sunflower to distribute seeds
outside Waterloo station.
She and a friend were employed to guide a large pink panther along Oxford Street as part
of a product promotion. When they became bored, they used to sneak off to do some
shopping, leaving the panther to his own devices. Unfortunately he couldn't see through
his costume and wandered around bumping into people. When Fiona and her mate returned he
complained that a 'load of effing kids' had been punching him.
Fiona says that she thinks about acting every day of her life and she pursues her ambition
whenever the opportunities arise. She appeared on TV in the Lenny Henry Show, Eastenders,
Operation Goodguys and other productions. In the New Year she will be seen in Hero to Zero
on BBC1, which also features the footballer Michael Owen. She has also done quite a bit of
theatre, including the Kings Head, Islington and in the West End at the
ShaftesburyTheatre. A new film called Elephant Juice, set in this area and Clerkenwell and
directed by Sam Miller, another local, has just been completed. It's due to be released
soon.
When she was younger she always wondered why she felt so strongly about acting and learnt
she inherited it from her real father. After discovering her birth mother lived in Dublin,
she found her and asked about her Dad. It turned out that he was a singer and entertainer
on the QE2.
Her other half, Mark Burdis, hosts the match-day dinner at the Arsenal Football Club and
is currently filming his third series of the successful Operation Goodguys for the BBC. He
also appeared with Ray Winstone and Jude Law in the film Final Cut. They have an
18-month-old daughter, Lily, who can often be found assisting her mother in Junk and
Disorderly. Fiona acquired the shop which had the highly descriptive (and probably
accurate) name of 'Crappos' eight years ago from a friend. She says she was skint but
managed to find £80 to buy some stuff at a car boot sale.
Since then the shop has become full of bric-a-brac, knick-knacks and hundreds of varied
objects, some of which, to the untrained eye, are impossible to describe. They are rarely
objets d'art but much more useful than some of the stuff seen in overpriced Islington.
Fiona's quick wit and sharp observations make conversations in the shop highly enjoyable
and sometimes it can be difficult to concentrate on what you intend to buy.
Now that she has Lily, she finds it much more difficult to get up at 4 a.m. to visit car
boot sales. Fiona is realistic about Church Street and says that the occasional visitors,
who see only the trendy side at evenings and weekends, do not realise that the local
traders work extremely hard and for very little reward during the slack daytime periods.
She is determined to carry on acting.
If a radio or TV director is considering a new location for a soap, they should look
around here. The comings and goings, intrigues, sex and politics in Stoke Newington make
the place more interesting than Ambridge on acid. Fiona would be an essential member of
the cast.
Junk and Disorderly is at 129b Church Street. Phone 020 7275 7007 |
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