‘Eve Bland co-founded ‘Bloomers‘ with Noreen Kershaw and Eileen Pollock in 1979. At that time her greatest boast was having been chosen by Andy Warhol for his ‘fifteen minutes of fame’ film project. He came across her when she was working as a waitress in New York and seething with resentment at having to do this when what she really wanted was to be an actress. People flocked to that diner to be served by the beautiful, leggy, lippy English girl. So grumpy was she that they called her Christmas Eve! She also had a lovely singing voice which was first recognized when she was involved in a show in support of the Miners’ Strike of the mid-eighties. Her son is called Joe, which delighted her pro-Russian Communist mother, who thought that her daughter had at last espoused the Cause and named him after Stalin. Actually, she just like the name. Amongst all her contributions to ‘Bloomers’, I most enjoyed her creation, Harry who, having allowed his wife a day off to attend to her sick mother, can’t understand what all this ‘women’s work is never done’ busines is about and proceeds to spend her whole week’s housekeeping sending stuff to the laundry, keeping the kids quiet on Mars bars and takeaways and letting them watch television till some ungodly hour whilst he goes down the pub.
And she could play the piano!’
Our thanks to Eileen ‘Polly’ Pollock for this memoir.