Miriam Fox

Having had enough of school by the age of 16 but passed 6 ‘O’ Levels (yes I’m that old!) I went to work as an office Junior for a firm of Chartered Surveyors in Mayfair and quickly worked my way up to selling Warehouse premises. A good job and  a company car by the age of 19 made me one happy bunny.

Then the property market crashed.  The Golf GTi had to be returned and things were looking grim for ‘high flyers’. Not the sort of person to lay down and take it I saw this as an ideal opportunity to gain the qualifications I’d never got round to studying for, and at the age of 21 I  became a “mature” student at City University in London studying Property Valuation & Finance.

Very soon I realised that it was the Finance part of my degree that interested me, and it gave me a way into the heady life of  THE CITY.

After graduating I turned my back on Surveying and it’s endless report writing and lease reading and went into the City. It was like money for old rope.  All you had to deal with was numbers and fetch coffee for the traders! I didn’t even mind being used as “bait” for the Traders when they needed a favour.  Being the only female on the Desk I was the one sent to ask for late deals if the deadline had been missed. I’d undo an extra button on my blouse and saunter up to the Traders fluttering my (very) long eyelashes. A finance degree can only get you so far you know!

I spent 5 years in the City including 6 months on the Futures Exchange LIFFE where you quickly find out why the support staff are called runners! It was an “open outcry” exchange where Traders deal using hand signals. Imagine trying to calculate a traders position NOW!!!! from an illegible hand written trading card whilst standing in the middle of a football match at Wembley Stadium! I also discovered from reading Rogue Trader that the small firm I worked for featured in the cast of a certain ‘book’! ‘Oh so your brother in law Nick is in Singapore is he?‘ I mused to one of my traders!

I then fell pregnant and left City life behind me. Having children changed my life and my attitude and suddenly the greedy life of Banking seemed wrong, I guess someone replaced my guilt chip!

So began the next chapter of my life, full time mum and part time accountant.  I’ve been blessed with 2 beautiful, intelligent, funny well mannered boys whom I adore!

Life was pretty normal for me (and enjoyable) I still had a fun social life on the Shoreditch club scene usually watching a friends’ band perform whilst enjoying the free beer laid on for band members and their friends. They went on to support Prodigy at Brixton Academy and I got to rub shoulders with Keith Flint and co at the after party!

Could life get any more exciting? Well…. One day a cousin suggested I joined Twitter…Before I knew it I was chatting away with all sorts of people I’d never expected to have in my life. Most notably my two favourite Red Dwarf characters. What a strange fantasy world I suddenly found myself in talking technical stuff with “Kryten” and taking fashion advice from the “Cat”! I’ve even been lucky enough to meet them in the flesh, Rimmer too although he thinks I’m nuts (long story, ask “Cat”).

Another treasured friendship borne from Twitter is with Gia Millinovich the scientist from BBC4′s Electric Dreams and wife of Prof Brian Cox.

One day I spotted a tweet from Ben Miller asking for extras for his new film ‘Huge’ and I thought why not? I spent a day on location hanging around like extras do and caught a glimpse of  Ben in the distance. A few weeks later I got a call asking if I wanted to be an extra in another scene filmed at Elstree Studios! Beats staying at home doing the ironing so I thought again ‘why not?’

I arrived on set and to my surprise Ben recognised me and greeted me with a hug! Then whilst standing at the back of the studio with the other extras the Producer put his hand on my shoulder and showed me to Ben who said: we need someone to play Matt Berry’s assistant do you want the part?

‘Ermm.. OKAY!!!’  So I spent the day on set with Matt Berry (Mighty Boosh, IT Crowd etc…) eating lunch with cast and crew and even getting a lift home!

The film stars Noel Clarke and Johnny Harris and has featured at the Edinburgh festival, it’s scheduled for London release this autumn. I am looking forward to my “red carpet” appearance!

So what next? More acting, maybe modelling? I’ve done a few photoshoots for professional photographers already and enjoy that as well as acting.

Edited by David Oddy

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