Arabella Weir on her 'nippy sweety' Fife gran and roping in celeb friends to help Fife-born charity

Arabella Weir’s early memories of Fife include being cajoled into the freezing Forth by her ‘nippy sweety’ grandmother.

“That’s my childhood, standing on a beach in a raincoat with Granny Nancy going [breaks into Scottish accent] ‘you get in that water now, you big girl’s blouse!'”

The Two Doors Down star grew up in Bahrain and around the world but spent holidays in her father’s home town of Dunfermline.

Fortunately, forced paddling in the Forth hasn’t put her off Fife.

Indeed she tells the story to contrast with another experience.

Arabella Weir’s love for Fife Coastal Path

She says: “I love Fife and I’ve done the Fife Coastal Path which I absolutely loved and want to do again.”

Arabella’s company on this 2018 charity trek included Sandi Toksvig and former Prime Minister’s wife Sarah Brown.

“We had an absolute riot. And it was like the gods had said ‘these women are doing a really important thing’ and it was hot and sunny the entire time.

“I thought it was going to be sideways rain.”

Despite having no surviving family in the region, Arabella, 66, who was born in California but considers herself culturally Scottish, remains a regular visitor.

Indeed, I’m chatting to her in the unlikely surroundings of a Lochgelly warehouse.

The comedian, writer and actor, who made her name in BBC’s The Fast Show, is a board member of The Big House Multibank based there.

She says: “It’s so difficult not to sound pretentious and Lady Muckish, but I think if you are lucky enough to have power of any description it’s your responsibility to deploy it for the better of others.”

Big House method is a ‘no brainer’

That’s something, she says, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown does. He set up The Big House Multibank with The Cottage Family Centre, in Kirkcaldy. That’s now grown into a network across the UK, The Multibank.

The Multibank gives surplus goods from Amazon and other companies to people who need them.

The concept, says Arabella, is a “no brainer” but she reckons Mr Brown’s status was key to making it happen.

He, wife Sarah and Arabella are close friends.

She’s already director of the annual Adam Smith Festival of Ideas held in Kirkcaldy.

‘Sprinkling showbiz sparkle’

And when the chance to be become involved with The Big House Multibank arose she took it with both hands.

Reeling from the sudden death of Two Doors Down writer Simon Carlyle in August 2023 she wanted to make something positive from a “horrible catastrophe”.

“Out of that shock I decided to do more of this.”

Arabella hopes to roll her sleeves up for a warehouse shift soon, joking: “I do want to get my hands on a forklift truck!”

But for now, her role is somewhat different.

“I don’t do really very much other than [adopts a lovey accent] sprinkle a bit of my marvellous showbiz sparkle.

Roping my more famous friends in

“Really what I do is get my more famous friends to do stuff for us.”

And she’s signed not one but two Doctor Whos up to the cause.

Peter Capaldi appears in a Christmas campaign for The Multibank while David Tennant hosted a star-studded fundraiser. She’s also roping in another well-known Scot.

Arabella says: “Peter Capaldi and David Tennant, and soon to be Elaine C Smith, are friends of mine, anyway.

“As you might have picked up, I’m quite a pushy person.

“I wouldn’t say ‘would you come and sing a song at my child’s birthday party?’ because that’s something for me.

“But I have absolutely no compunction about asking for someone else.”

The people she’s asking on behalf of include a little girl who was on cloud nine after being given a Taylor Swift backpack like her friends.

And a wee boy who felt left out at school because he had no football boots to go to football training.

“So we got some football boots in his size and it completely transformed his life,” she says.

“It can make such a difference, a wee thing like a pair of football boots or a Taylor Swift backpack.”

Her father a British ambassador, Arabella’s upbringing was a million miles from the poverty these children live in.

Poverty of another kind

But she knows of deprivation of another kind. Indeed her childhood and difficult relationship with her late mother are the subject of her one-woman show Does My Mum Loom Big in This?

“I was brought up with material wealth but big time emotional poverty. No love: criticism, undermined all the time.

“I know the difference feeling loved and cared for can mean when you’re not brought up with that.

“So I can sort of see the difference a few material things will make.

“It’s about equipping people with actual stuff to then be their best selves.

“If you’re hungry, if you haven’t got shoes, these things will chip away at your very being.

“It’s amazing to see the difference [The Big House makes]. It’s also incredibly depressing to see what’s needed.

“It seems incredible in a developed country this can be possible.”

Widowed early without a pension, financial struggle would have been more familiar to Granny Nancy.

She’d had a hard life, Arabella says, and was not a kind woman. An “absolute bisom” is how she describes her.

‘Awfy beefy, Arabella!’

“The first time she saw me on TV she said [dips into a Scottish accent] ‘saw you on the telly last night, Arabella. Awfy beefy.’

“My [maternal] granny in Melrose [Scottish Borders] was the sweetest, kindest and loveliest person in the world.

“Because of Dad’s job we were mainly brought up abroad and when we came home it was to Scotland.

“We’d say ‘we don’t want to see Granny Nancy!

“[Imitating dad’s Scottish accent] ‘We’ve got to see Granny Nancy, we’ll never hear the end of it!’

“She had a brown house in Dunfermline, everything was brown and grey. Whereas Granny’s house in Melrose was rosy and green and lovely.”

Granny Nancy did, however, help Arabella with her Two Doors Down role as Beth Baird.

She says: “I love, love, loved doing Two Doors Down. I loved being in Glasgow, I love the rest of the cast.

“I loved the chance to do [slipping into accent] my Granny’s accent.”

A planned live show of Two Doors Down was put on ice with Simon’s death.

But another The Fast Show tour is planned for next autumn.

‘I thought MBE was a parking ticket!’

The sketch show cast reunited in February. for a series of live shows. The hip youngsters they performed to 30 years ago had aged with them into a “sea of white, bald men”.

Arabella says: “We’re like Take That, maybe we will just keep coming back and doing reunion tours!”

Until then, Arabella is focused on bringing attention to The Big House Multibank and The Multibank nationally.

She can also bask in the glory of earning the pride of her children.

The Princess Royal made her an MBE in October, after her inclusion in the King’s New Year’s Honours List.

The honour “floored” her, she says.

“I saw this envelope and I thought it was a parking ticket because it said His Majesty’s Government. I haven’t had a car for two years!

“It was lovely that the people who put me forward felt I deserved it.

“Of course, it’s exciting going to Buckingham Palace

“My kids, who are 25 and 26, were so proud of me.”

And making her children proud trumped any laugh or round of applause.

“I’ve cracked it!” she says.

This December The Courier is supporting the The Multibank Christmas campaign. You can donate money to help cover its costs and buy additional items for people in need.