Now, talking of mining people's lives for drama and comedy,
Miriam Margolyes, things happen to you.
Like, is it your house near Dover?
Oh, yes.
Actually, I'm glad you brought that up because I do
rent my house and...
..if you're interested... To other people?
To other people, and...it's the nearest house to France,
which is very important in this story.
It's £425 a week and it sleeps... ALAN LAUGHS
..it sleeps six people for seven nights. Is there a cleaner?
It's clean. Is there a cleaner? Yes, yes.
Anyway, one day I got a call from the police
and they said, "Are you the owner of the gun emplacement?"
and I said, "Yes."
And they said, "Are you aware that it's been used
"as a drop for criminals
"to get rid of their drugs?"
You know, it's a drug drop. What?
Yes. I believe that's the phrase.
And, um, I said, "Well, of course I didn't know. What do you mean?"
And they said, "Well, people have rented it."
They were a gang, a gang from Liverpool,
I think.
And...And they took my house
and they dropped the drugs in the bay or they...
And there was a helicopter that came on the roof.
It's a flat roof, you see. Yes.
And they had cocaine.
They had something like... I love..."cocaine".
..£13 million worth of...
What? No, it wasn't like a little thing, this was a massive...
A massive thing!
13 million...
Jesus Christ!
Pounds of cocaine. ..of cocaine.
The street value? Now, I don't... I've never taken anything...
No, not street value, that was like wholesale. Retail. Oh, wholesale?
Yeah. It'd be double. Listen, I'm... It's wholesale, of course!
Of course, I was horrified because I didn't know.
I mean, I don't have anything to do with the people
that rent it. No. I just take the money, you know?
You could have got more. I was...
Well, I could get more for it
because it's really lovely, actually.
There was all that cocaine on the...
What was upsetting to me was, when it was reported -
of course, in the Daily Mail -
all the people online said,
"Oh, she must be in it."
You know, "She's part of the gang." Oh, yeah!
Well, they did! GRAHAM LAUGHS
And they were calling me Miriam Escobar.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE