TOYAH ON
IT'S YOUR FUNERAL
CHANNEL 5
WITH KAYE ADAMS
2001

KAYE: Hello and welcome to “It's Your Funeral” where we ask celebrity guests what they want their final send-off to be like. This week I'm talking to a woman who first found fame in the 80's as a Britpop punk goddess

As an actress she made a mark in such films as “Quadrophenia”, and more recently she has mellowed, we hope, into a popular television presenter and alternative health enthusiast. Toyah Willcox - I have to say it's your funeral

TOYAH: Ahh (laughs) It's not something I want to think about too much

KAYE: Is it not?

TOYAH: Well, I think you do think about it but you don't dwell on it, do you?

KAYE: No

TOYAH: I think some people don't think about death at all, and I think that's a huge mistake. It's interesting to kind of confront what a funeral is

KAYE: So would you think about death before you would actually think of the funeral?

TOYAH: Oh, totally, yes. Because death is going to last longer than the funeral. And also I always believe that life is attaining to whatever happens that moment after death. Life is a journey to that moment. So I've never thought hey, wow, this is it - 80 years of fun. I've always had that kind of Eastern philosophy that the whole of your lifespan is a growing curve

KAYE: And are you as excited about what comes after as you are in the moment?

TOYAH: As it grows closer, no (laughs) I always said in my 20's I can't wait to die, (it's the) the biggest adventure of all. Now, as it does grow closer, I'm completely frustrated by the lack of time because as you grow older, you're more ready to live

I'm finding that with age comes a wisdom, therefore comes the ability to confront and face the world in a way that you couldn't when you were 20. So that's really frustrating

KAYE: So it's getting better for you, is it?


TOYAH: Oh, yeah. Definitely

KAYE: As regard to your funeral I have to say, with the possible exception of one other guest on the series - your plan is the most mind-blowingly imaginable. It really is. So I'm going to leave it to you to give it a name, and tell us what it entails

TOYAH: I would love a sky burial. A sky burial is a Tibetan tradition of how you dispose of a holy man's body. It's carried out in secret. Society, women, communities are not allowed to see sky burials. The body is taken up by the elders onto a mountain somewhere in Tibet. It's a Buddhist practice. Then the elders, the males of the village, dismember the body and it's quite gruesome

They hack it apart and then they pommel bits of the body with a brick. Well, not a brick, but a boulder or stone. (They) mix it with flour and then they feed it to the vultures. It's the highest, most sacred burial you can have in the Tibetan culture

The idea is that you're returning the body, the flesh, back into the cycle of life on Earth and you're placing the soul up into a higher sphere. I love the idea of, say, my father and my husband - and I would like to go before they do, because they're so precious to me -

KAYE: Both of them? Your father too?

TOYAH: Oh god, yeah

KAYE: Because that's against the natural cycle. If we're talking about natural - you know, returning to the earth

TOYAH: (Chuckles) Well, you know, things can happen. I not a safe driver (they both laugh) I love the idea of, say, the Malvern Hills. As a child, I grew up in with the Malvern Hills as this beautiful view. I read “Lord Of The Rings” and always thought it was about the Malvern Hills. I studied Elgar for my music O-level and Elgar wrote “The Variations” within the view of the Malvern Hills

So, say, there's a sacred quiet spot on Malvern Hills. My father and my husband could have my body delivered there and they could, if they could stomach it, take the body apart, pummel it, feed it to the pigeons (they both laugh) or some kind of imported vultures and then below there's this kind of wonderful wake going on

KAYE: We'll talk about the wake in a minute. But I mean, you use the phrase “if they could stomach it”. Have you discussed this with your father and your husband (Robert Fripp, below with Toyah)?


TOYAH: Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism I've discussed with my father all my life. My father explored Hinduism and Buddhism when he was a sailor in the war and he was in the Middle East. So those ideas would not be at all gruesome to him. I think it would be more upsetting that his daughter has asked him to do that. My father had extraordinary experiences in the war, so I think he could face it

As for my husband I think he'd do anything I'd ask, to be honest. So it's a selfish thing to ask, but I think it's also a very privileged thing to ask. And it's this thing about the flesh. I was brought up to be afraid of cultures that ate flesh or practice cannibalism. Yet when you examine cannibalism it's about consuming the spirit. It's the continuation of the spirit

It's the greatest mark of respect to eat someone's flesh in those cultures. With the Tibetan culture, to actually take the flesh away, to destroy the person, to destroy the anchor that holds the spirit in the physical world is the greatest act of love that you could perform

KAYE: You're obviously educated about these cultures. Do you have a fascination with this?

TOYAH: Oh, yeah, totally

KAYE: Where does that come from?

TOYAH: Because I'm so frustrated by Western cultures. I was brought up a Christian. I think the basic message of Christianity is absolutely fine, but the taboos with death just drive me mad with frustration. We are saying on one hand we're Christians. We believe in life after death and on the other, we're saying oh no, don't destroy our memory. Don't destroy our physical body. We live in fear of dying and I just find that polarization completely maddening

KAYE: But death is scary

TOYAH: Of course it is. It's the biggest adventure we'll ever have and it's the biggest act of trust we ever have to consciously travel through

KAYE: Are you scared of it?

TOYAH: I'm scared of the process, because even in Tibetan culture, where wise men have died and believe they've died many times - death is not easy. They say within the culture that when you die you relive your life and then after a period of days you really live your death and that's very painful

Then after something like 49 days you start to relive your death tenfold so the pain and emotional content of your life concentrates and by that you find the essence of what your soul is. So death is, in a way, probably the most testing awful thing and yet the most liberating thing we can go through and the reason we go through it is it prepares the soul for the next life

KAYE: Do you believe that will happen to you?


TOYAH: I never believed in reincarnation. Purely because I can't bear the thought of coming back here. If someone says, "OK, you've got a choice: have nothing or come back here and go through that education system again" I think I'd go for nothing. I loathe the structure of the society I've been brought up in. I loathe it with a vengeance

KAYE: How do you find happiness then? Or don't you?

TOYAH: (Chuckles) Happiness for me is in being creative. It's in writing or having creative thought or even something as small as breaking an old habit

KAYE: Let's go back to your funeral. We've got the process of you being chopped up and fed back to the earth, hopefully, by your father and your husband. This is in the Malvern Hills. Is there going to be some kind of ceremony to accompany this?

TOYAH: Yes. I'd like the cutting up and disposing of the body to be away from view, away from eyes, because I don't want pity and I don't want horror and I just want it to be one with nature. But down the bottom of the hill there would be, say, some huge tents with a wonderful ceremony going on with all my heroes and heroines in the world attending

I've never met David Bowie, well, been in the room with him, and I'll never work with him, but I would like him to carry a flame and to carry that flame and light an eternal flame in memory of me

I would like an orchestra there, playing my favorite music. And all my heroes like Peter Gabriel, Billie Whitelaw, Dawn French - everyone who I've ever admired in my work (but) who I don't really know - I would just like them there. And there's an image that I'd like remembered of me more than anything

It was an image from a song I did called “Brave New World” where my face is painted in birds (below). Just like an enormous, dominating print of that, almost at the altar. Just so people can say goodbye. Very egotistical (laughs)

KAYE: So that stage in your life where you had these dramatic images, and in fact you said at the ceremony in the Malvern Hills you will have this massive visual image of yourself - sort of in the early 80's, yeah?

TOYAH: Yes


KAYE: When you looked so dramatic. Was that a cathartic process for you? Did you manage to burst through something?

TOYAH: Yes, all those images were based - we're talking about 20 years ago now - when you weren't allowed to look different. When punk evolved it was extraordinary time for women because suddenly you could wear anything and still be seen as an intelligent human being

The whole point of the face painting that I went through as a pop singer was to try and express how I was feeling internally and wear it externally, rather than try and hide it

Now, I was brought up middle class, and it's often been said and it's a bit of a cliche that the middle class are particularly good at hiding things. It's probably because I was brought up to hide everything I felt that I naturally was that I just had to kind of expel it all. Kind of wear my heart on my sleeve in some way

KAYE: The music. You mentioned Elgar - would his music feature?

TOYAH: Yes, he would. Elgar was madly in love with his wife and the majority of the music he wrote, usually, from what I believe by the history books, was in a state of tears over his wife. One piece was called “Nimrod” and he was so in love with her that all that emotion kind of transcribed into the music. I just think that would be very very fitting

KAYE: OK. Well, if you think it's fitting as you say - this is your fancy, this is your funeral so we have done this for you. We have got a rendition of Elgar's “Nimrod” by our own string quartet Sigma so let's listen to that now

The string quartet plays

KAYE: An incredible send-off it's certainly proving to be so far. We've had a Tibetan sky funeral, where your body is hacked up and fed to the birds and then this fantastic ceremony down below in the Malvern Hills, where all your heroes - David Bowie, Dawn French and everyone is there

TOYAH: (laughs) Are made to suffer

KAYE: Now you yourself said that this is a funeral which is normally afforded to very holy people and you were loathed to sort of put yourself in that category, really, but it does seem a funeral of a special person. Do you regard yourself as a special person?

TOYAH: It's not that I regard myself a special person. I think funerals should be special. I think people don't spend enough time (on them) I think a funeral should be like a wedding. It should be joyous. It should be really brilliantly contemplated. It should be an expression of everyone's love and everyone's memory towards that person

I'd like a funeral where everyone who knows me is involved on a certain level rather than coming and seeing a priest or a vicar, who never knew me, kind of run through my CV and then say “right, stick her in the ground”. I just think a funeral should be very creative


KAYE: Is it for the person who's gone or is it for the person who left behind in your mind?

TOYAH: Well, the one I created today is definitely for me (laughs). In a way it's a form of closure. So it should be as much for everyone left behind. It should also be a bridge, because I do actually believe there is eternal existence. I don't believe a soul can ever die. Well, it can but you have to work really hard at it. And therefore, the funeral is the bridge between the living and the person who passed into the next realm. So it's for both

KAYE: Right. Would there be any readings at the funeral?

TOYAH: Yes, there's a poem that I read at my mother-in-law's funeral which was very hard to read. The vicar actually asked me to read it. It's called “I'm Not Gone” and it's by Miss DJ. And it's stunning. Only a woman could have written it. It's full of love and it evokes the feeling of eternal life without the pretentiousness and the elitism that religion can sometimes have

KAYE: Would you perhaps (gestures Toyah to quote the poem)

TOYAH: Do you want to hear a bit? “I am not gone. I am part of forever in every season. Every bird song, in flowers, clouds and each rainbow. I am part of them. They are part of me. Do not grieve, only remember”

KAYE: So where do you think you will go? You said the funeral is the transition between this life and some other dimensions. What is that? Can you describe that at all?

TOYAH: Well, what I believe at present - and my belief always shifts as I learn more, is that the really holy people don't have to come back. They can stay in a kind of state of nirvana. The reason we come back is we have something to address. We have something to learn

KAYE: Do you think you would want come back then, or have you -

TOYAH: I really don't want to come back at all (laughs). I can't even bear thinking about it.

KAYE: It's kind of sad to hear you say that

TOYAH: If I did come back I'd like to come back as a man. I'd like to sin forever. On one level I think being a woman has been great, but I'm fed up of the culture and men telling me that I'm second class 

KAYE: Do you feel oppressed by it?


TOYAH: I think if people reflect negativity on you enough you do feel oppressed by it, yeah

KAYE: So what have you felt?

TOYAH: I didn't like my growing up, my being a child, having femininity forced upon me. I would have rather been genderless. I didn't want it presumed that because I was a girl I'd like to wear dresses and have dolls. I loathe all that role playing

KAYE: So are there still things that you want to deal within yourself?

TOYAH: Oh yeah, all the time. Creative issues, really. I believe we're all born with incredible potential but none of us, or some of us don't have the drive throughout life to reach that potential because you actually have to remain almost in a state of pain, emotional pain, to reach those highest creative levels

I'm talking here about ambition and people that are insomniacs, because all they can think about is being creative and they suffer for that creativity. Part of me would love to still be a great singer, a great writer and a great actor but part of me resists facing the pain that you have to to achieve that

KAYE: What about on a personal level, or are the two indistinguishable for you?

TOYAH: For me they're indistinguishable

KAYE: How important is it to you that you are remembered?

TOYAH: I think being remembered is incredibly important. Again it's a slightly ego thing. If you're not remembered then you haven't changed anything in your lifetime. Change can be very subtle, so I think it's very sad to be forgotten because no one saw what you gave to others or your presence kind of helped the ongoing growth of generations

KAYE: So how would you like to be remembered then?

TOYAH: Oh, I haven't got a clue at all

KAYE: But you think so much about everything you've got to know


TOYAH: (asks herself) What would I like to be remembered for? I'd like to write a book that makes people think. Now, most books make me think but there's a book that I'd like to write and have the technical ability to write that wakes the soul up, because sometimes theoretically souls don't like to be woken up. They're more comfortable sleeping

KAYE: It's such a massive ambition -

TOYAH: I'll never achieve it! (laughs)

KAYE: Hopefully you will do it because somebody has to. But I'm thinking more of - I'm going back to the service in the Malvern Hills and thinking of your husband - if he is there standing up, or your father. What would they say about Toyah?

TOYAH: My father will laugh his head off and think “thank god she's gone!”

KAYE: He won't!

TOYAH: What will my father say about me? He's always thought that I think too much and he's always been very upset that I'm obviously not happy being a woman. He feels some kind of responsibility towards that

So I think he'd be very happy for me that if I had a sky burial that I've at least had something I want (laughs) And as for Robert I don't know what he'd think, really. He'd probably think “Oh, at last. I can have some peace”

KAYE: You don't believe that (Toyah laughs) Do you?

TOYAH: I don't know. I can't answer for them

KAYE: You can't fill in the blank “Toyah was”?

TOYAH: “Toyah was”. The one thing I often think - and this is my favorite subject, that's why I know so much on it. Theoretically, when you pass over, you face god. You face your god. And the big question is “what have you contributed in my name?”

I've been thinking and contemplating on this one a lot lately. What have I contributed in God's name? Because everything I've done has been an act of the self. Kind of I want this, I want that. I want to do that. What have I done in god's name? I can't answer it. Can not answer it

KAYE: Well, hopefully you've got some time left

TOYAH: Hopefully, yeah!

KAYE: Is it something you would address?

TOYAH: I think about it, yeah. I think about it often. I think it's a very good question, because it's the most unselfish question that you can be asked

KAYE: I haven't quite worked out yet, and I doubt very much whether I will work out whether you are happy in this life, but once you have gone to whatever is there anything you will miss about this life?

TOYAH: Performing. The only time I'm really happy is when I'm performing. The stage has been my church - whether it's acting, singing, presenting. There's a very unique focus about it. I've often felt when you're on stage acting in a play - if you've got it right here's a moment when the whole audience is one mind and you can feel it. Your skin starts tingling. Everything changes. And that's such an extraordinary feeling that nothing can replace it (below, Toyah on stage as "Trafford Tanzi" in 1983)


KAYE: The cod (an amateur) psychologist would say that's because you're not happy being you sitting in a dark room -

TOYAH: Well, obviously I'm an actress. I mean, yeah, you're right. I think it's very hard being one person. Very hard

KAYE: I don't think you ever have been (just one)

TOYAH: No

KAYE: How's the ceremony drawing to a close?

TOYAH: (laughs) By this time I've got David Bowie, Peter, Gabriel, Dawn French and Billie Whitelaw chained to the altar, and I own them

KAYE: I definitely want an invite (Toyah laughs)

TOYAH: I've made them witness the kind of condensed version of my life. How would it end? I think it has to go out with a 40 piece orchestra playing “I Want To Be Free” and people can join in karaoke style if they want

KAYE: And that's the end of the day?

TOYAH: Oh, no - they've got to go away, get extremely drunk and overeat. All my favorite foods will be there - just to be selfish. Foods from different cultures. From Turkey and India and China and Japan. There'd have to be a feast

KAYE: How do you think this day would make people feel? People who were there?

TOYAH: I would like them to feel confused, actually (Kaye laughs) and I'd also like them to think about their own funerals and the conclusions of their own life. And to realise that everything doesn't have to be in a compartment or a little box

KAYE: And an epitaph?

TOYAH: Oh, I always said my epitaph should be “she came, she lisped, she went” (Kaye laughs)

KAYE: I don't think you get anything better (they both laugh) Toyah, thanks so much for sharing your funeral with us. It has been utterly fascinating, and all of your other thoughts surrounding it

We are going to play that little request for you. You want to finish your ceremony with a rendition of “I Want To Be Free” so we have asked our woodwind trio to do that for you. So here you are. It's all for you

TOYAH: Great

A rendition of “I Want To Be Free” plays

Watch in the interview on Youtube HERE