Acting was never in the plan of Taiwo Ajai-Lycett. From a waitress in London, she rose to become one of Nigeria’s highly celebrated television personalities. In this interview, the 74-yearold actress relived the memory of her late British husband and her life.
Do you plan to retire anytime soon?
I would retire when I die. You don’t retire when you have enthusiasm and you have the love of your profession. As you can see too, I am well. Once you retire, you retire from life. If you watch closely, those who retire to do nothing die few years after. You’ve committed your life into whatever you choose to do and when you say you are retired, it is like shutting the door on your life. I am almost 75 and I am still doing things like anyone else.
Despite your age you are still very much vibrant. How have you been able to achieve this?
I think it is being committed to what you do, so you give it everything needed to make it function. I learn breathing by aerobic, yoga and dancing. Anybody who knows me would tell you that I am a lover of dance. I dance to any music, including what they call ‘Shoki’ nowadays, though I don’t think the lyrics make sense.
I am crazy about jazz music; I went to bed yesterday listening to it. I also have people around who look after me. You should come to where I live now; I am surrounded by love. There is nothing not to love about being old. I don’t drive my own car, but whenever I am going there is a car to take me.
Then, men followed me because they taught I was brilliant. It is not about beauty, the signal I am passing to people is that black is beautiful. Our natural hair is fantastic and I have been sending that message through five decades. As blacks, we don’t have to borrow anything. I hope that other older people could see that you can be old and still be attractive. You can be African and still be sophisticated.
What is the most cherished part of you?
It is my voice. With your voice you can express absolutely everything. If you have a good voice people can fall in love with you and you don’t need the body of Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde or any other thing to attract people to you. I think it is the media that make it look like just flesh. There is nothing wrong in beauty, but what we do is not just about beauty
You once said a 54-year-old man wanted you for marriage. Do you still get suitors?
Where am I going to get suitors at 75? I would be 75 in February. People just talk and I think I look too intimidating, but a woman can tell when a man wants something. People have the impression that I am too hard and formidable, even older people do too.
In Africa, we like our women to be submissive or to appear submissive. I am too opinionated and men don’t like such women. Though people are friendly with me, they don’t get too close. I have been a widow for 22 years, so where are the men? I have always been focused on my work or study.
The reason women fall for their prettiness is because a girl is conditioned to think she would get a husband and plays to that. I was independent, so I didn’t need a husband to make me whole. Things like someone thought I was pretty didn’t worry me. Marriage wasn’t my big ambition, but I got married anyways.
Could we say your job has filled the vacuum created by the loss of your husband?
I have been working like this even while he was alive. He was my number one fan. His name was Thomas Aldridge Lycett, a former Shell’s marketing communication executive. He left England to settle in Nigeria because of me. He said to me that I must come home for our people to know what they have. Success outside your country is fine, but at home is better. Since he is gone and all these are still happening, I wish he could be here. I didn’t achieve all these myself, he helped me. My husband in many ways spoilt me for any other person.
Where am I going to find a man like him? He didn’t feel diminished by devoting his life to me. He thought I was doing something special and was so supportive. Now, I work every time. I always shuffle between here and abroad. Though people might say what a shame, my work is my life because the work I do is so beautiful. Everything I want in this life is in my work and I meet all sorts of people too.
Why did you abandon your private school at Isolo, Lagos, considering the fact that it was doing well at a time?
About eight years ago, my staff organised with armed robbers to attack me. It was bad; they took away money and they almost killed me. One of them must have locked the armed men in the building before they left the premises. In the middle of the night, 2am, they came in. I ran it for about 12 years and I was alone, so people said it was because robbers haven’t been seeing me with a man. But I wasn’t ready to go acquire a man because people attacked me.
I decided to shut down, though people wanted me to continue but I said no. I went to my house in England because I needed to think. I launched the school (Talhouse Private School) in the memory of my late husband. After his death, I thought I should do something to remember all the wonderful things he was and still means to me. We wanted to start a school because he was disturbed about the educational system in Nigeria. He saw how expatriates who were hardly anything in their land were living large in Nigeria. They had drivers, gardeners, cooks among others.
He saw how Nigerians were running after them and he thought it was a lack ofconfidence on our part and felt more of our young people should be educated. When we were running a marketing communications consultancy firm, Taiwo Ajai Communications, he hated it when people thought because he was a white he ran the show.
I was the managing director while he was the general manager. So, he said if our children had education they can stand with anybody in the world. Contrary to what most Africans do, he was the one so interested in getting married to me. I started the school in December 31, 1994, a year after he died. It turned out very successful, it was wonderful. I also ran a theatre and computer school.
Do you still the run Taiwo Ajai Communications?
My husband and I were doing it together, but as time went on the business was getting a bit complicated. You had to settle, you had to share the budget and that was not the way we did business where I was coming from. I still operated our business for a couple of years after he died on December 31, 1993. It was an awkward thing to die on New Year’s Eve. It was difficult for me more because I was depressed. I plan to restore my school back very soon. I want to start adult education, teach acting, presentation among others.
Was it love at first sight?
For him, I think it was because of the circumstances we met. I was looking for a new apartment and I visited the site. He told me later on that he saw me the day I visited while I was alighting from my sport car. My late husband and I didn’t have any child together because we met when we were old. We were both divorced. My son is a nurse in London.
What do you miss about being young?
I don’t miss anything. When you are older you have more confidence. I don’t have to be false and this is because we feel insecure at times. While I was young and people thought it was elegant to do your hair in such a way, I never did. Ideologically, I was and still firmly African.
Why do you represent everything African despite your deep interaction with the west?
We grew up when African countries were gaining independence. Ideologically, if you are not proud of yourself why do you want independence?
Didn’t you suffer any form of segregation or discrimination?
The only time somebody stood up from where I sat, it was an African and possibly a Nigerian. I was wearing my natural hair and the person thought I was a bush woman. When I got to England I had no qualifications, I applied to work as a waitress at Lyon’s Tea Shop where the financial people used to come to drink tea.
The city gentlemen would come to me and they thought I would be great in the future. Those days, not many people travelled abroad and many of them had not met black people. I made friends and I started learning how to type too. I later applied to the United Kingdom General Post Office, Gresham Street headquarters and I was employed. But since they knew I had nothing they sent me for trainings. So, it all depends on what you think of yourself.
When you are doing the same with them and probably at the top of the class, how would they discriminate against you? America and Europe even now is about merit. When I started working I excelled and they kept promoting me. Even my bosses recommended books for me to read; that was the kind of relationship I had before I ventured into showbiz. I later took a sabbatical to go to college, the North Staffordshire College of Technology (now Keele University) because I knew that in Nigeria we only recognised certificates. I was given paid sabbatical.
But why would you leave Nigeria to become a waitress over there?
In Nigeria then, there were no opportunities if you were not educated and we only had one university. I went to England to study; I went by myself and I needed to make money to go to school at night. That was how we did it in those days.
Do you feel fulfilled now?
If I die now, I would have lived a wonderful life. I am very grateful for the journey so far. I know of people who are still doing great in their 80s. I still improve myself every day. Life is a bit different now; you can take any course online.
At what point did you enter showbiz?
I think it was 1965 in my 30s. I never thought I was an actor; I didn’t start with the mind-set that I wanted to be famous, though I liked the theatre. I went to the cinemas all the time and concerts. I loved music and anything that had to do with arts. I thought it was all about that, I had no idea I was a performer until I went to see a friend who was rehearsing and the director asked me to join the production. After that day, everybody was after me. The next weekend, I was at the BBC working. For years, I was a presenter for the BBC’s magazine programme, Calling Nigeria. So, nothing prepared me for this. I did photojournalism too and I covered all sorts of things. From acting, people kept pushing to do this or the other.
What role has been the most challenging in movies?
Every role I play is very challenging. There is no way you will get to a stage and you think everything will be so easy for you. So, I think my work is very challenging and therefore keeps me on my toes all the time. All of them have been challenging because I had to find way through them.
How often do you still go to locations?
Nothing has changed; I think I am busier now than before. You must have been seeing Oloibiri on television, a movie about the place oil was first discovered. I am in that with Richard Mofe Damijo and Olu Jacobs.
We have some veterans who have been forgotten long ago. What are you doing differently that still makes you relevant?
I have enthusiasm. I don’t have any set ideas about myself and I am open to give service. And above all, I am not hustling. I have something to give and other people think so too.
Does this mean other forgotten veterans didn’t do the right thing?
I am not blaming or criticising anybody, but I would tell you how I see life. I don’t think the world owes me anything and what happens to us is a reflection of how we live our lives. I am not saying I am clever than anybody; I am saying that the environment or condition you find yourself is a manifestation of what you have in your head. For instance, Majek Fashek, how can you start blaming the world? He is a lovely man, but what happens to us is by our doings.
You think the world tells you how to live your life? When you go on a particular path it could take you down, so you have to be careful which path you are toeing. Why are you not seeing me in nightclubs or where people smoke? When you start moving with people who take cocaine you would soon join them.
Life is personal or choice, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help each other in a bad situation. We are largely responsible for ourselves and we must all take responsibilities for our lives. How has it been starring in Tinsel? This is my third year in Tinsel and it has been wonderful. I am playing the mother to Ireti Doyle, a lead character. I have three children, one young man and two girls. I was working in England when the producer asked me to join the cast.
Often times you voice your displeasure about the industry. Don’t you think older actors like you failed the younger generation?
I have been running a theatre school since 1979. I couldn’t get these your people you talked about because of their arrogance. They don’t think they need training. That is what you guys should be addressing; the media makes them star. I switch on the television and I cannot hear what they are saying, but they believe they know it.
Some of us started schools for them, but they didn’t think they need to acquire knowledge properly and we cannot force people to learn. Why do you think I am doing Tinsel? It is about professionalism; it is what you do with yourself that will determine how far you go in your career.
I am going to start my school again and see how many of them would join. To them, they are in this business to make money and become famous. When I was discovered and they threw me into BBC I said they would soon find out that I was a fraud. I was all over the place and I became afraid, so I got five private tutors for music, voice, dance among others.
I went to schools to improve myself. When you see me those days, I was always moving with a big bag because I went from one class to another. What is responsible for my longevity is not my pretty face; it is my body of work.
How about your Kehinde (Yoruba name for a twin sibling)?
My Kehinde died many years ago.
