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Janey Godley: I lived with the stench of threat everywhere

The comedian discusses her harrowing upbringing in a Stark Talk podcast.

Janey Godley became a star of lockdown with her NSFW voice-overs of Nicola Sturgeon’s daily briefings. It is the latest step in a long career which has seen the 59-year-old establish herself as one of the nation's favourite comedians. But this success follows years of adversity.

In a new podcast of classic interviews from 大象传媒 Radio Scotland’s series, Stark Talk, Godley recalls her harrowing upbringing and adulthood which, she recalls, had an ever-present undercurrent of violence.

Janey honed her comic skills when she was a pub landlady in Glasgow’s tough Calton district.

"When you’re faced with a bunch of men who either want to pin you down and have sex with you or fight with you, either way they have to beat you ... the only way to beat them was being clever with your mouth," she explained.

The area was one of deprivation and violence, but Janey recalls not being fully aware of the conditions.

"It’s a bit like being in a cult; you don’t know you’re in it when you’re in it. But when you leave it you go, 'Oh my God, why did I think that was normal?'"

"It was threatening. There was always a small stench of threat everywhere you went. You could feel it."

Her childhood had hardly been easy. She was raised in poverty, sexually abused by an uncle, her mother was murdered by a boyfriend and Godley herself married a violent man from a family of known gangsters.

Somehow, she manages to find humour in her situation.

“Now I know what normal is and it bores me. Bring back the small stench of fear!" she laughs.

There is still some room for mild terror in Janey's life.

"When I go on stage there is a sense of fear.

"I go on stage and I make up the show right there and then, 'cause I like that element of fear, that it might just go wrong at any moment."