Emer McLysaght: Angela Lansbury’s voice was one of the sounds of my childhood

If memory serves, Murder, She Wrote was on near constant rotation on RTÉ in the 80s and 90s. It seemed like it was on after Mass on a Sunday, yet also on a Sunday evening after the six o’clock news and again magically squeezed somewhere between Where in the World and Glenroe, if it wasn’t replacing them completely. It was also broadcast every weekday around 11am, and then again at 4pm. On weekday evenings it would jostle with McGyver and Matlock for the 8pm slot. Then it was back midmorning on a Saturday and then once before and once after Baywatch for good measure. Whatever time it was on at, I was watching, and drinking in its harrowing (in hindsight not at all harrowing) murder scenes so they could pepper my nightmares later that evening.

I know for a fact that I was watching it before I could read, or at least before my reading comprehension was up to much. The construction of the phrase “Murder, She Wrote” was too complex for my young mind, so I concluded that the TV programme was called Murdursheerote. I didn’t worry too much about it, assuming that Murdursheerote was just a word associated with murdering that I hadn’t heard before, like Bergerac or bolognese. I wasn’t interested in getting bogged down in jargon when I had Jessica Fletcher’s latest case to contend with. I was similarly unconcerned with how many deaths seemed to follow this lady around, and never stopped to consider that maybe somebody should be investigating her.

[ Angela Lansbury was ‘Irish, English, Scottish’, a TV superstar and a Broadway demon ]

When I think about the sounds of my childhood, Angela Lansbury’s voice is one of them. Her death this week at the age of 96 dredged up lots of warm memories. Murder, She Wrote was a constant on TV, and Jessica Fletcher was so unflappable. Her epiphanies and eureka moments were so dependable. Even when faced with the worst Cabot Cove could throw at her, she could solve it by peeping around the right bush or catching a killer out on a careless detail.

It was extra exciting when she was on the road, especially when Murder, She Wrote came to Ireland, which it did several times in the early 90s. The Winds Around the Tower was the first episode set in Ireland, and saw a Galway banshee being held responsible for the death of Jessica Fletcher’s wealthy castle-owning host. Of course, Jessica peeped around the right bushes and made the correct connections and deduced that it wasn’t a haunted spirit at all but a regular old murderer. That didn’t stop me listening for the wail of the blasted banshee around every corner for months.

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[ Obituary: Hollywood and Broadway star for more than seven decades ]

Several other episodes were set in Cork, which is where Lansbury had a home on and off for decades. Her mother, the actress Moyna MacGill, was born in Belfast and Lansbury and her husband lived with their children for a time in Conna, Co Cork before building a holiday home in Shanagarry. Having holidayed in B&Bs in Cork as a child, I’m disgusted I never ran into her. Celebrities on Irish family holidays were few and far between. Lansbury did go on to conduct several meet and greet events in Ireland in the 2000s as her iconic Murder, She Wrote role secured her a place in pop and meme culture. I didn’t partake, preferring to heed the “never meet your heroes” adage.

It wasn’t just Jessica Fletcher who embedded herself into the minds of kids of the 80s and 90s. Angela Lansbury played another classic childhood role as the animated Mrs Potts in the 1991 Beauty and the Beast, the jewel in the crown of a golden age for Disney, followed swiftly by Aladdin and The Lion King. It’s Lansbury who sings the title song from Beauty and the Beast, and it wasn’t until I sought out videos of her perfecting the character on YouTube that I had a little cry at her passing.

I felt a bit stupid, crying at the death of a woman I didn’t know and didn’t know me, but that’s what nostalgia can do. The emotional attachment to a memory – watching Murder, She Wrote with my parents or singing Beauty and the Beast with my friends – is a powerful one. When the long-awaited sequel to Mary Poppins was released in 2018 it was trading on all manner of nostalgia, and sitting right in the middle of it was Angela Lansbury. She plays the Balloon Lady in Mary Poppins Returns, a nod to the original character of the Bird Lady in the 1964 original. She sings the beautiful final song Nowhere to Go But Up, which samples both Let’s Go Fly A Kite and Spoonful of Sugar. At the very end of the film she gives an ageless Mary Poppins her last balloon. I sat in the Stella Cinema in Rathmines watching Mary Poppins Returns crying like a big eejit, shook by Lansbury’s advanced age but absolutely thrilled by her presence in yet another iconic childhood role.

[ Angela Lansbury: still a star at 90 ]

And look, if you ever need a spot of entertainment and soothing, just seek out a few episodes of Murder, She Wrote. It’s bound to be on somewhere.