In her new memoir, the
Actor and
Singer delves into decades of diaries addressed to a childhood toy
Jane Birkin began keeping a diary aged 11, with the entries addressed to her beloved stuffed toy Munkey. She was born in London; her mother was an actor and her father a spy during the second world war. Birkin’s concerns, initially, were typically teenage – boarding school, boys – but quickly become more juicy: aged 18, she married the
James Bond composer John Barry; a year later, she appeared in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blowup. In her 20s, she became involved (creatively and romantically) with the French musician Serge Gainsbourg and set out on a lifelong path of singing, acting, writing and being one of the most renowned muses of the 20th century and beyond. Now 73, she lives in
Paris with her bulldog – regularly seeing her daughters Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon, who are both actors and musicians; her oldest daughter Kate Barry, a photographer, died in 2013. Munkey Diaries: 1957-1982 is published this month.
Can you introduce Munkey?Ahhhh, I think my father’s brother won him in a raffle. It might have been at a pub. He was very jaunty with his beard and jockey cap, a rather gaudy character. And I adored him, so my Munkey became something that was a part of all our lives. My father had his pyjamas. Serge had a pair of his jeans. My daughters had capes that were made by my grandmother, therefore that counted as magical clothing because they were made before I was 14. I left my Munkey with my father or Serge when they had an operation. We never took an aeroplane without Munkey. We never took a train without Munkey.