Gemma Whelan Appreciation

[Chris1970]

So funny, so wonderful and talked alot with me. Had so much fun at the photo op, she remembered me and suggested we could do something fun and different.. suggested we should try to look like ”an old married couple” and I just love the photo. I hope I can share it later. 

[wjbleming]

Didn't meet her myself but was standing outside the loos near her desk waiting on Brother Bleming when I realised there was someone behind me. It was Gemma Whelan returning to her desk, and she was kind enough to apologise a few times as she was passing, presumably for walking round me. Seemed to be very nice.

[Broo]

She was lovely!! Had a really wonderful moment with her for autos. I'd done a drawing for her to sign and she was so kind and complimentary about it. I explained that I had wanted to say thank you to her as a couple years ago one of my sons became very ill and we had to go into hospital and that it was a very stressful and upsetting time and that it was late one night and I'd needed to just have the TV on to try to switch off while lying in the hospital bed with my lil guy and that Horrible Histories came on which at the time I hadn't realised she was in. It was so funny that I'd laughed for the first time in days and my lil guy, who was so ill he was just grey and so weak, he heard me laugh and that made him giggle and that had been such an important moment to me and that I will always be grateful to her that her acting brought a beautiful and special moment in a dark time. She listened so intently, was asking lots of questions and just engaging so much back and forth, she was just so so lovely. Amazing encounter that will stay with me a long time <3

[Ravogd]

14 minutes ago, Broo said:

She was lovely!! Had a really wonderful moment with her for autos. I'd done a drawing for her to sign and she was so kind and complimentary about it. I explained that I had wanted to say thank you to her as a couple years ago one of my sons became very ill and we had to go into hospital and that it was a very stressful and upsetting time and that it was late one night and I'd needed to just have the TV on to try to switch off while lying in the hospital bed with my lil guy and that Horrible Histories came on which at the time I hadn't realised she was in. It was so funny that I'd laughed for the first time in days and my lil guy, who was so ill he was just grey and so weak, he heard me laugh and that made him giggle and that had been such an important moment to me and that I will always be grateful to her that her acting brought a beautiful and special moment in a dark time. She listened so intently, was asking lots of questions and just engaging so much back and forth, she was just so so lovely. Amazing encounter that will stay with me a long time <3

Brilliant. What a great story. I got a bit teary reading that. My Dad will be so proud of me.

[Aurele]

She is so lovely. Always make an effort to speak a bit French with my goddaughter 

[AndyGB]

A bit of a long one, but just echoing what everyone else has said, but she was lovely and the sole reason I actually went to LFCC (I was the chap cos-playing as 'middle aged IT manager who has nipped out of the office for a few hours').

I wanted to get a picture of her as Kate from Upstart Crow signed for my mum as I took my mum to a couple of the recordings of the last series of Upstart which was a few months after she'd had a cancer diagnosis and only 10 days after she'd had a tumour removed from her brain (but she was adamant she was going to the recording despite her head being almost completely bandaged !) and I was struggling with thoughts that mum might not be around to see the shows broadcast.

But anyway, the day before the recording I was getting lunch from a place near the ITV studios and I took someones tea instead of my coffee, only to get an 'oye oye' from a women with what looked like a blue shower cap on her head who's tea I was nicking. I did the 'is it/isn't it' thing but didn't say anything but the day after the recording tweeted Gemma to see if it was her, and it was. Then, serendipitously, no more than two hours later Gemma tweeted about an episode of Griefcast she had done with Cariad Lloyd about loosing her dad to cancer the year before which really helped me with what I was going through and based on that we had a long twitter exchange about what was happening with mum.

Amazingly when I got her to sign the photo Gemma remembered me and my mum and was asking how she was, how I and my dad were coping and quite frankly was a damn fine human being !