Damian Barr: ‘Dolly Parton and me’

I grew up with Dolly Parton. Not just Jolene with her her flaming locks of auburn hair or that coat of many colours. But actual Dolly, well, a cover version.

After my parents divorced, my Dad “hooked up with” (my mother’s words) a “Pound Shop Dolly Parton” (again, thanks mum). Mary the Canary, as she was known, was an auxiliary nurse by day and a country ‘n’ western singer by night: bed-pans and power ballads.

Mary had the big blonde hair Ellnetted five inches above her head and she had the country cleavage – more Kenny Everett than Dolly maybe. She also had the voice or at least a good approximation and I loved it when she sang to me. I was eight when she moved in with my dad – the irony of his new girlfriend signing D-I-V-O-R-C-E was lost on me then.

I was being trained by my mum to hate this “other woman” but I couldn’t quite bring myself to. Mary was undoubtedly glamorous – the first woman I knew to wear foundation, and never seen without her war paint. She went to bed with her hair in curlers and wore fancy new, or new to me, colours like fuschia. She was never knowingly without a shoulder pad. She was Dynasty. My sister refused all attempts at being girly but I was keen and more than once Mary dolled me up with tongs and lipstick. All to a soundtrack straight from Tennessee.

Mary the Canary has been history for a long time but I’ve loved Dolly all my life. Gay icon is a wildly over-used term. To me she’s a sort of saint.

I never dreamed I’d meet Dolly but earlier this month I did. Yes, I have held the tiny-but-titanium hand of Dolly Parton. I managed not to wash it (my right hand) for two whole days until showering just became too awkward. I interviewed Dolly for BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. We talked books and stories rather than boobs and songs. “I just finished re-reading Catcher in the Rye,” she giggled, in full TV make-up long before 10am. “I thought it was slow. I prefer To Kill a Mockingbird. I read a couple of books a week on tour.”

No dumb blonde. Her Imagination Library has given away 70 million books worldwide to kids under five . She just gave away her one-millionth book in the UK. “I suppose my songs are like a memoir,” she said, “or maybe therapy”. Her father was illiterate but he still told her stories. I tried to remember the stories my dad told me.

Interview concluded, I give Dolly a copy of my memoir and tell her about Mary the Canary and growing up poor and not being understood or fitting in. “I guess we got a lot in common,” she says, looking closely at my mouth as if some lipstick might remain. “Will it make me cry?” she asks, tapping her extreme nail extensions on my book. “Yes,” I say. “Good,” she says before tottering on impossibly high heels to her next interview. “I like a good cry.”

Related story: Dolly Parton denies miming during Glastonbury set

Damian Barr is the author of Maggie & Me (Bloomsbury, £7.99). Follow Damian on Twitter @Damian_Barr​.