Robert Powell: My family values
The actor talks about his mechanical engineer father and how he held his hand as he died, the birth of his children and how his cockapoos are his surrogate grandchildren
I was born five days before D-Day in 1944. My father was a mechanical engineer, which was a reserved occupation so he didn’t have to enlist. My mother was a housewife. She worked in a bank before marrying my father. My elder brother Harry was born in 1941, around the time of the Battle of Britain. I vaguely remember we had an air-raid shelter in our yard. We lived in a semi-detached house with a small garden in the suburbs of Salford, a couple of miles from the docks.
I was an active, sporty boy. In the 1950s, as food rationing ended, I remember a plentiful supply of sweets for the first time. In the summer holidays, I’d play in Buile Hill park with other boys from the street. All I needed was a banana sandwich and I was out at 9am and not back till late teatime. I used to practise my bowling skills for hours.
My mother was an only child. Her Irish mother had died when she was quite young, and her father, who was an English solicitor, later remarried. Later on in her life, when she was a widow, I realised what a lonely childhood she must have had. My dad’s father was a businessman. He had five children, two of whom emigrated to America so I have a large American family based around Rhode Island and North Carolina.
Dad worked incredibly hard – six or seven days a week. We had summer holidays in North Wales or Devon. On a Sunday we would often accompany him in his Austin 7 on trips to mills in the area, where he was contracted to do maintenance on the pumps and filters. He would work while we waited in the car – that was our Sunday outing.
We saw quite a bit of my father’s parents, who lived in Egerton, north of Bolton. They had a little cottage and we visited every other Sunday. For some reason, we didn’t see much of my mother’s parents. My mother’s father, on the four or five times we would visit them a year, would thrust 10 shilling notes into the hands of me and my brother, which was a considerable amount of money.
Being a parent was very important to me. I met my wife, Barbara, when she was a dancer in Pan’s People. She was very glamorous, and still is, and we fell in love quickly. I was there at the birth of my son and had the extraordinary feeling when I first saw him of thinking this was the first person I would willingly die for. I had the same strong feelings when my daughter was born.
My father was diagnosed with lung cancer when he was 70. He eventually became so ill I brought him home and looked after him in my home in London. I held his hand while he was dying, which was a very cathartic experience and a full turning of the circle of life. When my mother’s health also deteriorated when she was in her early 80s, I persuaded her to live with us. She died of cancer in 1995. I visit my 101-year-old aunt every week and talk to her regularly.
Barbara and I would love to have grandchildren one day but we are making do with two lovely 14-month-old cockapoos. My daughter, Kate, says they are my surrogate grandchildren. They make me laugh.