++ IN PRINT :: INTERVIEWS ++

 

:: BEN ::

 

My first home ; Actor BEN MILES, 37, who stars in the BBC sitcom Coupling, lives in London with his wife and two children. Here he tells IVAN WATERMAN about his home in the Peak District

 

As a very small child, I have these misty memories of the suburbs of south-west London in Sheen, close to Richmond Park, when the Swinging Sixties were about to draw to a close. Just after The Beatles had disbanded and after a brief spell living in Denmark, of which I remember nothing, we moved to Derbyshire, to the village of Ashover out in the rural wilds of the Peak District. I was three.

 

My father was big in the vacuum cleaning business and got a job in Nottingham. He was Mr Vacuum Cleaner to me, with this brief to spread the gospel across Europe.

 

Back in London he had merely been Mr Hotpoint. Finally, he got a job with a furniture company.

 

Our home, a Georgian squire's house, was immense and sprawling. It was the sort of place children could easily get lost in and was great for playing hide and seek. The freedom was wonderful, and there was rarely any time to think about what was going on in Carnaby Street.

 

With my brothers, Tim and George, I 'discovered' girls in Chesterfield, which was the nearest hotbed of depravity. Tim, who is four years older, took me to clubs and concerts and I was really into pop bands by the time I was 14. I was a percussionist and bass player, and as the house was spacious and the neighbours so far away, we could get away with blasting our music without causing too much of a rumpus.

 

With the house came certain expectations, or so I learned from the locals.

You had to be a person of means or have a 'reputation'. Our parents, Peter and Jill, came under scrutiny after becoming regulars at coffee mornings and history groups.

 

Ashover was quite middleclass and everyone thought my parents were quite posh because they had southern accents. Mum was dubbed Margot Leadbetter, the role Penelope Keith played in the TV series The Good Life because she allegedly had this Knightsbridge accent.

 

I lived in Ashover until I was 18, when I left home to go to the Guildhall School of Acting and Dramatic Art. Then, after appearing in The Forsyte Saga, I went back to open The Ashover May Festival as the guest of honour. Take it from me, that is fame. Seriously though, I was very proud to have become one of their famous 'sons'. It was a privilege to be asked. I often think of the house and the village.

 

I had a great childhood and I miss the place, even now.

 

 

 

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