From The Heart
Julie Walters, 54, is one of our best-loved actresses an dwas awared an OBE for services to drama in 1999. She lives with her husband Grant Roffey, 47, and daughter Maisie, 16, in Sussex.
For years I was quite hard on myself; I wasn't convinced I was good enough and I probably got that low self-esteem from my mother. She came to England from Ireland in 1939 with nothing, because she'd more or less run away from home. So she was always aspiring. My mother was the driving force in the family and lived through her children. Intelligent but uneducated - and intelligent enough to know that.
I lost my virginity at 19. It was rather physically uncomfortable, as I remember. But I was relieved that I had done it at last and I did love the person involved. In fact, he's still a good friend.
My builder father died of a heart attack when I was 21. He was a much gentler, softer character than my mother and it's sad that he never lived to see my success.
My mother hated me giving up nursing to go into acting. She was frightened about my future and said I would end up in the gutter.
She came from a generation that would never open their hearts. My mother would never say, 'Oh, I'm so proud of you,' like I would to my own daughter. But after she died, I found a secret stash of magazine cuttings about me, so I know she must have been proud, My older brothers protected me as a child and still think of me as Little Julie.
I'm so honoured to have been in bed with Alan Bennett [in his TV play Intesnive Care], but he got so embarrassed by our love scene that he had to have a cigarette afterwards - and he doesn't even smoke! It was as if we had really had sex.
I hardly ever see Victoria Wood outside work, but as soon as we get together again it's as if we've never had any gaps since we first met in the early 70s at Manchester Poly. We're workmates, really; we don't go out drinking together but we love working with each other.
My wild years of drinking in the early 80s were a combination of being young and single and suddenly becoming famous, which made me question whether I could be the person that fame had turned me into. I was going out and getting slaughtered on champagne and not having any kind of domestic life whatsoever - until I met Grant in 1985, and it just stopped.
I hadn't met anybody I wanted to have children with until I met Grant. Women have a homing instinct for the man who is going the be the father of their child - isn't it weird?
We would have liked more children after Maisie, but it wasn't appropriate after her illness. I was 38 when I had her and by the time we were ready to have another, she got leukaemia at the age of two. So having a second child wasn't meant to be.
Maisie's illness was the most terrible thing, and it showed me what's important in life. She made a complete recovery after three years, but I don't know where I got my strength from. I never felt angry about it, as some people do, although I felt incredibly sad and frightened.
You should always marry your best friend, and it's only in the past ten years that I've realised that Grant is mine. We married for financial reasons seven years ago on his 40th birthday. I hated the thought of him having to sell the house to pay death duties if I died before him, because only a spouse would automatically inherit my share. And my accountant reminded us that an unmarried father has not parental rights.
I'm an enthuser with a great capacity for joy, and Grant is very calm, so we complement each other. He's got great strenght of character; he's not afraid of saying what he thinks.
There's something in me that would always say no to a face-lift. I would feel as if I had let myself down and said I'm not good enough. And there's enough of that in life without confirming it by having cosmetic surgery. But I still dye my hair - that's my one concession.