My elder son, Linus, is already a very highly respected actor and I am very proud of his achievements. He did 15 years in the theatre with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, and then went out and did some great television and films. He played the title character in Antonia Bird’s Priest, Batman’s father in Batman Begins and Bob Longman in Seaforth. Yes, Linus has done some really great work (though sadly I must confess that I was not at any of his opening nights – we were not meeting in those fraught early days which, to this day, remains one of the big disappointments of my life). What most people in the UK don’t know is that in America he played Bobby Kennedy in RFK, a TV dramatization of Bobby Kennedy’s life. It was a great achievement for an English actor to play an American idol and he was nominated for a Golden Globe for it, to go along with his Evening Standard Best Actor award. The series hasn’t been shown over here. I have no idea whether it will be. He recently played FBI Agent Andy Archer in Kidnapped, a major US mini-series that has been broadcast over here. He also makes a lot of films, mainly in Canada, and he likes to go off to India to follow his spiritual interests. Having run along classical lines, Linus’s career has worked out wonderfully well for him.
I’m truly delighted about his professional success but I am equally pleased that none of my children has gone through the terribly distressing drug problem that so many parents have to endure: I did a session recently at Styal women’s prison and was astonished to learn that 60 per cent of them are inside for drugs-related crimes, although I did meet one woman who seemed proud of the fact that her offences related to beating up other women for a living! For £100 she would violently ‘do’ anyone. That would certainly have shocked Ken. When I asked her if she felt any remorse, she said, ‘No, not at the time because it was just a way of life.’ But she made it clear she wanted to change. I can’t talk to people about spiritual matters in situations such as this, just to try and bring out the good that is in them somewhere – as it is in all of us.
To go back to my own way of making a living, I feel privilaged to have some dramatic scenes to play that are as good as you will find anywhere. I am proud to be in Coronation Street, care very much about my performance and get great job satisfaction. I have no regrets. Of course I wonder sometimes what would have happened if I hadn’t stayed in it, but you can always look back and say, ‘What if?’, can’t you?
The Street gives me the security of having work and it imposes a discipline that’s useful to me. You have to be ready for your scenes and in a fit state to play them. You can’t be up until four o’clock in the morning partying and sniffing cocaine and drinking alcohol and then rise two hours later and come to work looking reasonable and knowing your lines. So there’s quite a lot of discipline involved for all of us, which is not a bad thing. And I can be quite lazy, so it keeps me going!
Ken is a pretty easy-going sort of guy, which is fine; I wouldn’t have liked to have played a nasty person for such a long time. When you’re acting, as I mentioned earlier, you do release adrenaline and emotions appropriate to the moment, and I think playing, say, a serial killer for nearly 50 years would have been harmful to me. But Ken’s a well-meaning sort of chap, an ex-teacher who wants to do right by the world, and he’s always trying to keep the peace in his wonderfully dysfunctional family, so it’s OK. I rarely have to play a scene where I feel that I am going to suffer. Though I do have to lose my temper rather a lot.
I remember when I was in the theatre doing a play a week, when we were doing a comedy there would definitely be a light, happy feel about the place and when we were doing a horrible murder there would be a certain darkness. Even though we were just acting – and to a large extent being incarnated into a physical body is acting – we did get affected by it to a certain extent.
Acting is interesting from that point of view. Of course, part of the enjoyment of it is being able to do things you’re not able to do in real life. I had a big scene once where I had a row with Deirdre and I had to throw the table over with all the crockery on it, which was really enjoyable because it’s not the sort of thing I would normally do. We only did it once, so no one really knew what was going to happen once the table had gone over, but it worked and it was really satisfying.
Acting is also quite a good profession for someone who wants to know about life, because taking on lots of different parts can give you great insight. And you have the ego challenge too. It gives the ego a great boost to have an audience laughing at your jokes and falling silent when you have your dramatic moments. Control of an audience is something actors have to do and it can be a very powerful thing. You have to be careful that you don’t enjoy the control and manipulation too much. But most actors feel horribly inadequate anyway!
On television you don’t get feedback from an audience, of course. Maybe one of your fellow actors will say something or the director will come back at the end and say, ‘Yes, great, that was fine,’ but you don’t get the immediate impact of an audience, which is why you can only learn the craft – how to time a laugh, hold a pause or make people cry – by performing in front of a live audience. But I’ve no desire to go back to the theatre now. It takes so much effort. Theatre work is hard work both physically and mentally because your concentration has to be total, night after night. So I don’t think you’re going to get my King Lear. No, I’ve missed that!
There are still challenges at work, though. It’s always interesting if a new character comes into your particular family or environment. It’s quite refreshing, really, because you tend to be working with people you know and suddenly there’s a new character to work with. We all enjoy it and welcome new people in. I always say, ‘If you can work the tea machine, everything else will fall into place.’
Generally, we’re a pretty happy group. There’s no aggravation, no temperament. It can be quite intensive work, but I do enjoy it and I’ve no intention of stopping.
In addition to being a wonderful wife, Sara is also my manager – she has always been amazingly well organized and handled the financial side of things in addition to running the house beautifully. But I’m delighted to report that her acting career is back on track now that the children are becoming independent. She’s been in Emmerdale and Cracker and also appeared recently in Coronation Street playing Judge Alderman, the judge who sentenced Tracy Barlow (my screen daughter, of course) to 15 years’ imprisonment for murder.
I’ve also been taking up one of my old pursuits recently: astrology. In addition to the column I do on the subject for the Lancashire Magazine, I’m also doing one for the Yorkshire Magazine, and there will soon be a third – the Cheshire Magazine. I also like to interview interesting celebrities for the magazines (as I mentioned earlier, I’m a director of the company that publishes them). Well, to be honest, it’s not so much an interview as a chat. I call it ‘A Conversation with…’ I have just done one with Cliff Richard. Other interviewees have included Freddie Trueman, Russell Grant, the Bishop of Manchester, Betty Driver, Kate Ford, Gloria Hunniford, Harold Riley and Anne Kirkbride.
There is wonderful astrological software now that will do your chart and give you the interpretation, but I find that just having an ephemeris, looking at the signs and seeing where the planets are is more helpful to me than having software churning something out. I don’t have to draw up a chart for the sun-sign column, I just have to see where the planets are placed, know what the ruling planet of each sign is doing and what is aspecting it, and take it from there. It is not possible to be specific, as in an individual chart, but I can get a general view and relate it to some philosophy.
At first I was quite rusty and it took a while to get back into it. Still, Sara read my columns and thought they sounded OK. She said, ‘It sounds as though you know what you’re talking about.’ One day I suddenly found myself reading my own!
Overall, astrology can be a useful tool and it can lead to the realization of great truths. A lot of people who are not interested in spiritual matters will still read
their daily horoscopes. That can be a good starting point.
We’re all part of a living, moving cosmos and are changing with it and within it. Astrology can show this.
Despite the sometimes intensive demands of all my work, every morning I try to remember that I’m an eternal being and to be grateful for the infinite love that is a part of us all. And then I arrive at the studios at 7 o’clock and go through a whole load of scenes where I’m screaming and shouting!
There is a reason for this, of course. In a way, it’s a test. It’s easy to maintain a spiritual focus if you are sitting meditating in a monastery and nothing is disturbing you. But if you can keep that meditative calm or that understanding of your spiritual nature while actively participating in the material world, then it’s stronger – it’s for real.
‘Every morning lean your arm upon the windowsill of heaven and gaze upon your God. Then, with this vision in your heart, turn strong to meet the day.’
Ideally, you should meditate at a fixed time each day – say, dawn or dusk – and in the same place, because then that will be a little pocket of peace for you. As I’ve mentioned, my lifestyle is such that this isn’t possible, and I’m afraid I’m not a creature of habit either, so I just meditate when I can, but I like to do it in my dressing room at work and in my conservatory at home.
I also try to hold a thought or phrase in my mind, perhaps something that I’ve been reading, and ponder on it. One I’ve been thinking about recently is, ‘All the bad experiences are precious gifts.’ When I do this I find that suddenly during the day all the words seem to expand and each word becomes greater and more important. And afterwards I am able to see with a different perspective.
A little while ago I was holding the thought, ‘Help me to realize my oneness with the infinite love,’ and suddenly ‘oneness’ became almost solid, as if it had form. It was actually there. You could weigh it! And ‘realize’ – what is to ‘realize’, to make real, to fully absorb, to become? It’s to know it completely. And to realize the infinite love! What an amazing thought.
If you hold something in your mind in this way, you go more and more deeply into it and eventually begin to become it. Over time you assimilate it completely, it becomes part of you, and then you can move on and hold another thought. It’s a bit like learning golf, really, or cricket – you learn a technique and then after a while you do it automatically and move on to something else.
I once put some of my favourite thoughts together and called them ‘A Prayer of Intention’:
A Prayer of Intention
Ever-present all-loving Father, strengthen me in my intention
To be whole,
To align myself consciously with my soul,
To remember I am immortal,
To feel in my heart the reality of your loving presence,
To retain the power entrusted to me,
To rejoice in being eternal,
To bring my body into harmony with the whole
And thus to realize my oneness with the infinite love.
Each line of this prayer can be used for deep thought and meditation. I have found it helps greatly in expanding understanding.
Another good phrase to hold in your mind is, ‘Love, always love.’ That was how one of the spirit messages I got from Edwina, through Peggy Kennard, ended. If you think about it, it’s amazing. Life is love, it’s what it’s all about – and it’s always there. Love, always love! Love is the dynamic of life. Love is the life force. Life is love. All we have to do is release it, but sadly we are better at obscuring it.
I have some rose bushes at home. There are five of them. I’ve had them for four or five years. One is called ‘Love’, another is ‘Always’, a third is ‘Light’ and the others are ‘Friendship’ and ‘Infinite’. Most are light pink and one is a deep red, but they’ve all got a lovely fragrance. They are just by my front door and every morning when I get into my car, I look at them and, especially through the winter, I send love down to their roots and say to them: Use this love to build your reserves so that you can fully manifest your beauty.
I thought that giving them love like that would really help them to flourish, but one day I looked at them and saw that they were covered in greenfly!
At first I was horrified by this, and disappointed too, because I thought it showed my loving thoughts had been ineffectual, but then I thought, Hang on, what this means is it’s no use just going about thinking, ‘Love, love, love!’ because we’re in a material world and we’ve got to deal with the greenfly of this world. I realized I was looking after the rose bushes spiritually but I wasn’t looking after them materially, and when you’re here on Earth you have to do both. So that was a lesson. I had to deal with the greenfly. I did and now the roses are blooming gloriously.
I do like to do a bit of gardening. I’m not a good gardener and I can’t name flowers, but I like to see lovely things. And everything is alive, even rocks; everything has a spirit. Sometimes I’ll be sending love to the rose bushes and I’ll suddenly think, Oh, I’m forgetting about the rest of the garden! and decide to send love to the whole lot. Then I’ll extend it further and send love to the cats and the dogs. And then I’ll begin to think about the world and all the places that so desperately need help. This is something we can all do – start with sending love to something close by and then extend it to the whole world. It doesn’t matter where you start. Just do it, it is greatly needed. It is not a pious, sanctimonious or even humourless thing to do; it can be a lot of fun, so enjoy it. And don’t forget all those in other realms.
You do have to be a little careful sometimes, though. I remember Dr Maugham once said, ‘Try giving a smile to strangers.’ I mean, nowadays you do have to be a little wary, but don’t let that stop you. You can make someone’s day.
In a way, spiritual development requires constant vigilance. The material world will always provide distractions, usually through desire and fear. Fear is one of the biggest obstacles, as it blocks the channels of help, and desire will try to keep you occupied. This doesn’t mean that you can’t enjoy yourself, but you must never forget that you are a spiritual being. You don’t suddenly become a spiritual being when you die, you are a spiritual being now. You are in this world, but not of it. The body is the temple of the spirit. Yes, of course you should enjoy yourself, and the body needs looking after. Just remember the poor old passenger!
What you are is a little piece of God. God is infinite wisdom, infinite power and infinite love and is always growing and moving forward. So you could say God spins off little bits of Himself, tiny little pieces of innocent, immature love with a desire to grow and a desire for knowledge and a desire to love. Each piece will then start to go through certain processes. It’ll be granite, it’ll be stone, it’ll be vegetation, it’ll pass through the animal kingdom. Initially, according to my understanding, it will grow as part of a group until it reaches a point where it is able to realize its own individuality, which is when it will enter the human chain. It will come in at a raw, unrefined level to start with and gradually progress until it fully realizes its eternal spiritual self. And then it won’t need to come here any more and it will carry on developing in the spiritual realms. Roughly speaking, that’s the evolution, as I see it, of an individual soul.
‘Does a man remember being a lion? Does a lion remember being a rose? Does a rose remember being granite?’
Ultimately, we are all responsible for taking our own little bit of spirit, God, divine love, up to a level where it will become consciously part of everything once more. Essentially, we all go out from the one, become the many and then come back. It’s the story of the Prodigal Son, really. We all have to leave home and have all sorts of experiences in order to grow. We have to make mistakes, because that’s how we learn. If we put our hand in the fire, it burns and we don’t do that again. So our mistakes can help us to learn quite quickly. God is a constantly growing being and we are the growing points.
Also, as we develop
it is a natural law that we should take what we learn and give it back out to others. Sometimes I think you can get to a point where if you don’t give out you won’t learn anymore. A bucket can’t receive more water from the well until it has been emptied.
When you fully realize that we are all spiritual beings and all part of one great whole, you also know that by harming another you harm yourself. If more people were aware of this we might finally have peace on Earth. Obviously we’ve a long way to go!
When you look around, it might seem as though no progress is being made at all. But the desire to move forward is always there. Whether you are incarnated or not, you never stagnate. Nothing stays still. Creation is always moving forward and we are always moving with it. If we don’t do it consciously, we will be nudged forward, either by intuition or by suffering.
‘Every atom of your being is a shining jewel.’
So what is the best way to advance? It’s easy to become confused. You might think, Should I go and join a monastery? Should I go out and help people? Or in my case, Should I carry on acting? Dr Maugham used to say, ‘Tackle the task in hand.’ It might be cleaning your teeth. But whatever it is, do it, and do it fully. Don’t get distracted. Each of us is responsible for our own development, so it is up to us to concern ourselves with the tasks that are presented to us and deal with them to the best of our ability. If you give your attention to whatever it is you are doing, however menial that task is, you are moving forward in the right way.
‘We show forth the divinity within ourselves simply by the way we live.’
Also, because we are all at different stages of development, it is pointless to compare yourself with others. You do not know where they are in the process of unfolding their spirit. Sometimes you will see someone who has behaved badly and knowingly harmed others and yet has all the material trappings of success. There is no need to be envious or resentful of that person. At some point they will have to pay the price, and envy only harms the person who harbours it, making them bitter and resentful.
Soul on the Street Page 20