Olivia Buxton Downton was wonderful but being a mum is my greatest joy
Mrs Hughes star reveals how she regrets losing her chance to have more children
DOWNTON Abbey star Phyllis Logan has been reflecting on her life as an actress, mother and wife. Like many in her profession, with television, screen and stage work drying up because of the lockdown, she has never spent such a long period with her family.
Hunkering down at home in west London with her husband actor Kevin McNally and their son, David, for the past 12 weeks – after years of separations while filming – has had its challenges, she says.
But today her son turns 24 and, while she misses the thrill of playing parts like Downton’s housekeeper Mrs Hughes, there is nowhere she would rather be than at home, celebrating with him.
“I’ve had the most wonderful career and being in Downton for all those years was such a highlight,” she declares. “Now they’re showing reruns, it makes me realise they were some of the best times of my life.
“But what has brought me the incredible joy is being a mum.”
So it’s something of a personal tragedy that an early menopause robbed her of the chance to have more children.
“I would have liked to have more kids but I did start off quite late in the day and I was 40 when I had David, so there wasn’t a great deal of opportunity to have any more.
“As it transpired, I started my menopause quite early in my early mid-40s and so that put the kibosh on anything, I suppose.
“Kevin already had a daughter and a stepson and so it didn’t feel that David was an only child. You can’t have any regrets but it would have been nice. Maybe if I’d had twins that would have sorted it out!
“David is going to be 24 and I think, ‘How did that happen?’ I am even considering baking him a cake which I haven’t done since he was a child. Although he would probably prefer a shop-bought one and it would actually be better.”
Pmost
HYLLIS’S musician son returned to live with her and Kevin after graduating from Leeds with a degree in music. It was a relief as, like many parents, she was suffering with a bad case of empty nest syndrome.
“When I took him to university in a van with all his stuff, he jumped out and didn’t look back and I cried in the car after dropping him off,” she admits. “I like listening to Elaine Paige on Radio 2 on a Sunday, she plays stuff from the musicals.”
Peggy Lee was playing her hit, The Folks Who Live On The Hill, and when she got to the lyric, “and when the kids grow up and leave us”, Phyllis suddenly burst into tears.
“I was bawling,” she sighs. “But I learned that keeping busy was the best thing to do and not to allow myself to sit at home waiting for him to phone up with his latest ailment.
“The irony is he has been living at home now for quite a while and doing some gigs here and there. He’s in-between jobs just now but of course at the moment everybody’s lives are on hold.”
David has been helping her record songs for Edinburgh-based charity Hearts & Minds, for whom she is an ambassador.
“The charity has these clown doctors that go into sick children’s hospitals and ‘Elderflowers’ (professional arts practitioners) who visit people living with dementia in hospitals, hospices and residential care homes,” she explains.
“I decided to dress up as Flora Elderflower, put on a red nose and sing a few daft limericks, including Donald Where’s Yir
Troosers and my son accompanied me on his ukulele much to the amusement of my next-door neighbour.”
The 64-year-old actress is also an ambassador for Dementia UK and The Association for Dementia Studies, and reveals how the cruel disease resonates. “My mother died at 90, but she was heading in the direction of dementia – it was more that she had cognitive impairment – and before that my mother-in-law had very severe Alzheimer’s and we lost her two years before my mum.
“It touches so many people and we all know somebody personally or through friends that are affected by it and the scary thing is that it’s not a case of numbers going down, it is a case of numbers going up.
So many elderly people who have died from coronavirus, who were living in care homes, had dementia and more people need help and support than ever before because of the current crisis.
“I believed by now that we would have found a cure for it but sadly we haven’t. Of course it does cross my mind that I could get it and it is one thing that I certainly wouldn’t want to have.
“But it seems like pot luck and you can’t really guard against it. I do my cryptic crossword. That’s not to say that it is going to stave it off but it’s not something that I can sit there fretting about all day every day.”
Phyllis is also keeping her brain ticking over by recording the voiceovers for The
Highland Vet, a brand-new documentary series set in the most northern mainland vets’ practice in Britain.
Meanwhile, husband Kevin, who appeared in all of the Pirates Of The Caribbean movies and crime dramas such as Unforgotten, is also narrating documentaries.
“We’re lucky that we have a large house, so we haven’t killed each other yet, which is I think the major achievement,” she laughs.
“Fortunately, just before the lockdown, Kevin set up some recording equipment in his study. Our studio is basically clotheshorses with duvets over the top but we have been making do.
“He has been doing his own narration for The Smithsonian Channel called Combat
Ships, which is all very boyish.” A committed animal lover, Phyllis has a long-standing relationship with the Scottish SPCA (Scotland’s Animal Welfare Charity) but scenes in The Highland Vet really tugged on her heart-strings.
“It was so awful to see Leyla, a two-month-old Tamaskan puppy, who has been brought in after being attacked by an older dog. It was touch and go as to if she would pull through,” she says.
Recording The Highland Vet has made her nostalgic for Scotland, where she was born and raised, but she has no intention of returning there with work and family being based in London.
“Watching some of the footage of the vets in the Highlands made me pine but I don’t think I would ever return there as my home is very much in the south now and it’s convenient for work.”
Sitting around waiting for lockdown to end has not been good for her waistline, she admits.
“I have probably put on about half-a-stone but I don’t tend to go on the scales, so it is going to remain a mystery for a while,” she laughs.
“I have been hoofing up and down the stairs but quite frankly I should have been doing yoga or pilates classes on Zoom. Once this is over I know I will look at myself and say, “Oh, bloody hell, I have let myself go.”
“When I was filming Downton Abbey, my character, Mrs Hughes, didn’t run about much and we had particularly nice caterers.
“I overindulged a bit too often with their wonderful puddings. I wore a tight corset for the whole six years and when it started not meeting at the back, I knew it was time to act.
“So for a few weeks I did the 5:2 diet – two days fasting and five days eating normally. I stopped the diet once my corset felt comfortable again.”
Before lockdown, there was still talk of there being a follow-up to the Downton movie – the first one had its première last September – and Phyllis says all of the cast would be happy to sign up.
“We wondered if the movie would ever come to pass and when it did, it was so wonderful to all get together again and we had such fun and we had a real blast. It was the last hurrah.
“The will is there from everybody for another – from the producers and directors and cast – and Julian (Fellowes, the writer) would do another one too. But in this current climate, you can’t really put anything in place so we have to wait and see.”
She continues: “It’s crazy to think that the first episode went out 10 years ago. I don’t get recognised as much as I used to although I think people have got other things to think about right now.
“But I will never forget the crazy super fan and how this one woman had Mrs Hughes’ keys tattooed on her thigh. She lives in Boston with her partner and I think Kevin stays in touch with them through Facebook or Twitter.”
In real life Phyllis celebrates nine years of marriage to Kevin this August and would love nothing more than an adventure. She sighs: “It would be so wonderful to go somewhere like the Norwegian fjords and to have that sense of freedom again.”
‘When
I took my son to university he jumped out and didn’t look back. I was bawling in the car’