Truly, Madly, Deeply determined to give Ukrainians a home
How film star Juliet Stevenson has taken in a young mother and daughter fleeing war-torn Kyiv… and now hopes her neighbours will do the same
WITH THEIR grown-up children away at university, actress Juliet Stevenson and her anthropologist husband Hugh Brody had space to spare in their home. So, like thousands of Britons eager to do their bit to support Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s horrifying invasion, they opened their doors to refugees.
Now a 30-year-old mother from Kyiv and her six-year-old daughter have moved into their north London home.
“They arrived a week ago, having had an awful journey out of Ukraine into Romania at breakneck speed in order to get out in time,” explains Juliet. “Like so many people in Britain, we signed up to the Government scheme but that isn’t how they’ve come to be here with us.”
Juliet was alerted to the plight of her houseguests by a friend from Belarus who runs a theatre company.
“She called me to say she had friends and colleagues from Ukraine who she was trying to help,” Juliet explains. “One was a young Ukrainian video artist who happened to be in London working with her.”
When Russia invaded, he dashed back to his homeland, desperate to get his wife and young daughter out, so Juliet and Hugh offered to take them.
“He, of course, has stayed behind to fight,” she adds.
Juliet, 65, one of our most respected stage and screen stars, is keen to protect the traumatised family’s privacy.
She is aware the young mother is worried sick about her husband and wider family still trapped in Ukraine.
“I check my phone to see if I’ve got any emails, whereas she checks hers to find out if her husband is still alive,” she says. “It is such a reality check!
“In addition to worrying about her husband, her parents and parents-in-law, her brother, sister-in-law and family are still in Kyiv. So, there’s a great deal of concern about them, too.
“You can imagine the level of anxiety and we’ve talked and talked and talked about it. She’s having to deal with all this fear while also keeping things on a calm and even keel for her little girl.
“She’s doing an absolutely brilliant job at that.” Over a 40-year career, Juliet has starred in Shakespeare, Ibsen and Noel Coward in the theatre; smash hit films like Truly, Madly, Deeply and Bend It Like Beckham, and groundbreaking television series like The Politician’s Wife and The Village. Perhaps less well known is her work with refugees. In 2016, having visited and been appalled at the conditions at the “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais, she raised £10,000 to buy and convert a doubledecker bus for use as a space for mothers and babies.
She is now working on a campaign with the Together With Refugees organisation in an attempt to stop the Nationality and Borders Bill becoming law, thus ending a proposal to treat refugees differently based on how they come to the UK rather than their need for protection.
MEANWHILE, Juliet and Hugh have given their guests the run of their home and garden. “We’re so happy to be able to do that for them,” she continues. “I’ve retrieved all my son and daughter’s old toys from the cellar for the little girl to play with.
“We eat together. The little girl likes the same as most six-year-olds – she loves pasta and yoghurts. Hugh is the cook in our house.
“He also has a link to Ukraine. While he was born and brought up in Sheffield, his parents were Jewish refugees, with his father having been born in a town which is now in Ukraine.”
As time goes on and they become more settled, her guests, Juliet envisages, will become more independent.
“We’ve now been out to local shops and markets so she will know where to go. The idea is to get them up and running and support and cook for them while they’re just settling in. I’ve been explaining how everything in the house works as well as showing how everything in the area works.
“You know… things like where the doctors and the chemists are, how the buses and Tubes work, the structures of everyday life here which they don’t know anything about. The local community has been wonderful and so generous.
“Charity shops have donated clothes and toys and we found a lovely playgroup the little girl can go to. I’ve lived here for 26 years, my kids were born, raised and went to school here and I know a lot of people.
“So, I put out a call. I said to everyone, ‘Listen, we’re having these Ukrainian visitors. If anybody else wants to sign up to the Government scheme, it would be lovely for more Ukrainian families to arrive and so they would have a kind of small community of their own’.”
As a result, Juliet’s community has pulled out all the stops to make her guests feel welcome.
“There’ll be a knock at the door and people will leave toys for the little girl,” she smiles. “A young primary schoolteacher lives over the road and she’s going to come twice a week to teach the little girl English.
“We get home-made cakes delivered. The British are so good at pulling together,
it’s one of the best things that we, as a nation, do. Hugh and I have support from our community and now so do our guests. I would advise anyone who opens their home to a Ukrainian family to call on their friends and neighbours.
“It really helps I think, both for the host and for the refugees because then it’s not just us and them inside four walls all day.
“I’m going away to Wales to film a new TV series soon and I know there will be many doors in our street that the young woman can knock on for help and support.”
Juliet has no idea how long she will have house guests. “It’s impossible to say,” she sighs. “There is no time limit and who knows what’s going to happen.
“I’m already very fond of our visitors and the young mum is incredibly sensitive to the fact she’s in somebody else’s house but, of course, we’re all hoping they will be able to return home as soon as they possibly can.
“They’re just desperate to get back home – as we all would be in their situation.”
WITH REGARDS to the most immediate future, what will happen once Juliet’s daughter Rosalind, 27, and son Gabriel, 21, return home from university for the Easter holidays?
“We’ll just have to muddle through,” she says resolutely. “I did talk to the kids before the refugees arrived to tell them what we were doing and they were absolutely fine with it. They know how privileged they are. We all do.
“Having our visitors and hearing about what they’ve been through – and what they’re going through – has really brought that home.
“We’re lucky enough to have the space.” But what does Juliet think people can do to help when there is no spare room at home?
“Write to your MP to make sure they’re protesting against the Nationality and Borders Bill,” she replies.
“It’s currently being bounced between the Commons and the Lords. Several Tory grandees have rebelled against it.
“The irony is, of course, that it’s Home Secretary Priti Patel’s Bill.
“If it had been in force when her own family were, as Ugandan Asians, leaving that country in the 1960s, they may not have been as welcome.”