Haven My ANGUS DEAYTON

The actor and presenter, 62, in the living room of his Georgian house in Islington, north London

1

AUSSIE RULERS

I’ve lived here for 20 years, and my ex-partner Lise Mayer and son Isaac, 17, live nearby. This gold disc has pride of place on the mantelpiece. Six months after my final exams at Oxford in 1980 I was touring Australia with The Hee Bee Gee Bees, a Bee Gees tribute act – I grew a beard to look like Barry Gibb. The other members of the group, Michael Fenton Stevens and Philip Pope, and I lived the life of the pop stars we were satirising, with screaming fans and stretch limos. Our album got to No 2 in the Aussie charts and we were given this on their version of Top Of The Pops.

2

HAPPY FAMILY

My mum Susan was from Scotland. She visited friends in London in 1947, met my dad Roger at a party, married him two years later and stayed here. This picture is from my christening, with my aunt Mary and brothers Alan and Bill. It’s probably taken at our home in Banstead in Surrey. I had a stable upbringing – we moved to nearby

Caterham when I was three, and I lived in the same house and went to the same school all my childhood.

3

A STAR IN THE MAKING

I was in this show Inferiors, written by Richard Curtis, in Oxford in my last year – the poster shows Rowan Atkinson, Tim McInnerny and me with a beard. It was based on the revue Richard had taken to the Edinburgh Festival the year before in 1978, which was the first time I’d appeared on stage. My parents came to see me perform in Oxford, and it was a shock for them as I’d never done drama at school or shown any particular interest. I’m godfather to Richard’s child, and his partner Emma Freud is godmother to Isaac.

4

DOGGEDLY DEVOTED

When I passed my 11-plus, my mum asked me what I wanted – and the only thing was a dog. We got a West

Highland terrier called Shona, and the whole family became besotted with her, and spoilt her rotten. My mum mourned her passing so much that by the end of her own life she had enough postcards, birthday cards, brooches, models and mugs featuring West Highland terriers to open a museum. I inherited the statue in the fireplace and the cushion after Mum died in 2015.

5

GROOVY NIGHTS

As an 18-year-old I ran a disco with a friend in Caterham called Translobe Earways, which was an amusing pun, in the loosest possible sense, on Transglobe Airways. We both had Triumph Spitfire sports cars, so we had to strap our huge consoles and lighting equipment on to the back of them. We would spend our £40 fee on more records, so we never really made any money, but it was a good way to own all the records in the charts. I still have an obsession with chart music.

6

ACHIEVING MY GOAL

Soccer Aid in 2006 was the most exciting evening of my life: it’s what you dream about as a kid. I was at Old Trafford in front of 76,000 people, playing with Robbie Williams and Paul Gascoigne (pictured), David Seaman and John Barnes against

Diego Maradona,

Gianfranco Zola,

Gordon Ramsay and

Peter Schmeichel, and it was shown live on ITV. I still play football every week, but to this day I can’t quite believe that happened.