Beyond our Ken... Corrie star’s visions, psychic pets and ‘cult’ that caused split with his lover
AS Coronation Street stalwart Ken Barlow, Bill Roache has been a steady fixture on the cobbles for 58 years, outlasting every other star of the soap.
And Bill has promised fans he won’t be leaving anytime soon, despite being 85 years old, as he thinks he’s actually getting younger. He said this week: “A few years ago, I made the decision that I was actually getting younger. It’s a belief system, really. The body was designed to go on for ever.”
His impossibly positive outlook isn’t the result of new diet or exercise regime, but one of the beliefs of his Pure Love Movement, an organisation that believes the power of love can eradicate war and famine, and cure illnesses.
But claiming that he is immune to ageing isn’t the soap star’s only unusual belief. He also says that he is able to see ghosts, and he wants to communicate with aliens. And Bill claims he was told by his animal psychic that his pet Jack Russell, Poppy, does impressions of Deirdre Barlow, his soap character’s wife, played by the late Anne Kirkbride.
After joining the Pure Love Movement, Bill became so committed to spreading a “message on the power of love”, that he split from his girlfriend, weather forecaster Emma Jesson, 47, in 2013. Then the star – who claims to have slept with more than a 1,000 women – gave up sex to focus on healing people with his hands. He explained at the time: “I don’t need a sexual relationship any more. Things still work, everything works, but I don’t have that need for sex I used to have. This is the time when I have to look at the priorities of things. I have the Pure Love message, which I am very privileged to be involved in.”
Bill is part of the Circle Of Love group, which is associated with the Pure Love Movement. The group’s founder, retired nurse Anne Rogers, has strongly denied any cult comparisons. She has said: “It’s not a religion, it’s not a cult. “The message is 100% just love. We are not trying to convert anyone. Any
religion, any nationality, all are welcome.” But how did the man who plays the rather pedestrian Ken come to be part of something so intriguing?
Born in Nottingham to a line of family doctors in 1932, Bill grew up in Ilkeston, Derbys. He spent five years in the Army before turning to acting aged 26.
After two years in minor roles, he got his big break when he was invited to audition for the pilot episode of Coronation Street in 1960. He married first wife, Anna Cropper, the following year, and had the first two of his five children.
They divorced in 1974, by which time he’d already discovered spirituality. Over the coming decades, it took a number of forms and saw him through his toughest times. In 1984, his 18-month-old daughter, Edwina, died of to bronchial pneumonia, and his second wife, Edwina’s mum Sara Mottram, 58, died suddenly from a heart condition in 2009.
In 2014, Bill was put on trial on two rape charges, which saw him suspended from Corrie until he was acquitted.
And while some soap stars may be tight-lipped about their beliefs, Bill, has been confidently preaching his unusual ideas for many years.
His first influencer was Thomas Maugham, a homeopathic doctor and head of the Ancient Order of Druids.
Bill claims Thomas came to him in a dream, a day before they met in real life, and said: “Why don’t you
come and join us, Bill?” The actor later said: “It was absolute evidence that things happen on a higher plane beyond our five senses.”
Bill maintains he isn’t a Druid, despite studying under Dr Maugham and posing in full Druid costume at a summer solstice ceremony at Stonehenge in 1976.
But he is a big believer in past lives, and claims to have been a 13th century rebel in his. “I do have a sense that in a previous life I was a Cathar – part of a sect of Christianity who were burned, tortured or blocked up in caves,” he said.
In his next life, Bill wants to be an “enlightened master” with healing powers. And he is already giving it a go, with the Circle Of Love group, which holds regular meetings in Manchester for a £5 entry fee. Bill said: “I perform healings in the interval. I place my hands over people’s heads or their shoulders and let the energy of love flow through me into them. I could put my hands on someone and cure them of something really serious.” The actor also claims he can see ghosts. He said: “I saw my first apparition when I was sitting on the loo. I saw a gritty, grey shape in the doorway with piercing yellow eyes.”
Since then, he has used mediums and psychics to speak to Edwina and Sara.
One told him that Edwina is working as a nurse in the afterlife. He said of the day of her funeral: “There was a golden ball of light in the room. Edwina’s face was smiling down at me as if to say, ‘I’m all right’.”
He believes Sara is having a “wonderful time” in the “spiritual realm”, which is “just as real as here”. He adds: “There are schools, hospitals, you name it.” Pet psychic Jackie Weaver even helped him communicate with his dogs on ITV’s The Morning. “The animal psychic told me my dog Poppy did an impersonation of Deirdre, saying, ‘Oh, Ken’, in a drawn-out, exasperated way. I wasn’t aware she’d ever watched me in the show,” the star said.
Bill also believes we will soon be able to interact with aliens. He said: “When the time is right it will be possible to communicate with those beings.”
Let’s hope they don’t probe him for Corrie spoilers…