Corrie star’s mystic visions, psychic pets and ‘cult’ that caused split with his lover
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 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 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.
While some soap stars may keep 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 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, who hold regular meetings in Manchester for a £5 entry fee. Bill said: “I perform healings. I place my hands over people’s heads or 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 claims he can see ghosts. He said: “I saw my first apparition when I was 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 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 helped him communicate with his dogs on a TV show. The star said: “She 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.”
Bill also believes we will soon be interacting 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...