BOSS’S STRANGE HABITS
author if someone comes up to me and says ‘I used to read your books as a child and now I read them to my child’. I have only been writing for 10 years so that has not happened yet. But I will know I have made it if it goes on another generation. Like Roald Dahl. People read them now as if they were written yesterday.
“I am now going on a plane to Australia to try and sell books to Australian children.”
These are good times for David – though he admits “one of the most glorious times of my life” was back in 2006, when he raised millions for charity by swimming the English Channel.
And he believes he needs to use his celebrity to help others. He says: “When you become well known it is a gift and it is how well you use that gift. It is a very special situation. I don’t want to squander this time in the sun.” Away from the limelight, David’s love life has suffered. In 2015, he split with Dutch supermodel Lara Stone, 33 – mum to his four-year-old son Alfred. They later divorced and Walliams admits his mum Kathleen is now the main woman in his life. He adds: “I can’t shake my mum off. If there are famous people she is here! “More than anything else you want to make your parents proud. If anything good happens in my life my mum is the first person I want to tell. Some of my happiest memories are with my mum. When my sister went to school it was just me and Mum eating mince and mashed potato for lunch listening to the Jimmy Young programme.
“That is when I would say was at my happiest. “My dad is, sadly, not with us any more. He was a civil engineer for London Transport and was in charge of bridges and tunnels.”
He says his parents’ love of the theatre allowed him to realise his dreams, adding: “I was very lucky as they both loved going to the theatre, so I got to see lots like Frankie Howerd and Anthony Hopkins.
“It gave me a love of actors and a sense that they were in reach and a sense of possibility.
“I loved Frankie. I got his autograph once and then I ended up playing him in a BBC4 drama... it is amazing sometimes how life goes in circles.”
■■The TV adaptation of Ratburger will air on Christmas Eve at 6pm on Sky1.