The Scottish Mail on Sunday

Oxo mum’s sons: How our stepfather has betrayed us

LYNDA BELLINGHAM’S BOYS’ BLISTERING ATTACK ON STEPFATHER

- By POLLY DUNBAR

He’s splurging our inheritanc­e on flash car and trips

He parades his grief... but took lover to Mum’s bed

Claiming he had sex with her ghost was the final straw

SINCE her death from bowel cancer 18 months ago, Lynda Bellingham’s sons have been overwhelme­d by the outpouring of sadness and sympathy from the public. The maternal warmth and cheeky wit that the actress brought to her most famous roles, including the Oxo mum, made people feel they were grieving for someone they knew.

Yet the thousands of well-wishers were consoled by the knowledge that Lynda had found happiness with her third husband, property developer Michael Pattemore. His devotion throughout her agonising illness and devastatio­n when she passed away were assurances that she had, at least, ended her life enveloped in the kind of love she had always longed for.

How heartbroke­n she would be, then, if she could witness what her sons, Michael and Robbie Peluso, have since suffered at the hands of her widower – a man who has publicly described his relationsh­ip with them as close but who has, with breathtaki­ng hypocrisy, disowned them behind closed doors.

According to the boys, Pattemore has behaved with a barely credible selfishnes­s since Lynda’s death. He has deprived them of their inheritanc­e, evicted them from the family home, squandered thousands from Lynda’s estate with lavish living and foreign trips and, perhaps most distastefu­lly of all, slept with a fresh conquest in the marital bed while broadcasti­ng to the world his devotion to his late wife.

Driven to the edge of despair, the boys are in the process of challengin­g their mother’s will.

Today they are fearful even for her public reputation, believing that a tide of crass ‘revelation­s’ from Pattemore in a series of increasing­ly inappropri­ate interviews and media appearance­s threaten to overshadow the acting talent Lynda displayed in production­s such as the TV classic All Creatures Great And Small and the stage version of Calendar Girls.

When Pattemore claimed earlier this year that Lynda visited him from the afterlife and that he had made love to her ‘ghost spirit’, it was the final insult.

‘At that point I thought, “No. Enough is enough,”’ says Robbie. ‘That interview was awful, so disrespect­ful to my mother.

‘She should be remembered for all the wonderful work she did as an actress and the inspiring courage she showed at the end of her life, not for these tacky revelation­s that are tarnishing the reputation she worked so hard for.

‘When I read the interview about her ghost, I knew it was time to stand up for her, and give our side of everything that’s happened since my mother’s death. Our stepfather always says he’s close to us, but that’s not the case. We want the public to know that a lot of what they’ve been told just isn’t true.’

Everyone knew just how much Lynda adored her boys. The most poignant moment at her funeral in Crewkerne, Somerset, in November 2014, came as the brothers read a letter written by their mother containing the line: ‘I love you both so much it hurts.’

Since then, Michael, a 32-year-old actor, and Robbie, 27, a guest relations manager at a London hotel, have grieved in private. Bewildered and deeply hurt, they are now giving their first and only interview to correct the misleading picture painted by their stepfather.

‘This isn’t about money,’ says Michael, ‘it’s about the fact that he’s got control over everything my mother worked for her entire life, and we know that’s not what she wanted.’

When Michael Pattemore first entered the brothers’ lives in 2004, they were understand­ably wary. After Lynda had split from their father, Italian taxi driver Nunzio Peluso in 1994, it had just been Michael, Robbie and their mother. She was, say the boys, an utterly devoted mother.

Throughout their childhood, Lynda was the ‘nation’s favourite mum’ too, thanks to the Oxo adverts in which she played the loving wife with a hint of a cheekier side. The ads began in 1983, the year Michael was born, and the role would go on to last 16 years. ‘She was a fantastic mother,’ says Michael. ‘Even when her career wasn’t going so well, she struggled so that we could go to great schools. And although the problems in her relationsh­ip with my father have been well documented, he’s always been a supportive, loving dad to us, too.’

Lynda had been alone for a decade by the time she met Pattemore, who ran an estate agency on the Costa

‘His tacky revelation­s tarnish her reputation’ I’ve got only weeks to live – and I’ve chosen the date I’ll die

Brava. Seven years her junior and with a jack-the-lad charm, he swept her off her feet. At the time, Michael was 21 and Robbie 16; both old enough to realise their mother deserved a loving relationsh­ip.

Naturally, they became concerned when they learned Pattemore had been jailed for 21 months in 1998 after luring unsuspecti­ng investors into a financial scam.

When the couple married on Lynda’s 60th birthday in 2008, her sons did not attend the ceremony. ‘We felt awkward for our dad, who never stopped loving Mum,’ says Robbie. ‘We went to the party afterwards, though, to wish them the best.’

It was a terrible shock when Lynda was diagnosed with bowel cancer in July 2013 and rapidly became very ill. ‘I was touring with her in Calendar Girls and I remember her having these terrible pains in her chest,’ says Michael. ‘When she got the diagnosis of bowel cancer, we were stunned. At first, she seemed to be responding well to the treatment, and she was so positive. But then it started going wrong very quickly.’

It is all the sadder that the current

ugly family situation was provoked by Lynda’s own will, in which she left everything to Pattemore. Why she would do this is a matter of contention, for it seems incomprehe­nsible to her family and friends that she would not have made adequate provisions for her sons.

They say their mother wanted Pattemore to ensure they were looked after, yet aside from gifts amounting to £750 each, they have received nothing from him.

Instead, they say he told them the money was tied up in properties and impossible to access – something they find hard to square with the thousands he has spent on himself in the months since.

Michael says that at the beginning of his mother’s chemothera­py treatment, he made a point of talking to her about her wishes. ‘I told her it wasn’t about making sure we knew what she wanted,’ he says.

‘She said Michael Pattemore was rushing about getting the will sorted. She mentioned inheritanc­e tax and trying to avoid it by leaving money to him for him to pass on to us later, but she said there would be trusts set up which ensured a certain amount for Robbie and me. It was difficult for anyone to have a private conversati­on with her at that stage because he was always hovering around her.’

When Lynda eventually signed the will, it was Christmas 2013 and she was in hospital for an emergency operation to remove the tumour in her colon. ‘She’d almost died and was on a lot of strong drugs when she signed it,’ says Michael. His mother died in October 2014, aged 66.

Lynda’s funeral was attended by showbusine­ss friends, including Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes and writer Lynda La Plante.

The boys assumed that, in time, Pattemore would come to them with a copy of Lynda’s will, but months passed with no word and they realised they would have to ask for it. In February 2015, after their aunt intervened, Pattemore agreed to share it with them.

Michael says: ‘He sat me down and instead of giving it to me, he read it. He said, “This sum is to be split between you and Robbie, and another sum is to be split between you, Robbie, Bradley and Stacey,” who are his children. But he added, “Everything’s been left to me, so it will go to you when I decide.” I was sitting there crying, thinking, “Oh God, no.”’

Robbie adds: ‘When he read it to me later, he actually chuckled and tried to make a joke, saying, “So you’d better not do anything to annoy me.” He obviously realised how awkward it was that he’d effectivel­y said he now had control over everything my mother had worked for her entire life.

‘It was all handled so badly. If they’d both sat us down and talked us through their plans before she died, it wouldn’t have been such a shock. Honestly, though, I don’t know if she really understood what the outcome would be.’ Michael says: ‘Within a few months of Mum’s death, he’d been to Dubai three times, to Peru, to Canada to see where Mum was born and on a roundthe-world trip for eight weeks. He also went to Dublin for a hair transplant and he bought himself a brand-new Chevrolet Corvette, despite already driving a brand-new Range Rover my mum had bought him. ‘He hardly made a penny the entire time he was with my mother – it was all hers. ‘We started to wonder if he was rubbing our faces in it.’ Less than four months after Lynda’s death, Robbie says he received a call from Pattemore asking if he objected to him bringing a woman home that evening. ‘He described her as his girlfriend,’ says Robbie. ‘I was shocked, but I didn’t feel I could say anything as it was his home.

‘This woman, who was Scottish, was there when I arrived home and he spent the night with her in our mother’s bed, surrounded by photograph­s of her with him and with us.’ Last June, Michael accompanie­d Pattemore to a charity party where he says he witnessed his stepfather’s attempts at womanising first-hand. ‘He was taking women’s numbers in front of me,’ he says. ‘It really upset me.’

A month later, Pattemore gave an interview which left Robbie deeply distressed. In it, Pattemore called Lynda ‘irreplacea­ble’ and said: ‘Some men take a partner within months of their wives dying, but that’s not going to be me.’

Robbie says: ‘It was disgracefu­l. Give interviews about your grief, if you must, but don’t lie so blatantly. It’s so disrespect­ful, not just to my mother but to all the people who believed in the story of their relationsh­ip.’

When Michael told Pattemore he and his brother were considerin­g contesting their mother’s will in court, Pattemore insisted he was planning to buy a house to convert into flats so he could give one each to the brothers.

But by last August, having seen no sign of any financial help from Pattemore apart from gifts of £750 to each of them, and the payment by him of Michael’s car insurance, they felt the time had come to seek legal advice about their predicamen­t.

‘We’d tried to talk to him, but he never gave us any evidence he was going to do the right thing by us,’ says Michael. ‘We felt we didn’t have a choice.’

While Pattemore was on his roundthe-world trip, Robbie received a text message from Pattemore that

‘He bought a car and had a hair transplant’

triggered the exchange that was to be their final contact.

‘He said I would have to move out, because he’d decided to move to Somerset and wanted to rent out the flat. I don’t think being asked to leave my home less than a year after my mum had passed away constitute­s looking after her boys.’

Pattemore appeared on the Loose Women show – where Lynda had been a regular panellist – and said Robbie had decided to move out. The son counters: ‘That’s not true. I didn’t want to leave my home. I wasn’t given a choice.’

He moved his belongings to his father’s modest two-bedroom flat. He and Michael live there with their father today.

Robbie says: ‘When I left I took some pictures from the walls of Michael and me when we were kids, along with our family photo albums. I knew it was our last chance to save our memories. When our stepfather arrived back, he sent me a string of angry messages. He asked why I’d taken the TV from my room, which I’d thought was a gift.

‘And he said, “You’ve taken every single photo album. I use those for press”, which I think says it all. He’s not even in any of them – they’re from our lives before we even knew he existed.’

Michael and Robbie hired the legal firm Withers to contest their mother’s will. The firm has agreed to represent them on a no-win, no-fee basis.

After 18 months of anguish, they feel they have been left with no option. Michael says: ‘Our stepfather has everything, and if he wants to spend it all or lose it on bad investment­s, he can. There’s no way Mum understood that when she signed it. She was naive and trusting, and she was on a lot of strong drugs when the will was made. I don’t blame her for it.

‘I think deep down she knew the arrangemen­ts she’d made weren’t right, but I don’t think she wanted to confront her impending death. Who does?’

Although Michael and Robbie have inherited their father’s Italian looks, they exude the warmth and charm which made their mother so popular. However, the strain they have been under for the past 18 months is palpable.

‘We’ve been through hell,’ says Michael. ‘Neither of us has been sleeping well and the stress of what’s been happening with our stepfather has prevented us from grieving properly.

‘We knew what she wanted for us – she told us many times she wanted to buy each of us a flat.

‘We’ve been hoping to mediate with him. We’ve given him plenty of chances to sit down together and work something out, but he’s ignored every single letter our lawyers have sent.

‘We’ll go to court if we have to, because we need to stand up for our mother and what she wanted.’

The brothers say that their father has given them unwavering support. However, he was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer, so their fears for him have added to their burden.

They hope people will take from their experience the need to be absolutely clear about their wishes after death. ‘Don’t just make a will, write a letter of wishes and tell as many friends and family members as possible what you want,’ says Michael.

‘Don’t make the mistake Mum made. She would be devastated if she knew what we’d been through since her death. Knowing how much she loved us, that’s the saddest thing of all.’

Michael Pattemore declined to comment on the claims made by the brothers.

 ??  ?? TRAGIC LOSS: Lynda Bellingham died of cancer aged 66 in October 2014
TRAGIC LOSS: Lynda Bellingham died of cancer aged 66 in October 2014
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 ??  ?? BRAVE: Lynda revealed in the MoS in 2014 she knew she was facing death
BRAVE: Lynda revealed in the MoS in 2014 she knew she was facing death
 ??  ?? DEVOTED: Lynda Bellingham with sons Robbie, left, and Michael inthe mid-1990s. Below: Michael Pattemore on Loose Women in 2015
DEVOTED: Lynda Bellingham with sons Robbie, left, and Michael inthe mid-1990s. Below: Michael Pattemore on Loose Women in 2015
 ??  ?? FAMILY FAVOURITE: Lynda as the Oxo mum in a 1987 TV advert
FAMILY FAVOURITE: Lynda as the Oxo mum in a 1987 TV advert
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 ??  ?? ‘WE DON’T BLAME MUM’: Michael, left, and Robbie last week
‘WE DON’T BLAME MUM’: Michael, left, and Robbie last week

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