Geordie showbiz couple Tim Healy and Denise Welch honoured by Variety Club with unique charity award
Geordie showbiz couple Tim Healy and Denise Welch honoured by Variety Club with unique charity award
Posted: 09 Oct 2009
Local heroes land top charity honour
Geordie screen and stage superstars Tim Healy and Denise Welch were honoured in February with a unique charity award by the northern region of the Variety Club. Denise talks to Michael Hamilton about her 25-year TV career in an exclusive interview
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Auf Wiedersehen Pet stalwart Tim and Coronation Street‘s Denise picked up a prestigious joint Silver Heart award at a star-studded celebrity bash at Newcastle’s Civic Centre.
It’s the first time the charity – in its 60-year history – has awarded a joint Silver Heart.
Gosforth guitar legend Mark Knopfler played his signature tune Local Hero for the couple live as they received their accolade surrounded by their showbiz pals, closest friends and family – a fitting tribute to mark two glittering careers.
Before the lavish ceremony in the banqueting suite, attended by more than 500 guests, I caught up with Denise in a break from her latest TV hit Loose Women, to look back over her acting career.
MH: Apart from the Variety Club you do work for lots of charities.
Denise: I’m a patron of 21 charities – some of them are in name only because there’s only so much physically you can do in a hands-on way.
But they call me Mother Teresa at work!
We do the Tim Healy and Denise Welch ball in Cheshire – where we now live – every year. This year we raised £120,000, which was split between two charities. A friend of mine’s charity is based in Rochdale and the money goes into research into genetic diseases. Her two boys died of Hunter’s Syndrome and we also lost two friends last year to motor neurone disease.
I did the Manchester 10km run two years ago and the Great Wall of China run last September. It’s 4,000 miles long so obviously you don’t do the whole thing! I did the rough terrain part. It was about 12km a day and it was the hardest thing I’ve done physically. There are no flat bits. But it was all very rewarding and quite surreal to be there and wonder how they built this amazing thing in the first place.
Tim and I are incredibly flattered and very honoured to receive the joint Silver Heart award from the Variety Club – it’s their highest honour. And it’s great to be appreciated by your own in your home area of course.
MH: You are notoriously candid about your personal life on the Loose Women TV show. Does it cause problems with Tim?
Denise: Not really. Of course he does watch it with his hands over his eyes wondering what the hell I’m going to say next.
If we’ve had a row in the morning before I go to do the show he says: ‘Can you please not tell the whole nation today that I’m a complete a...! I still do of course!
I can’t say I haven’t got into trouble because I have. I just forget I’m on television sometimes. Seriously though, I know my levels.
With Tim and everything I say about him on the show, I think people know there’s an element of tongue-in-cheek about it. I’m playing a bit of a role in the show – that’s my persona.
The trouble arises when he hasn’t seen it. For example I talked about him on the show using the guest downstairs loo at home. So he goes to the pub and people say: ‘I hear you did a poo in the downstairs toilet, then.’ And he didn’t know what they were on about.
It’s a good job he’s got a sense of humour.
MH: Is there anything off limits – anything you wouldn’t talk about on the show?
Denise: All the bad things I’ve done in my life are out there, because they’ve been in the newspapers. I can’t go all quiet about them because they are in the public domain.
There’s nothing Tim doesn’t know about me. It’s the way I choose to talk about those things which is the important thing.
The more successful presenters on the show are the ones who are very open. The programme only works if the presenters are very truthful.
We’ve tried different people over the years and if they are too young, for example, they may not feel ready to talk about some things. If you’re not going to talk about your life then you’re not right for Loose Women. If you are young you may not have enough experiences to talk about. We poor old slappers have got plenty to talk about!
MH: What’s the worst thing you’ve revealed about Tim?
Denise: Well his toilet habits, of course, and rambling on when he’s drunk. I could go on and on! But actually when he came on the show last Valentine’s Day it showed how close we really were.
I didn’t know he was going to sing to me. I knew he was coming on the show but thought he would just bring a bunch of flowers. Then he sang Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? It’s my favourite song.
The emails flooded in from viewers saying it was the most romantic thing they had seen. He’s such a good singer too. A lot of people don’t know that about him.
MH: You’ve been together 20 years now. How did you first meet?
Denise: Although we’ve been together for 20 years we first met about 30 years ago when I went for an audition at the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle. He was a founder member and I was just out of drama school.
As it happened I didn’t do that job because I was offered another one in London and I was going out with someone in London then.
So we knew each other for about 10 years before we got together but we weren’t really that fond of each other.
Then he got mega-famous in Auf Wiedersehen Pet. I thought he was a brilliant actor. I just didn’t like him very much and he didn’t like me!
We had various relationships in between. I’d been married and he had a steady girlfriend. Years later we met at supper at Max Roberts (the director of Live Theatre) house and Robson Green was there with his girlfriend. It just happened from there.
It was a slow burn really. We were mates first. You have to be mates really because once the initial chemistry starts to fade, then if you are not friends there’s not much to keep you there.
MH: You are back on TV now with the school drama Waterloo Road and Tim’s in it with you. How was that?
Denise: It was great to have Tim in this series of Waterloo Road. He plays a security guard. They bring security in when a gun is brought to school by one of the pupils. In the show he’s obsessed with my character – Steph the French teacher – and I keep knocking him back. Tim says it’s just art mirroring life!
MH: The gun was a shocking plot line in the show. Do you worry for your kids growing up these days?
Denise: My youngest Louis is in a nice little rural school in Alderley Edge so it’s not a big city school like Waterloo Road with the sort of problems that inner city schools have.
It’s only a drama but sadly this sort of thing is going on in schools in the UK nowadays. It’s terrifying. But you can’t worry about it all the time or you would drive yourself bonkers.
But that doesn’t mean you don’t worry. Of course you do. I have to try not to think about it too much. If I worried about everything that faces them in this day and age I’d end up having another nervous breakdown.
My eldest Matthew is in a band called Drive Like I Do and he’s just recorded his first single called Robbers which is out in March. He’s the writer, singer and lead guitarist and I’m very excited about that for him.
Jamie, who is Tim’s and my godson, and Matthew are big pals and he’s just landed an 18-month record deal in New York. Tim and I are so proud of both of them.
We joke that we just hope the money comes rolling in so he can buy me that house in Beverly Hills I’ve always dreamed of!
MH: What sort of pupil were you at school?
Denise: Ironically I’ve just been back to my old school Consett Grammar for a project for the BBC. Because of my role in Waterloo Road as a teacher they wanted me for a show called Playing the Part.
I had to go and be a teacher for real at my old school. It was the most terrifying thing I have done in my life. They made no concessions that I was an actress. I had to teach these kids, between 11 and 15, English for a week.
As a pupil I’ve got very fond memories of my school. It’s just that I didn’t do very well when I was there. It wasn’t until drama came into my life when I was about 14 that I found something I loved. I didn’t set the world on fire academically.
I was at La Sagesse in Newcastle when I was younger but an all-girls convent school just wasn’t my cup of tea. Then we moved to Shotley Bridge and all my friends were going to Consett Grammar while I was having to get on a bus at 7am to go to Newcastle.
MH: You live in Cheshire now. Do you still have a home in the North East?
Denise: We still have our place in Stocksfield. My sister lives there. We are up normally about every three weeks or so. But I film Waterloo Road in Rochdale so being in Cheshire is really handy for that. All my friends from Corrie live near by too.
MH: Would you ever move back to the North East?
Denise: We love the North East but it’s just not practical for us to live there. We do so much of our work in Manchester, so that’s the most sensible place for us to be. If one of us was in Newcastle it would be even harder to see each other. Matthew has his band there and Louis is happy in school too. But the North East is still our home and we go back a lot.
MH: Do you have a favourite role?
Denise: As an actress I’ve always wanted to do well but I’ve never had this thing that I wanted to play Lady Macbeth before I die. In the theatre I won an award about two years ago for a play at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. As a kid I always thought it would be great to play the Royal Exchange and I finally got to play the mother in Little Voice – so that was probably my favourite.
As jobs go I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve done – even in the early days touring in rep with things like Cry Murder in Skegness! As TV jobs go Soldier Soldier was great from a location point of view because it was like being sent abroad with all your best friends.
MH: Would you ever go back to Coronation Street?
Denise: I couldn’t say ‘no’ because you should never say ‘never.’ But why would I want to? I’ve worked continually since I left and I it was my decision to leave. I’ve never asked to go back and they have never asked me. The character has no connections with the Street anymore – they’d have to invent a reason for me to go back.
If I hadn’t been working for three years I would bite their hand off, but I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve worked ever since. I’ll be on Loose Women until April. Then there’s a little break then Waterloo Road starts filming again in May.
* Any donations for the charity should be sent to: Variety Club, Suite 25 Aston House, Redburn Road, Westerhope, Newcastle NE5 1NB
Stars in their eyes
Born in Benwell in 1952 Tim has gone on to become a household TV name. He got his big telly break as brickie Dennis Patterson in the classic Auf Wiedersehen Pet, which went on to become the most successful British comedy of all time.
It’s all a far cry from his early days as a child actor growing up in Birtley and attending Pelton Secondary Modern. His late father was a keen amateur actor and stalwart of the local operatic society.
In a long showbusiness career he has starred in numerous TV shows including Casualty, Silent Witness, Coronation Street, Minder and Heartbeat. But he still loves being on stage and he played the gruff pitman dad in Billy Elliot the Musical in a West End run three years ago to critical acclaim.
Like Tim, Denise developed a penchant for acting at the age of 14 when she was cast in school productions.
She was born in Ebchester, went to school in Whitley Bay and Newcastle and later attended Consett Grammar. Dad Vin is a keen actor and has appeared with her in Coronation Street.
Denise went straight into acting on leaving London’s Mountview Theatre School in 1979 and, after getting her break at Newcastle’s Live Theatre, made appearances in Auf Wiedersehen Pet and Spender – starring opposite Jimmy Nail – in the Eighties.
But it was when she was cast as Marsha Stubbs in ITV’s Soldier Soldier that she became a household name. More success followed when she starred as scheming barmaid Natalie Barnes in the popular soap Coronation Street.
Like Tim she is an accomplished singer and she performed as Petula Clark in the 1999 Stars in Their Eyes TV show.
Denise has also appeared in The Bill, Holby City and Waterloo Road. For the last four years she has been a regular panellist on ITV’s popular daytime show Loose Women.
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