My parents divorced when I was five leaving my mother on her own with four children under the age of six. I have an elder sister, Sarah, and then younger twins, Laura and Mike. Both my sisters are teachers. My brother was a lawyer but is now a vicar. From my father’s second marriage, I also have two half-sisters, Harriet and Josephine, a lawyer and a vet.
I spent my childhood having to repeat my Christian name and then having to spell it. My mother’s called Helen and, in the Greek myth, she had a daughter called Hermione so my father, being a romantic, thought it would be a good idea to give me that name. Not for me it wasn’t. Thank God for JK Rowling. People continued to take the mickey until Harry Potter [with Hermione Granger].
When my father left home, it was all jumbled chaos. We children weren’t told anything so none of us had a clue what was going on. But your mother is your mother, your father is your father, no matter what. We all loved them equally, so it was confusing. Daddy had gone and Mum was sad. She was a health visitor – she didn’t have much choice but to work full-time – and I remember we elder girls rallying to help with the housework, the cooking and the washing up.
There was never any expectation of the four of us being provided for as grownups. Mum taught us all to be fully self-supporting, to just get on with it. My father was funny and charismatic and naughty but I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t fully capable of stepping up to the responsibility of having six children.
When I was eight, we all moved to Derbyshire to live with my mother’s mother, Grace. Then, at 12, I got a scholarship to go to Elmhurst school for dance; I wanted to be a ballerina. I changed at that point from being quite quiet and shy into someone rather loud and rebellious.
I later went on to drama college. In the summer before my last year at Lamda, my father died unexpectedly. I was on holiday in Greece with a boyfriend. No one had mobiles back then so my siblings tried to get hold of me via the World Service. I didn’t find out what had happened until I got home. I was utterly shattered.
I felt exposed all over again, an umbrella of protection suddenly removed. He’d left me once when he’d moved out of our home and now he’d left me for good. It rocked my confidence – one of the defining moments of my life. I was conscious of having to put myself back together again, of re-evaluating my priorities. It took me some time to make peace with my grief.
My brother and sisters are the closest people to me in my life but then we share a pretty intense family history. In no way do I wish to complain about my childhood. It was what it was. But it has inevitably left its mark on the four of us. We have a bond, a shorthand that means we each know what the others are thinking without having to say anything.
It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I met my husband, Simon Wheeler, who was working as a writer and producer on Wire in the Blood, in which I appeared with Robson Green. I wasn’t yearning for marriage or motherhood – I loved my work – but all that changed after my son and daughter were born. Wilf is 12, Hero nine. They are my life’s greatest gift. Their childhood is quite different, of course, from mine in terms of material comforts. But certain values hold good no matter your upbringing. I think Cinderella’s mother probably said it best: have courage and be kind.
• Hermione Norris stars in Cold Feet on ITV on Mondays at 9pm
