I’m the youngest of three children. We lived beside a big beech wood, on the edge of the moors, in Northumberland, which was enormously good fun. I was the baby and my brother and sister, who were four-and-a-half and three years older than me respectively, were always allowed to go off and play on their own. By the time I was old enough to join them in their adventures, we had moved house.
My father is a retired GP. There was something very exciting about being a son of the doctor because you were known to everyone. In our village, Rothbury, everyone would stop and talk to you. In those days, when you were a GP on call and the surgery was closed, then our house essentially became the surgery.
My parents were relaxed, but very strict on manners. They encouraged us to follow our instincts and desires, so they were quite bohemian in that sense, but we had to work hard and that included chores.
There was never a sense of pas devant les enfants [not in front of the children]. We would talk about everything, so there were no secrets. We were trusted by our parents. When I had just passed my driving test, my grandmother said I could have her little Ford Fiesta, and I remember trying to summon the courage to ask my mother if my sister and I could drive all the way down the A1 to a friend’s in Northamptonshire. I expected her to say, “You have only just passed your test,” but she said, “Oh, it’s a brilliant idea, wonderful, let’s look at the map and find the routes.” It was amazing.
I was teased at school for having a posh voice even though there was nothing posh about us. My God, we lived in a shell of an old stone farmhouse that had no central heating and no airtight walls or windows, so there was nothing remotely posh about us in terms of our upbringing.
I have four boys aged 10 and under. Fatherhood is lovely but there is this slightly shocking moment when you realise it is not something you just wear and take off. With your first child, you do perhaps go into it thinking, “Yeah, this is a job you can clock in and clock out of,” but at about three weeks in, you suddenly realise it’s not like that. You have to tread a fine line between making family life wonderful, and nourishing and wholesome, but you also don’t want to shirk your duties as a parent.
I’m probably the “good cop” but I am the slightly tedious cop because I do tend to wag my finger and be a bit preachy about watching TV or using devices too much. I have lost count of the number of times I have told them about TV corroding their minds.
I am just the bumbling old fool in the corner at home. I am struggling to remember a time when any of my children have laughed at anything I have said. They are aware that humour has played a significant part in my career and I like to think they are looking forward to the moment they find their father funny. I think they find it faintly amusing that other people give me the time of day.
Family means everything to me and it is the reason why I do everything, and it, rather than my career, is my priority, and one serves the other. That was the crucial change in my life when we had children because, up to that point, my priority was very much my career. And I am now aware that one funds the other and so it is a tricky balance.
• Alexander Armstrong’s album In a Winter Light is out now on East West. He begins a tour in May 2018.
