Actor Kevin Whately, who has been awarded an OBE in the New Year's Honour's List has admitted to being "old fashioned" when it comes to love and marriage.
Although this led to a 30 year wait to meet the love of his life in fellow actor Madelaine Newton the wait was worth it as their marriage has now last four decades.
Opening up about their relationship in an interview with The Times in 2019, the Inspector Morse star said of his marriage: “This might sound a bit old-fashioned, but I’ve always felt that having children was all about being with the right person.
“Someone you could share the rest of your life with. That didn’t happen till I was 30, when I met Madelaine. We were actually born three weeks apart in the same town, Hexham in Northumberland, but we didn’t know each other as kids.
“That shared history helped us 'click'. As soon as we met, that was it. Let’s get married and have kids,” he said.
The couple, who live in Woburn Sands near Milton Keynes went on to have two children – Catherine (known as Kitty) who was born in 1983 and a son called Kieran who was born in 1985. Kitty briefly followed in her parents footsteps and appeared alongside her father in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet where she played his character’s on-screen daughter.
These days she is a successful career classical operatic mezzo-soprano and is also the co-founder of the charity Supporting Women and Parents in Opera.
While Kevin is a well known face on screens, particularly for his role as Inspector Robbie Lewis, which he played for almost 30 years in both Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis, his wife is an accomplished actress in her own right.
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She first came to prominence in the 1970s BBC drama, When the Boat Comes In and has also starred in Grange Hill, Look and Read, and Coronation Street.
In 1986 she appeared opposite her husband in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet although she played Dennis Patterson's (played by Tim Healy) love interest.
In 1990 she joined him on screen in Morse as the as titular character's on-screen love interest Beryl Newsome.
However the character met a grisly end when she was murdered at a rehearsal for a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute leaving Morse as the chief suspect in her demise.
