He may be a grumpy grandad in new sitcom The Savages, but veteran comedy actor Geoffrey Palmer is an old softie when it comes to his own grandson.
"I'm a grandfather in real life, but only fairly recently," says Geoffrey, 73. "I left getting married until quite late - although we've just celebrated our 38th wedding anniversaty - and our grandson Billy is 18 months old.
"He's terrific. He's the son of my son Charles, a film cameraman and the only other member of the family who's in showbusiness." Geoffrey and wife Sally also have a grown-up daughter, Harriet, and unlike Geoffrey's character Donald Savage, he doesn't need excuses to spend time with his family.
"Donald pops in and says he's just passing and could take the kids to school," says Geoffrey. "What he really wants is a bit of contact with his family, but he doesn't want to admit he's lonely."
As father to Adam (played by Marcus Brigstocke), Donald is the kind of emotionally constipated Englishman that has become something of a speciality for Geoffrey.
He played stiff upper lip Major Jimmy Anderson in The Fall And Rise of Reginald Perrin in the Seventies, was brilliant as Wendy Craig's sourpuss dentist husband Ben in Butterflies, and masked his emotions yet again in eight series of As Time Goes By, playing the long lost lover of Dame Judi Dench.
"Whether it's my nature or that bit of my personality that I use a lot for acting, I don't know," says Geoffrey, who lives in Buckinghamshire. "But in my defence I'd say I'm not necessarily like that!"
Off screen, the star is engagingly warm and relaxed, as well as modest. He puts his successful comedy career down to good luck, basically" and gives much of the credit to programme writers.
"I've been very lucky for the past 15 years and I'm at an age when I should be putting my feet up," he says. "I don't want to put them up totally but I don't have to work 52 weeks a year.
And quite apart from grandson Billy, there are other tempting ways to spend his time. "Fishing for salmon and trout is a newish obsession," says Geoffrey. "I like to go river fishing in the Cotswolds. I haven't been able to recently because of this ghastly outbreak of foot and mouth - but that's why it's difficult to persuade me to go to work between May and the end of November!"
Thanks to Maree Wilson for sending me this article which appeared in The Sun (UK) TV Guide, April 21 - May 6, 2001.