HIS STORY Julian Glover, 79, actor
We met in a rehearsal room in Victoria. I looked across the room and I saw this beautiful creature. And my first thought was: “Why do I never get anything like that?” The rehearsal period was much concerned with that feeling and then we went on tour. Timothy West was also in the play, so I volunteered to Timothy and Isla that I would arrange our accommodation. Need I go further?
We were together for two years and then we wed. On honeymoon in Bermuda we conceived our glorious son Jamie. Timothy and I had become great friends, so we named our sons after the characters we were playing when we first met: Samuel [Johnson] and James [Boswell].
After Isla and I had been married 10 years, a friend suggested we do a blessing in a church in the City of London. We’d been married in a registry office because I’d been divorced, but Isla had always wanted some sort of religious confirmation. Little did she know when she walked into the church that everyone we’d ever known was there. In the end the vicar said: “I don’t know how to do a blessing now I think about it; let’s just do the marriage ceremony!” So we did.
After 48 years our marriage is solid like stone. I’m inclined to lose my temper at the least provocation and say things off the top of my head which are quite unnecessary, but Isla is very calm and can see every single side of a problem. And we have a shared sense of humour. We only have to say a word or lift an eyelash.
Of course in a marriage you’ve got to work hard. You make mistakes, you do bad things, and you hope you can pay amends for those and talk your way through. When you do, it’s even more solid.
The Scottsboro Boys opens on 20 October at the Garrick Theatre
HER STORY Isla Blair, 70, actor
I’ve never really been without Julian. We met when I was 21 and we were doing the play Boswell’s Life of Johnson together. It was an instant falling in love for both of us – a coup de foudre. Julian was separated from Eileen Atkins, to whom he’d been married for nine years. Sometimes I’d take his navy cashmere jumper away and spray my perfume on it so he’d remember me when he got home.
Julian can never remember anybody’s name, and we hadn’t been married long when he introduced me as “my wife Eileen Atkins” at a party! I was the only person to laugh. Eileen’s now a very good friend of mine – when our son Jamie was born she showered him with presents.
Julian and I are often asked to work together but we tend to avoid it. We once did a production of Hamlet with Jamie playing Hamlet; I was Gertrude and Julian the king. We also did a Terence Rattigan play, In Praise of Love – Julian was so moving he used to make me cry every night.
Although we work constantly we’ve never been big earners, and there have been times when we’ve been skint. We’re blessed with our family – we’re very close to Jamie and have two granddaughters we’re besotted with. Julian and I have grown closer the longer we’ve been married: the only thing that scares me is that one or other of us has to leave, inevitably.
The thing I most look forward to in any day is a glass of wine and a chat with Julian in the evening. We still find each other interesting! We celebrated our 46th wedding anniversary and my birthday recently, and the company gave me a beautiful glass storm candle because they know I like sitting in the garden with Julian.
Made in Dagenham opens at the Adelphi Theatre on 5 November
