Bill Roache (pictured) might be 86 years old, but his neck is firm, he’s wrinkle-free and he springs about in his trainers like a well-groomed gazelle
Meeting Bill Roache is rather discombobulating.
Not because his home — creamy, thick carpets, fat sofas and flamboyantly ruched curtains — feels far more chez Barbara Cartland than Ken Barlow.
Or even because he is so like his Coronation Street alter ego of 58 years that I call him Ken at least three times in an hour (thankfully, he’s slightly deaf after a mortar exploded next to his ear when he was in the Army).
No. It’s because of how incredibly youthful he looks. And it’s all down to coconut oil, rather than surgical intervention, he insists (I note an industrial-size pot in his ornate, navy blue bathroom).
Ladies, go and buy some. NOW! Because Bill might be 86 years old, but his neck is firm, he’s wrinkle-free and he springs about in his trainers like a well-groomed gazelle.
And the hair. Oh, the hair! He washes and conditions the wondrous mane daily with low-chemical products and says it has never been dyed, highlighted or augmented.
‘It’s inherited from my mother and it’s all my own,’ he says, firmly.
All of which is a lot to absorb, even before we touch on his legendary sex life, the never-ending Coronation Street years and his new autobiography, Life And Soul: How To Live A Long And Healthy Life. In it, he gives tips on staying calm and youthful, being happy and finding what he calls ‘pure love’ through his membership of a spiritual group called the Pure Love Movement.
‘It is not a belief,’ he explains, carefully. ‘Beliefs are fickle and changeable. This is a ‘knowing’. A truth. Pure love is a great truth — not romantic love.
‘It is the great creator of life and, once you realise what it is, it solves everything.’
We start with a spot of meditation — which Bill has practised since the Seventies — in his sunny conservatory, or his ‘Zen Den’. ‘It’s tricky: breathe in and out, think of the sea, the waves, start to look up along the beach . . . ‘ he counsels. ‘But, oh, the glow! You can get a really good high when you get into it.’
He says he is still grieving for his co-star Anne Kirkbride (pictured together in 1987), who played Deirdre Barlow in Corrie and who died in 2015, aged 60
Bill is also a Reiki healer, a form of alternative medicine, which some practise by laying on hands, but he prefers talking. ‘People come to me and I chat to them and it helps. It gives them strength,’ he says.
He can also read astrological charts — ‘I studied it in my ‘seeking years’ ‘ — and believes in reincarnation.
And he says the Pure Love Movement taught him how to make life more joyful.
So, if he finds himself in an argument, or feeling uptight at a sudden change in the Coronation Street filming schedule, he simply takes a deep breath and ‘pours some love into the situation’. ‘It always helps,’ he says. ‘However big the challenge.’
And Bill has had more than his fair share of challenges.
He and his beloved second wife Sara lost a daughter, Edwina, to pneumonia in 1984 when she was 18 months. (He and Sara had another daughter Verity, now 37, and a son, James, 32, an actor, while Bill had two other children, the actor Linus Roache, 54, and daughter Vanya, with his first wife Anna.)
In 2009, Bill was ‘pole-axed with grief’ when, in the middle of chatting to him in bed one morning, Sara sighed and fell back against the pillows.
Bill and his beloved second wife Sara (pictured together) lost a daughter, Edwina, to pneumonia in 1984 when she was 18 months
She died of an unexplained heart failure, aged just 58. ‘Of course, I knew that her soul was ready and she was going on to another life,’ he says. ‘But she was 17 years my junior, so it was a big shock.’
Bill adored her and she did everything for him.
‘She did the shopping, paid the bills, bought my clothes and the house was immaculate,’ he says. ‘But, most of all, I just missed her.’
More heartbreak was to follow: earlier this year, Vanya, who was 50, passed away after a three-year battle with liver disease. In a dash to get to her to say goodbye, Bill crashed his BMW into a tree and missed her final moments.
And he says he is still grieving for his co-star Anne Kirkbride, who played Deirdre Barlow in Corrie and who died in 2015, aged 60. ‘I really, really loved her,’ he says.
As if that wasn’t enough, in May 2013, Bill was accused, arrested, charged and later tried and acquitted of historic sex offences as part of the Operation Yewtree investigation. ‘I don’t talk about the court case at all,’ he says firmly, while insisting that he has forgiven his accusers.
Yet when I ask if he feels he’s been unlucky, he looks astonished. ‘I’ve had a very lucky life,’ he says. ‘Very lucky. When life throws challenges, don’t be the victim.’
Today, he lives alone on vegetable smoothies, salads he brings home from the Coronation Street canteen and beans on toast. ‘I love to be alone. All my life, I yearned for privacy and time on my own, and now I’ve got it,’ he says. ‘I’m not a great socialiser — I don’t have a lot of friends.’
When he’s not working 14-hour days, he plays golf and netball and watches TV — including, with a critical eye, every Corrie scene he’s in. He has no intention of winding down. ‘Ageing is a belief system,’ he says. ‘The body is designed to go on as long as you want to be in it.’
So, every morning, he says to himself — ‘and I do do this,’ he says, giving me a beady look — ‘Every cell renews itself with a younger, healthier version.’
Bill Roache (pictured on the soap with Kate Ford) does admit to sleeping with ‘a lot’ of women in his 20s and early 30s when Coronation Street turned him into a star
‘Therefore I am getting younger, healthier and rejuvenated. So to go on to 100 is nothing. For me, though, 107 or 108 feels about right. So that’s how long I will live.’
Gosh, another 20 years or so? Does he have any big plans? ‘No. I’ve done it all,’ he says, happily.
Really, truly — does he have no unfulfilled ambitions?
‘Well . . . I always wanted to be in a western. Clint Eastwood was my hero.’ Briefly, he looks crestfallen.
‘But I’m still working!’ he brightens. ‘So I’ll just carry on. Ken is ten years younger than me, so I’ve got a bit of leeway.’
Ken Barlow was an 18-year old student when Bill, 28, appeared in the very first episode of the soap in 1960, fresh from a commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. He has played Ken ever since.
‘In the Seventies, I was offered a role in a four-part series that I really wanted to do,’ he says. ‘And my producer said: ‘Yes, you can go, but you can never come back.’ So I stayed.’
Like many actors, he insists he is an introvert. ‘I’ve always lacked confidence. I’ve always been very shy — that’s why I wanted to go into acting.’ Bill grew up in Nottinghamshire, the son of a doctor, went to boarding school and briefly studied medicine, before joining the Army.
He drifted into acting in his mid-20s and Ken was only his second proper part.
He might be shy, but he’s never held back from sharing his (often eccentric) beliefs.
‘My trouble is that I’m too trusting and, boy, has that got me into really bad trouble,’ he agrees.
Countless headlines have been generated over the years — the most notorious being a TV interview with Piers Morgan, who asked if it was true he’d slept with more than 1,000 women. Roache didn’t deny it.
It seems this interview sparked the (false) accusations of historic sex offences.
‘I didn’t say 1,000 at all — I got up and walked away! But that’s what the headline was,’ he says.
But if not the full 1,000, he does admit to sleeping with ‘a lot’ of women in his 20s and early 30s when Coronation Street turned him into a star.
‘The fame and attention was heady stuff and I wasn’t very responsible during my first marriage,’ he says. ‘I was up in Manchester in the week on my own and I wasn’t good at all.’
Sometimes, he slept with more than one girl in a day. Often, he dispensed with charm altogether, asking: ‘Are we going to or not?’
He and Anna divorced in 1974 and, four years later, he married Sara and was ‘completely faithful’ until her death. Since then, he has had just one relationship, with weather girl Emma Jesson, 36 years his junior. They split in 2013, after two years together.
So is he open to love now? After all, if he’s planning on living to 108, it’s a long time to be single.
‘I don’t need a relationship,’ he insists. ‘I’m not looking for anything. I’m completely content. It’s a wonderful position to be in.’
But what about the, er, physical side of things. Doesn’t he miss it? ‘No. Well . . . a bit. Maybe. Yes. . . Hmm. You’re treading on dangerous ground now!’ he growls.
And, just as I think that he’s forgotten the love-smothering mantra of Pure Love and is about to lose his temper, he gives me a very wolfish grin and says: ‘Put it this way. I can live on the memories for a long time — I’ve got quite a lot in the bank!’