Emmerdale star with bigamist father was so poor he couldn't afford birth certificate

While Emmerdale sometimes sees tough stories carried out on screen, the stars behind the ITV soap have also faced periods of adversity in reality. One of them is Patrick Mower, best known for his portrayal of Rodney Blackstock, as his life was worlds apart from his affluent character.

Speaking about his childhood, the now 86-year-old previously heartbreakingly shared: "Life in our home was appalling, and yet part of me thought it was normal. I thought all parents drank heavily and were brutally strict. I thought everyone was unhappy." He added: "My earliest recollections are of banging and shouting. In fact, peace didn't break out in our house until my coal miner father Pat went off to war in 1941. Life could not have been easy for my mother, with no money and three young children to care for. All the same, in my father's absence, she did her best to live it to the full."

Patrick grew up with his brother, Don, as the two spent a lot of time together and supported each other throughout turbulent times. "Even when an ambulance took Don and me to an isolation hospital, we thought it was an adventure," he recalled. "We didn't know that we had contracted scabies due to our poor hygiene and diet.

"We never had any money but I didn't realise we were poor. We had an outside lavatory and I remember my surprise at school when I first saw toilet paper. At home we used torn-up pieces of the Daily Mirror."

Patrick's memories deepened as he admitted that he might not know his true age, as his family were too poor to afford a birth certificate. He explained: "I was born on September 12, 1938, or so I believe. There is no record of my birth, as I discovered while checking family documents at London's Somerset House 20 years later. Birth certificates - and marriage certificates - were just minor considerations in my family."

The lack of marriage certificate also had an impact on the actor's family as he and his brother received some earth-shattering news which they chose to keep from their mother out of fear of "breaking her heart".

He recalled how they found out that their dad was already married, before going on to tie the knot with their mum. "In the mid-Nineties, I received a phone call from a woman claiming to be my half-sister," Patrick shared. "She said my father had left a wife and four daughters behind in Pontypridd, Wales, before he met my mother.

"On the day his fourth child was born, he staggered in late from the pub. Told by the midwife he had another girl, he muttered: 'F*** it, I'm off."' They never saw him again. The story my half-sister told me all added up. My father was a bigamist.

"When he died, I felt nothing. Peggy, my wonderful mother, passed away in 2001, aged 93. She never knew her marriage was illegal - my brothers and I kept it from her for fear of breaking her heart."