I mean if some people this isn't some people are some people have got to get very very specific ideas about what they want to save for. And what they want to retire a certain age and they want to set an income or a certain percentage of their current income when they retire so if they've got nothing and they want them to just let thing we did a few weeks ago John we looked at pension contributions which were anything from $200.00 pounds a month for a 20 year old to 4 and a half grand a month for something that's worth 58 a friend listening on the passenger of the car fell off the chair as I write well the man that my friend is the impact of the old rebelliously and we used to be in pensions right he knew the number one of his colleagues listen I think what So people I guess the thing is most people don't live to rise none of us do do we think well we don't want to be when I'm 60 and I think that's the point these are the reason for starting from 20 around 50 is you get so much more time to plan for these things you get so much time if the money you need to pay $20.00 is $210.00 a month rather than full have grinded 50 then that is the reason for starting to plan the you can ask and so do more and more like a Christmas die you know you mean to do well from September and suddenly it's a 25 that is a very I started much slower This is where you're so much closer to 20 than. To just. Last one last place last name advice is. See all the time do it saying anything with a credit card until you know that the deal that you're getting is actually one that works for you the 0 percent if it's to get if it looks too good to be true it probably is too good to be true for I guess thank you very much Pete focus to be had there for the year you could conceivably but you could before you go you could conceivably keep borrowing on a credit card and keep moving the banks would that affect your credit rating could you keep getting interest free you could keep interest free loan as long well for ever as long as they keep offering 2 or 3 year deals and if that's to be used then absolutely agreement you should do it's a great thing to do but if you do it make sure that it's WHERE YOU TO does that affects a good rating if you keep changing I think you're only doing it once every 3 or 4 years and you're making peanuts on a regular basis who want so in theory you could keep borrowing for nothing but using a credit card absolutely what can I buy. But depends on the limit of the pens on the balance of transfer and or the balance that the credit card company will allow you to have a sneaky but you've really got to keep your wits about you yet never subsequence the overspend OK I guess thank you very much indeed so you can you can keep shifting the balance from credit card to credit card and state interest free fire is going to be with news drive at 4 o'clock we had so many techs and treats in today to do with politics and also to do with your favorite summer songs and to do with cars some say What about motor home users many older models out there anyway we're going to go Louise was in charge til tomorrow. Hello and welcome for me to start here in London to meet one of our most versatile actors in 3 of the most popular series on television he went from solving murders to committing murder and on to see thing lives for 12 years he played D.I.I. Robbie Ross in S.T.V. Detective drama Taggart He then moved to Britain's biggest soup to play a ne'er do well Carmine role and Coronation Street while that character is serving a life sentence in jail for murder he's hopped channel and is currently playing consultant neurosurgeon guy self in Holby City he's appeared in films including 2 what with lions and Monk Dawson and had many stages most recently in The Winter's Tale at the Lyceum in Edinburgh where 40 years earlier he 1st appeared as a stage hand in the Traverse I remember well bringing those cups of tea or was it whiskey to the actors. John Micky you were born in Burma no no Inus Myanmar with a name like Mickey I'm guessing you're not berm East to your family so far afield. Well my father fought in the 2nd World War Java and the Far East we came back to Glasgow where he wanted to be a factor of a bigger state that was his he was but something shooting fishing kind of guy brought up in the. Campsie hills but there was there was no work and there was a family connection to green least bank of the National Bank of India and his father said to him that's where you're going you're going out east to work in a bank so he went 1st to India travelled around India but met my mother. In Bombay So what did your mom do then you most Indian WHAT SHE No no she was a No My mom is from Lancashire and so she was a nurse and my father joined us and she nursed him back to health very romantic in the beach candy hospital in Bombay Mumbai and saying that your name is Mickey which obviously isn't Burmese but actually it should probably have been McDonnell because it was changed to me in the 17th century Yes it was we we were MCDONELL going to hell and being in the double L. And yes my ancestor murdered his brother in order to get control of the clan and then he thought he had the whole clan behind him and they turned against him many he fled from like Arbor into I would ensure and that's where most of the ME so there's murder in the family. Murder in the family. Whatever your child to do years which is spent in Kenya you lived in the car until you were 12 that's right I mean it was it was it was a wonderful life really if you are from that minority of Europeans who. I lived in Africa at the time and lived a colonial life I was unaware of what that really meant but I loved it you know it needed independence obviously but at the time for me is and as a young white kid why African kid it was bliss did independence how the any impact on your life that was in the sixty's you must of been living there it had a huge impact on my my father's life and particularly his his health that the banking system there kind of went. Little bit he with and he was a ridiculously honest and hardworking presbytery. Who. Had to do everything the right way and that caused him a lot of stress and eventually he had to leave due to ill health come back to Scotland and we moved to Edinburgh where he got a job with the Royal Bank of Scotland but died very young really you know from high blood pressure I mean 63 you filmed in Kenya since yeah to walk with lions in 1999 it was the follow up to Born Free Richard Harris and Honor Blackman were the people that you were acting with that was to be in for a yeah they were 2 huge personalities Yes Richard I mean I mean I was in that film because of him because of the screen test. He decided he thought I'd be the one so I was eternally grateful to him but he was a nightmare to work with and he's dug out of a grown child really incredibly talented actor but you deal with him on a day to day basis was was virtually impossible he is absolutely terrified of the fact that we're going to have to work with lions any freely admitted that I was I'm . You know and he was so scared that he was shaking like a leaf when we were close to one of the lions and I just my naivety and youth I suppose I thought that I see wild lions these are Hollywood lions you know the males bad. Because you can't you can't get a wild lion obviously they're trained lions and I just assumed everything would be fine but of course he was right I mean they are incredibly unpredictable and they're not they're not like a tiger they have the intelligence of a tiger you know they're just killing machines so every time a child came onto the set you could see them just get. Anxious like. Wanting to eat you know you were sent to. A boarding school people did you settle easily into that having come from Kenya. I would say it was more having gone to because whilst we lived in Kenya I get sent to school in Sussex into a prep school. So I was 8. Stupidly ridiculously young you know feel homesick Oh yeah yes I did yes of course and I also thought it was a very strange country I couldn't quite work out it was actually. A very liberal very forward thinking school it became coed whilst I was there which was unusual for those schools in that time there was no uniform which is even more unusual and no corporal punishment which was kind of unheard of you know so then I went back to Kenya and then came to Glen almond and then Ahmed was radically different from this forward thinking hippie type school in the Sussex Downs you know it was quite old fashioned quite strict hardly a woman to be seen. And you kept there in that environment into your young man of 18 not healthy. Not healthy however I kind of enjoyed it because I consider myself to be a survivor and I made the best of what was I thought a pretty bad deal but I got me to very close friends there and we had a lot of fun we got to a lot of mischief as well but I fundamentally disagree with private education do you think it gave you advantages in your life and. I think it gives you some advantages and I think it gives you as many if not more disadvantages it does not teach you how to behave in society because you're not a part of society for most of the year let's face it you are shut up in a very remote environment and there's nothing to do for a teenager apart from get a hold of drink and drugs and you know disappear into the hills. I mean you of course yes I did and also know when I mean what kind of life is that did you know go friends that well no because there weren't any. I mean there were the girls who worked in the in the kitchens that we used to occasionally meet up with. But they were few and far between and then they'd be the odd sort of school dance whoever with equally repressed private girls' school. I'm sure you can imagine what it was like I mean it's a very unhealthy way to be educated I believe I mean I know that there will be people listening to this who will think I'm devil incarnate but nonetheless I that is what I believe and that's why my children went to the local school and to talk about the advantages I think educationally I think that academically perhaps there are some advantages because Another else to do apart from bloody work at those places so you're bound to eventually get passed through a few exams you know well it's good you do you know allowed to watch T.V. You can't go out there's no as a girl who has no girls. So you're bound to get a few exams and I think I probably got more exams than say Frances my my children have but one thing is for sure they are much better assorted human beings than I ever was at the age of 18 How did you become an actor you didn't really take a straightforward. I don't we thought that I wanted to be an actor I mean this is and this is a very good example of the disadvantage of an all boys school so at that particular school they would do things like Gilbert and Sullivan musical you know with fine why not I you know not my favorite but OK Now if you were if I as a as a 13 year old quite nice looking young lad went into the drama group I would be a girl I'd have to put on a we're going to dress and I thought there's no way I am doing that to have a lot of older boys ogling at me serious so I consequently did no drama and by the time I got to sort of 17 or 18 I was way too rebellious to want to do it anyway and by that time you know giving up but giving up being in the swimming team from smoking too much of everything and basically was just trying to get out of the damn place without upsetting my father too much you know who had who had went there and thought it was just the paradise on earth and I'd been held up for a few things that happened to be a good cause smoking marijuana and this came back to him and he thought that was the end of his you know my life was over anyway so I was I kind of carried on there and did my best and eventually got out and then really I was just desperate to see a bit of the world and just have fun and so I did well when I'm traveling to a strange ended up hurting cattle and picking tobacco and selling paintings of various things and then I went to university to do English and law but I really wasn't for me because I just knew I wanted to be an actor so I jacked it all and went back to Edinburgh and got a job as a stage at the Traverse and that was a beginning you know very successful that I don't see too many resting P.A.'s in the C.V. You haven't really hit blockbuster film league you know that you can make regular James McAvoy looking cool here you know yes she's saying that dream for a while or is there still time. I think every actor would like to be in the position of those actors that you just mentioned James McAvoy Ewan McGregor because they get to choose I tend to do what I'm all for this. To be be brutally frank I mean obviously there are some things that I say no I'm not doing that but they're very few and far between I mostly finish a job something else comes up and I go hey that sounds like fun I'll do that pays well I'll have a nice life my agent occasion says we want you hold out you've got bills to pay I've got bills to pay plus I think you know I'm doing what I've been trained to do I'm asking this because I spoke to your nephew Jamie Mickey Game of Thrones team and he alleges that you are a big remand tick and in your head you're still 21 and you still want more and you think it could still happen. Well he well I think I think less James Bond is going to be going to be James Bond O.A.P. Them or not but I want to get in that one but I do he's not wrong I'm glad he said it not me who knows you're married to a woman lusted after by many a hot blooded male when she was a dancer with Hot Gossip regularly seen on the Kenny Everett show how did you do that one of the. Well I can remember meeting Carol it was a walk with Chris commercial and I was eating the Christmas and she was doing the choreography and I walked up to this northern Yorkshire girl who's very pretty very sexy very smiley very confident and the 1st thing to do was Hi I'm Carol and shook my hand and shook my hand in a firm but feminine way and I just find that the sexiest thing I just love it when a woman shakes your hand in a firm way and I was interested I was like oh my god who's this. So I managed to sit next to her at lunch I got her number I made up some pretense of ever going out and dancing rock'n'roll somewhere. Which we didn't do but I had a number and that the right time I called her and we met up and that was that you know you are very romantic as a couple I've been told this by Mikey North who was in Coronation Street with you yeah he was sitting beside me at the Lyceum when you were in the interest and he said Well Joan we'll just get up on the dance floor with Carol any party and they will dance together to Ricky put a couple of hours. Yeah we did actually yeah and we were just in Dubrovnik on a long weekend and there was a beach bar there which was playing quite nice music and it was a lovely lovely little bar by the beach and we were having a few drinks there and the music was the kind of music that we like and so we did that we were the only people there there was a barman and a waitress who would look at thinking we were nuts but we were we did that for over an hour I like the idea though that here you are you play all these rules on television of thing you know a real leader man and you know actually pretty true to your life yes of course but it's fun to play that the ladies' man although I think those days are coming to an end but maybe it's healthy you know you got to do you know a few snogging sessions with women you've taken your kit off with them it's work it's just work that's all it is you've never been scared to take your kit off they'll have you well. I can remember having to playing Alan and Equis and having to strip completely naked and jumping around the stage of those horses I was I wasn't overly keen on that although it's such an incredible part the kind of get into it and you sort of forget but yeah I've taken by OK. A lot of times but it's not been my instigation. This is what you have to do John you have to walk up to that beautiful woman and grab her and kiss her and start taking her clothes off and she's taking you know really OK let's. You're in something that was almost like the full monty $1.00 0 the bare necessities Yeah that's right it was virtually the same story as the full monty of pride to the full monty going out so we were we all had great hopes for it but I'm going out at the time it was a pilot for series didn't think that it was going to be a go at these X. Mine is turning into strippers they just for some reason thought No So this series was canceled and then you know year and a half later out comes the full monty but it will that was great and that was pretty scary actually stripping completely naked I remember I had a kind of boxes clones Dale. And my wife my hands bandaged and boots and shorts and then jock strap underneath the shorts had velcro on the So You ripped them off and so the jock strap but doing that. A couple of 100 screaming Mancunian women who is who'd been hired to because of what they were like to give us a lot of grief was well that was that was pretty scary actually a shrinking explain was a shrinking experience it was absolutely yeah in 1988 you joined the tiger team at S.T.V. Still being harangued I'm sure several years later there's been a murder were you happy to move on after 12 years in that part. I was happy to move on I thought it was a good time personally for me to move on but I do miss it was a great show great job great with a pole yeah yeah I do I go back to Glasgow I'm from Edinburgh region as you know but I mean I just love Glasgow I love it you don't have to be in Tiger to live in Glasgow Well you don't but I mean my family are all here and my kids will and kids and you know I'm unlikely to move back but but I when I get the chance I love to. To go back but I just thought it was such a great job because no one was carrying the whole show so that was you know split between 34 of us and we're on location all over the place a different story every episode and just great great fun and we all got on famously well just still hope it could return Well yes I mean I think you'll probably need a. New character to come in you know someone younger maybe a woman you know I don't know what Robbie Ross would be like when he gets older but maybe he maybe has come down and stopped his drinking womanising you know tragic treading the Fine Line days and become sensible so he was a Greek character it was a great character yeah a lot of fun to play. You moved from me to hill to Weatherfield What was it like to be the new boy in Coronation Street was that skating. Not really because there are so many actors in Coronation Street and the new people starting all the time so you just it's not that much of a big deal oh here's another couple of characters moving into the show and you were in a program that you must have been used to child it's the 1st thing I ever saw because my mum used to watch it I thought it was the weirdest thing I just got a car a kid from Africa watching this goings on in sort of working class back streets of selfhood it was like well you spoke with a Manchester accent was easy enough for you to do because of your mum because of my mum's. Because going to see relatives in Rochdale from ever since I was very small you know the school holidays would I spent up there with uncles and aunties when it was too expensive to go back to Africa. You know certainly didn't get to see it there is a little hole it. Must have been awful. It's not you know about I thought I must've been awful it's not a good thing for a child to be. Going to study it and to be taken away from their parents is not good it's not good but I don't blame my parents in any way whatsoever because they firmly believe that was the right thing to do in the same way that I firmly believe it is the right thing for my kids to go to the local comprehensive school so I bear no grudge but I just hope setting it's not setting is poor compensation but do you think that perhaps having experienced that emotional pain that you did have as a child has helped you as an actor Undoubtedly I can draw on deep emotional feelings very quickly Yeah that's almost the happening now you know it's just than I can with the right words and the right thoughts and a little it can just come out. Yeah I can see that. You had a punishing work sched you when you were Coronation Street How did you learn your lines if you have a heavy story line Coronation Street is a very very tough job indeed and it's hardly surprising that people get ill and quite a few of my friends out there have been quite ill from overworking and the stress of it and you know that sounds like an act of bleating but it does it happen to be a fact the thing about soap dialogue is that it's every day ordinary simple dialogue was if you get to do Holby City if you have a heavy schedule on Holby City that is really tough because although it's shot slow it's full of medical terminology you know the 1st time Holby I had to say. As I'm in my 1st week I have to say you've got a pirate site etc Bella astrocytoma Well you have to say that as if you've been saying it all your life that's harder and I'm going to go back and next week actually and do another 3 months that July August September that will be on the screens and are you going to be back long term just for those 3 months Yeah well I've done 3 years in Holby City so it's nice to go back for a short 3 month stint you have played sexy charmers as we've saying you've played Georgie white boys hard man on the right the wrong side of the law well it's been your favorite rule is it do you know I will be both Yeah I think you said. There are many sides to his character you know I love to play than there do well which certainly Cullman row wasn't Coronation Street and that I'm not saying that Robbie Ross was but there was an element to him so I love that unpredictable side to him but is it almost a bit of typecasting coming in here well I think I think this is a bit I think you know way that. Every single character you play you have to imbue with some form of truth that's what acting is all about and the only truth that you know is your own truth so you have to dip into an element of yourself and your life experience and you put that into the character so I think there's an element of me in every character that I play and if there wasn't I think their presence wouldn't be very believable but you're a devoted father of 30 you've been with Kyle for 20 years you know I don't see too much of that coming into these characters you're talking about plenty of time before that. I think it was Carol's and I was 31 and then the hand is quite young nowadays days yeah but I had a lot of lost time to make up for. So you tap into your past Yeah everyone does that's what you do that's that's our job isn't it when you play a rule then you do have to tap into an aspect of yourself I can't see any other way of doing it I don't believe there is another way in wind of blood you repeated file . You know what you talked into there there's a dark side to everyone. And I think most people on our planet know the dark side and that's why there is religion and that's why they're. All sorts of moral codes to keep us on the straight and narrow I think in order to help anyone in society who has gone into the darkness that we have to understand that it can also be very dangerous. Want time to play someone who was manic depressive or bipolar and just went Well a little bit too far was in theater and I hyperventilated for. 20 minutes. Walking around. The theater and then came into the theater I was supposed to have a fit in the theater. And people don't believe me when I say this but I actually did have a fit on stage and it was very disturbing. No one realized that I had had it for real they just thought I was overreacting actually. Which was kind of ironic. And I didn't really tell anyone until much later but I seriously affected for the whole of the run of that play and for many months afterwards I felt that I felt ill that I didn't feel right it's dangerous but I mean it should be dangerous the point is that you know you're a professional actor you're paid to do this so you should it should be dangerous and it should be cathartic for everyone involved and it shouldn't be safe. But but it shouldn't be safe as far as the characterization goes but it should be safe for your mental health now but that's a difficult line you know quite sure when you cross that line are you glad that you become an actor I am I've had a great life I've. Worked most of it which is a good thing and I have some pretty good money and my time 1st 101215 years were not so easy but I've been lucky since then but as your nephew Jimmy he said you're still 21 your head so there's little girl yeah bless Jamie for saying that yeah I'm watching America which would be nice to do still ambition. Well I think it's less ambition I mean I am still ambitious and I think you need to be in order to put yourself up in front of the public in the way that we do I think you need to an element of that but I would say it's more that I've become less ambitious and more professional as I get older. So that part of the thing of being here now it's you know often you know actors will say oh the best part of that job is get the phone call and then they're thinking about the job after the one they're doing well I try to. Mean this is not rocket science.