Julie still a down-to-earth Smethwick girl

Actress Julie Walters may be a national treasure, but she has never forgotten her roots.

Whenever she is back in the region, she and her brother go on a nostalgic tour around Smethwick, where she grew up. “We get in the car and go and look at my school, our old house, all the places where we used to play. I love it,” she says.

Julie was back on home soil last night for an Audience With-style event at Birmingham Hippodrome.

And she took the opportunity to read a copy of the Express & Star and a feature on her childhood home at 69 Bishopton Road, Smethwick, with her former neighbour, engraver Michael Warner. The end-terraced features prominently in her new autobiography That’s Another Story.

She says: “I went back there about three years ago to have a look and they’ve turned it into flats.

“Michael is such a kind and gentle man, we used to play together. He had a tape recorder and we would spend hours recording our voices.

“A while ago I was given the freedom of Sandwell and Michael engraved the box that it came in for me. That made it all the more special.”

Holly Lodge School in Smethwick always features in her Black Country nostalgia tours and she has kept in touch with many former classmates.

“I was almost kicked out because I didn’t go very often,” she says. 

“I just couldn’t get up in the morning, but I did love it.”

She also revealed that her favourite role is Mrs Overall, from Acorn Antiques. “She’s got that accent that’s so easy to fall into.”

Julie’s  appearance in Birmingham was timely as it came on the day it was revealed she will become the next West Midlands celebrity to take her place on Birmingham’s Walk of Stars.

During last night’s show, the 59-year-old thrilled a select audience of 200 specially invited guests and competition winners. She was interviewed on stage by fellow West Midlander Mark Williams, star of the Fast Show and her on-screen husband in the Harry Potter films.

There weren’t many references to her personal life in the interview, but perhaps that’s because she is so down to earth that audiences assume they already know her.

Nevertheless, the evening began with references to her autobiography.

“There were some things I didn’t want to write about, like an awful nun at my school who beat the hell out of me. But, then again, she was the one person at school who encouraged me on to the stage.

“Then there was the guy who tried to abduct me and my friends. I’d never really looked at it from an adult’s perspective, and when I started writing it, it was really scary.”

Throughout the show Julie showed off the talent that has taken her from Smethwick to the silver screen. 

She left the stage having proved she is as at home in an informal interview as she is in front of the camera.