Home / Series / Celebrity Home Secrets / Aired Order / Season 1 / Episode 2

Craig Charles

Craig Charles was born in Liverpool in 1964. Four years later his family – a white Irish mother and black Ghanaian father, brothers Jimmy and Dean moved in to a house on the brand new Cantril Farm Estate. Craig begins his journey back through his property ladder by returning to this childhood home. The vast council housing estate on the outskirts of Liverpool was designed to offer a better way of life to 15,000 people relocated from the decaying Victorian terraced housing in the city centre – houses with no inside toilets or bathrooms. Craig remembers for the residents their dream homes quickly turned into a nightmare. Unemployment soared as factories closed and the docks laid off workers. The estate was heavily vandalised, Craig describes ‘graffiti everywhere' and says he was in ‘fights every day of my life, defending myself, defending my mum'. As one of the few mixed race families on the estate life was tough in 1960's Liverpool. By 1975 Craig's mum decided enough was enough and moved the family back to the city centre where by now the council had renovated the old Victorian houses. Craig's next stop on his journey is to revisit this Liverpool home – which he remembers his parents managed to buy when his long-distance lorry driver dad won £1800 on the horses. He describes how they had a ‘slot TV' that you had to feed with 10p coins to keep it playing. While he lived here one of his teachers submitted a poem Craig had written into a national poetry competition run by the Guardian newspaper. The poem won. It was a transformational moment in his life. By the time he was 15 Craig was regularly performing on stage with the famous Liverpool beat poets Roger McGough and Brian Patten. Craig left Liverpool to find national fame – and his next visit is to a flat in Camden – the first property he ever bought. As he remembers he ‘did what Thatcher wanted and got on the property ladder'. The flat cost £41,000 ‘which was quite a bit of money in

English
  • Originally Aired September 5, 2016
  • Runtime 30 minutes
  • Network ITV1
  • Created September 5, 2016 by
    Administrator admin
  • Modified September 5, 2016 by
    Administrator admin