"I still have butterflies thinking of her" admits Geoffrey
Palmer. "I can't remember why we split up."Geoffrey Palmer stared into his lover’s eyes in the back row of a London cinema and thought they would be together forever.
But they split a few weeks later and he has never seen her since. Geoffrey, famous for his hangdog looks in the hit Seventies show Butterflies, was in his early twenties and courting his stunning girlfriend Patricia Taylor.
Now, decades after they split, Geoffrey is starring in telly's hilarious As Time Goes By (Sunday, BBC1, 8:35 pm)—playing Lionel, a man who reunites with an old lover after thirty years apart.
Last night Geoffrey, 64, and happily married recalled his first love.
He says: “We did all the usual courting things together. Pat was a really super girl and, to be honest, I really cannot remember how we came to split up.
Dumped
“It was just one of those things that seemed to end for no apparent reason.”
In As Time Goes By Lionel unexpectedly meets up with an old flame. He thought that she dumped him all those years ago when he was suddenly posted to Korea with the Army.
But when he meets her again he is shocked to find out their split was the result of a misunderstanding.
His girlfriend, played by Judi Dench, never received his first letter, posted from Korea, and thought he had finished with her.
But there has been no reunion in real life for former public schoolboy Geoffrey.
He says: “It’s terribly romantic looking back and seems very innocent, so maybe it’s best the way things are.
“I often wonder what happened to her. I am sure a lot of people wonder what happened to people they were once close to but have lost touch with.”
Geoffrey and Pat met at Balham and Tooting College Of Commerce, in South London.
He says: "There was a party which we both went to and it all took off from there.”
In As Time Goes By Geoffrey’s character recalls how he used to take his girlfriend to Buckinghamshire for romantic weekends.
Innocent
The fictional characters even visit a room above a tea-shop where they first made love.
But Geoffrey’s real life first romance was much more innocent.
He says: “We just held hands, it was terribly sweet.”
Geoffrey has been married to his wife Sally for 30 years and they have two grown-up children Harriet, 24, and Charles, 26.
He has made a career out of playing slightly unhappy men who are at odds with the world.
But in real life he is quite content.
He says: “My hatchet face has become my trademark but I’m not really miserable.
“Sometimes I feel that I have cornered the market in playing dull, plodding men.
“I hope nobody thinks that is the real me.
“I have heard that my face is my fortune -- well it was an awfully long time in coming!
“It took me 35 years to make it as an actor.”
But it has been worth the wait, for Geoffrey says his latest role is one of his best ever.
He says: “I loved acting with Judi Dench. She is such good fun to be with."
Thanks to Maree Wilson for sending this article which appeared in the January 11, 1992 issue of TV Super Guide. NOTE: Included with this tabloid-type article was a sidebar asking its readers to "Help us find pretty Pat". It asked anyone one who knew her or she herself to come forward and say what she has been doing for all these years. I'll bet Sally just loved that story.