Line of Duty and Motherland star, Anna Maxwell Martin, is the latest celebrity to trace their family history in BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? The actress, 45, was keen to find out more about her paternal grandparents. Anna grew up in East Yorkshire and describes her childhood as “very loving” - something that she hopes that she has given her own children. Early in the episode, Anna stated that she wants to explore how parentage has had an effect on her family. Last week, Matt Lucas explored his own family's past, which you can read more about here.
Anna’s journey begins when she travels to Maghera in Northern Ireland to learn more about the upbringing of her father, Ivan Martin, who passed away when she was just 24. She visits her grandparents’ house, which has now become abandoned. This prompted Anna to want to know more about her grandparents, Robert and Greta. Upon meeting her father’s brother, Ron, he shows her family photos and tells her about his father, Robert. Anna learnt that Robert was somewhat of a “self-made man” and had built up a successful pharmaceutical enterprise.
In emotional scenes, Ron revealed that Robert and Greta's son and both his and Ivan’s younger brother, Kenneth, had died of leukemia at just seven years old. The surviving sibling remembers the small family sitting around the fire shortly after the funeral, too shocked to utter a word. “I remember him being very, very ill. But my father got hold of a consultant,” he said.
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“He recommended this experimental drug. He was a bit better for a while and things looked good. And then suddenly he was very, very ill and died and that was shocking to us.
“I can remember coming home from the funeral and the four of us sitting around the fire and just not talking,” Ron recalled as Anna broke down in tears. He added that: “obviously it affected [his parents] . It was their youngest child and he died in a horrible way. They didn’t show it.” Anna said: "It's amazing that you can push down that amount of pain."
Upon learning more about her grandparents, Anna described how "hardworking they were with a complete mind on that community and other people". She said that it was a "nice story" as opposed to her own memories of her grandfather being a stern man.
Who Do You Think You Are? airs on BBC One at 9pm on Thursday, June 23
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