Brenda Blethyn - Early Life

Early Life

Born in Ramsgate, Kent, Blethyn was the youngest of the nine children in a Roman Catholic, working class family. Her mother, Louisa Kathleen (née Supple; born 10 May 1904 – died 1992), was a housewife and former maid, who met Blethyn's father, William Charles Bottle (born 5 March 1894 – died c. 1984) around 1922 while working for the same household in Broadstairs, Kent. Bottle had previously worked as a shepherd, and spent six years in British India with the Royal Field Artillery immediately prior to returning home to Broadstairs to become the family's chauffeur. Before WWII, he found work as a mechanic at the Vauxhall car factory in Luton, Bedfordshire.

The family lived in poor circumstances at their maternal grandmother's home. It was, however, not until 1944, after an engagement of twenty years, that the couple wed and moved into a small rented house in Ramsgate. By the time Blethyn was born in 1946, her three eldest siblings, Pam, Ted and Bernard, had already left home. Her parents were the first to introduce Blethyn to the cinema, taking her to the cinema weekly.

Blethyn originally trained at technical college and worked as a stenographer and bookkeeper for a bank. At the end of a marriage, she opted to turn her hobby of amateur dramatics to her professional advantage. After studying at the Guildford School of Acting, she went onto the London stage in 1976, performing several seasons at the Royal National Theatre. The shows she participated in during the following three years, included Troilus and Cressida, Tamburlaine the Great, The Fruits of Enlightenment opposite Sir Ralph Richardson, Bedroom Farce, The Passion and Strife.