As Christmas approaches, it’s a time of year that Peter Capaldi looks forward to as a proud grandfather.
But he’s also more than aware that the cost of the festive period lumped on top of the sheer expense of raising children means that, for some, it will be a difficult time with around 4.3 million – one in four – children living in poverty in the UK.
In recent weeks he’s been seen on our screens not in the dramatic roles we’ve become accustomed to over the years but as Peter, lending his support to The Multibank’s TV ad campaign.
It’s the charity that began in Fife which works to ensure that no child goes without the basics – soap, toothpaste, bedding, clothing and more – combining surplus goods from companies and the work of local charities to reduce the effects of poverty.
“The older I get, the more I consider my parents’ values to be so important, so influential,” Peter said. “They cared for those around them. They didn’t have many resources, but respected decency and kindness and were sensitive to poverty and the psychological effects of it. The humiliations.
“One of the things that really strikes me about the poverty epidemic going on and that people I think have become accustomed to or don’t see is the level. I think the social stigma of being seen as not making it, not surviving financially, is a very hard thing because it also has a psychological effect on wellbeing.
“The Multibank’s cornerstone really is hygiene products, which people don’t think about much if they can afford them. But if you have to make a choice between buying shoes or toothpaste or soap, where do you go?”
The Multibank
The Multibank model was formed in Lochgelly in December 2021 by former prime minister Gordon Brown and local lead charity The Cottage Family Centre, Kirkcaldy, in partnership with Amazon UK and The Purvis Group.
With centres now across the UK, more than five million surplus products have been donated to 500,000 families across the UK.
“I’m amazed by the statistics that there are 15 million people living in poverty in the UK right now,” Peter said. “If you look at how wealthy we are, it’s just tragic. People have fallen through the cracks all the time, so anything that can be done to help is useful.
“I would still have got involved with this anyway because it’s a no brainer, but also because I have two grandkids and they’re young. When they arrive the studied elegance of your home is turned into a wonderful chaos.
“It makes you feel younger. But it did strike me, because we’re very lucky to be able to afford these things, we don’t have to worry about going through so many nappies, baby wipes and so much baby powder.
“That really brought it home to me – these are basic necessities people should have in the 21st Century.”
Peter’s early days
Peter, 66, spent his early years in Springburn, Glasgow, where his parents Nancy and Gerald John Capaldi ran an ice cream shop.
“I tell people I was brought up in a tenement and they perhaps envision something a bit grimmer,” he said. “I think there was darkness, things that people didn’t talk about, but there was a lot of joy, love and support.
“It was a wonderful childhood because granny No. 1 lived downstairs, granny No. 2 lived across the road. My aunties, uncles and cousins lived there. I remember vividly the music, because my father played piano, my uncle Giovanni played accordion, my uncle Peter, who I’m named after, played guitar, and my uncle Gus did comedy skits. They were a ready-made band.”
A creative career
It’s perhaps no surprise that Peter ended up following a career of creativity, thanks in part to a government grant funding a place at art school.
Music was a first love, but he made an early breakthrough as an actor in 1983 film Local Hero.
“Bill Forsyth just completely changed my life,” he said. “I was already knocking about Glasgow in bands, trying to do things. But that experience parachuted me into an actual film with a proper movie star in Burt Lancaster.
“Denis Lawson was wonderful, he took me under his wing and very kindly let me know that I didn’t know nothing! He’s still a friend.”
Peter would go on to scoop an Oscar in 1995 for Best Live Action Short Film, writing and directing Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
“I forget about [the Oscar] until people come in and ask if it’s real,” he says. “The funny thing about is the plaque with my name on it, they sent that to you afterwards. It wasn’t on it when they gave me it.
“I wasn’t going to take it to the local shop that does kids’ football trophies, I thought that would be a wee bit embarrassing. ‘Could you put my label on my Oscar..?’
“I never got around to it, so it’s just blu-tacked on.”
Malcolm Tucker
He’s best known for iconic TV roles in the past couple of decades. 2005 saw him first star as sweary spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in political satire The Thick Of It.
The character became something of a barometer in politics long after the programme finished in 2012, with many pondering what Malcolm would make of Brexit or how he’d deal with Liz Truss.
“It’s just lovely to have been involved in something that still after all this time seems to be relevant and popular,” Peter said.
“What people have to realise is that Malcolm’s opinions were written by very gifted writers. I just said them.
“I was on The One Show and they asked me, I think during the Leveson Inquiry, what would Malcolm think about it. It’s seven o’clock in the evening, do you really want me to tell you on a family show! Then I had to stay and feed plankton to a jellyfish at the end of it.”
There are no plans for the show to return to our screens, but with Alastair Campbell, who the character draws from, helming popular podcast The Rest Of Politics, could that have been a new career move for the “Gorbals Goebbels”?
“Oh for sure, he’s spitting red hot bolts at the moment that he’s not doing a podcast,” Peter laughed. “He’d be brilliant. We never said it about Malcolm but he was probably an alcoholic.
“It gave him a vulnerability and fragility. In the show, we never really got into all that.
“Maybe that’s another spin-off. Not a fishing programme like Mortimer And Whitehouse, but one of those calming shows. He walks about the Highlands, pointing at things and talking to farmers.”
From tenement to TARDIS
The other role Peter gets recognised for in the street – and is less likely to be asked to swear at people in – is the Twelfth Doctor.
Famously, he grew up a Doctor Who fan, writing in to the fanclub and wondering if the police box he could see from the window of his mum’s bedroom would disappear into space and time.
“My mother always bought me the annual, wandering around Springburn trying to find it if Woolworths didn’t have it. I was glad she was alive long enough to see me do it.
“When I visited her in hospital, all the nurses were very excited Doctor Who was coming.
“You get to be this kind of fairytale hero. I remember talking to Matt Smith about how sometimes it’s hard being constantly recognised. You don’t want to be the one that disappoints the little kid.
“There’s only 15 of us who know what it’s like. We do exchange our thoughts about it. It’s a chalice but there’s nothing poisonous about it.”
He has plenty of praise for the current occupant of the TARDIS, Ncuti Gatwa, who grew up in Dunfermline.
“He’s wonderful. I love watching what he’s doing. I admire the joy he brings to it. He has such heart.
“The show’s different from when I grew up and it’s even different from what we did.
“When I was in it, we were possibly the last of the generation that had grown up with it from the start, but that’s fine. It has to move on. It’s a brilliant show.”
Music matters
As well as his acting work, recently in darker dramas Criminal Record (produced by wife Elaine Collins) and The Devil’s Hour, Peter has been rolling back the years to his art student days by making music again.
He has a new solo album due for release in March.
“That’s my hobby. That’s my fun. I take it seriously, but I’m not trying to have a career doing that. I don’t consider myself a musician. I have a rule, if it’s not fun, we don’t do it.
“The good thing about the modern day is anybody can put out a new single, you don’t have to be signed up to a big record label.
“It’s picking up where I left off about 40 years ago. Everything I write has a vague feeling of Glasgow in the autumn of 1979, a bit synthy and fuzzy guitar.”
Of course, the extended family tree already includes chart-topping singer-songwriter Lewis Capaldi.
“We’re in very different leagues,” Peter laughed. “He spent years doing gigs on his own. He has a fabulous talent. That’s his calling.
“That wee band with uncle Gus, he’s Lewis’s great-grandfather. It’s amazing, my grandfather was just an Italian immigrant. Now there’s Lewis who is celebrated and talented, myself, I’ve survived for 60 years, but, more importantly, there’s a number of doctors in the family – real doctors!”
How to support the Multibank
You can help by:
- Donating at themultibank.co.uk
- Re-routing business surplus contact partnerships@themultibank.co.uk
- Dropping hygiene products at your local Boots
The Multibank’s mission is to tackle poverty by making sure no good product goes to waste by gathering surplus clothing, household essentials and hygiene products at a central warehouse where a network of volunteers and charity partners distribute what’s needed.
The Big House in Lochgelly, Fife, is the original multibank, set up in December 2021 by former prime minister Gordon Brown and local charity The Cottage Family Centre.
In partnership with Amazon UK and The Purvis Group it receives donations from Tesco, Morrisons, Poundland and more in a “coalition of compassion”.
The model has now been replicated across the UK.
Every £1 donated leads to around £6 in added social value and data shows:
- A 90% reduction in children’s stress and anxiety levels and a 23% increase in school attendance
- 13% of parents say Multibank support has meant their child or children have not been taken into care
- 54% of parent recipients reported less fear of bullying for their children
This Christmas, the Multibank is focusing on the rising issue of hygiene poverty.
For 46% of households in the UK, detergent is considered a luxury item. 42% of households are without deodorant.
One million school pupils arrive with dirty uniforms, driving divides and stunting social engagement. In just five years, hardship-related mental health problems in young people have increased by 50%.
School staff in the UK have spent £40 million of their own money supporting pupils experiencing hygiene poverty in the last year.
The Multibank aims to get hygiene products into the hands of those most in need, enabling every young person to maximise their potential, without fear or judgment.
Conversation