THEN AND NOW: The book cover; (Below from left) Julie Andrews with her mother and father; the actress now; one of her first publicity shots

Sometime that autumn my mother announced that she and I were going to a party at a friend’s house in a town nearby. On the way there, in the car, she said: ‘Julie, I want you to do me a favour. If I ask you to sing, will you do it?’ I remember being miffed, because my singing was always something my mother used, in a way. I reluctantly agreed.

The party was at a pleasant house, set on a hill in an upper-middle class residential area. I sang one song, with Mum at the piano, and was relieved when it was over. Afterwards, the owner of the house approached me. He was tall and fleshily handsome. I recognised him as a man who had come round to visit at The Meuse once or twice in earlier years.

This evening he came and sat on the couch beside me and seemed genuinely interested, asking questions almost piercingly. In retrospect, I remember feeling an electricity between us that I couldn’t explain.

As the party continued my mother proceeded to get extremely drunk. When it came time to leave she was clearly unable to drive. Thought I was not yet licensed to operate a vehicle I had been practising with my dad in preparation for the test I would be eligible for the following year. After some confusion my mother said, ‘You drive. I’ll show you the way.’

It was dark and foggy. We said goodbye to our hosts and I drove off, carefully concentrating with every fibre of my being on the road in front of me. I prayed that we wouldn’t be stopped by the police.

‘Did you like that family?’ Mum asked after a while.

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘They seemed very nice.’

‘Did you wonder why I wanted you to sing?’

‘No, it didn’t cross my mind.’

There was a pause. Then she said, ‘What did you think of the husband?’

‘He… seemed pleasant,’ I answered, trying not to lose focus on the task in hand.

‘Did you wonder why I took you there tonight?’

Suddenly I had the impression that something akin to a freight train was about to come at me. I had no idea what it was, but I had the distinct feeling that it was going to be unpleasant.

‘Would you like me to tell you?’ Mum’s eyes were a little moist.

‘It doesn’t really matter, Mum, it’s fine.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you why,’ she said. ‘Because that man is your father.’

My brain slammed into defence mode. My very first thought was of the man I had supposed was my father all these years. Words rushed to my mind’s eye: ‘IT DOESN’T MATTER. IT DOESN’T MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE.’ Whether the man this evening was my actual father did not alter the fact that the man who had raised me was the man I loved. I would always consider him my father.

I tried to react carefully. Keeping my eyes on the road, I said something banal like ‘Oh that’s interesting. How do you know?’

‘I know,’ she replied. ‘Can you imagine how long I’ve been waiting tell you. Fourteen years…’

She explained that she had a one-time liaison with the man by a beautiful lake not far from Walton. She went on to say that it had been very hard to keep this secret for so long and that she had no wish to hurt me, but the affair had been the result of an overwhelming attraction that she couldn’t deny. It seemed to matter very much that I stayed quiet and calm, because she had become tearful, overwhelmed, perhaps, at getting this out of her system.

•••

Somehow, I was able to push it away to a dark corner of my mind. Since I didn’t know whether or not Dad knew, I assumed she must have slept with him afterwards in order to say, ‘I’m pregnant.’ I went into denial. I told myself that my mother had been drunk when she chose to tell the story. Maybe it wasn’t even true.

Nearly forty years later, some time after my mother’s death in the 1980s when I was making the film Victor/Victoria, I was chatting with Aunt Joan about the past and suddenly the opportunity to broach the subject presented itself. I asked if she remembered the certain gentleman who had come to visit once or twice in my youth.

‘Why do you ask?’ my aunt said very sharply.

‘Well… because Mum hinted a couple of times that perhaps he was my father.’

There was a long silence. Aunt seemed to be weighing something in her mind. Then she murmured. ‘Yes. He was.’

‘But Auntie, how do you know?’ I asked.

‘Because I was around at the time,’ she replied, ‘and Mum spoke to me about it.’

‘What about Daddy?’ I asked. ‘Did he know?’

‘Yes. He did,’ she said.

And that simply knocked me sideways.

According to Auntie, my father was so in love with my mother that he decided it shouldn’t make any difference. Two years later Johnny was born — his legitimate son. Several years after that my mother had the affair with Pop and became pregnant with Donald. The fact that dad had offered to take me, and later Donald, under his wing to keep the marriage intact is extraordinary. If he knew about my heritage, he certainly never treated me any differently. I believe he loved me dearly. And because I didn’t know then that he knew, I didn’t have the heart to ask him about it before he died. I thought I was protecting him from some deep hurt…

The important thing is that my love for the man I thought of as my father — Ted Wells — did not change in any way. I was fierce about it and after that I wanted nothing to do with the other man. I wasn’t curious; I had no desire to start a relationship. I disliked the spectre that he was. I didn’t see him again until some nine years later.