The actor talks about her family
Dad had been quite a wealthy guy but he was also a compulsive gambler. By the time I came along he had hit hard times. His profession was not an honourable one ? he was involved in criminal activities. But he was my dad, flawed as he was, and I loved him. My mum worked as a secretary for Christian Dior. She looked like a movie star.
We lived in Hounslow in two rooms with an outside toilet. I worshipped my brother Jamie when we were growing up, but we had different childhoods because I was acting from the age of four and Jamie wasn't interested in that, but we're still very close.
Mum never let me do interviews with the newspapers ? mainly because if people found out about Dad's criminal ways it could have seriously harmed what was turning out to be an amazing career.
My parents didn't touch a penny of my earnings. But when I was 18 and old enough to make my own decisions, I stopped Mum working and supported her entirely. She still didn't want to take money from me, but I gave her no choice.
When I was five my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, which in the 70s was a death sentence. I remember being taken to hospital to say goodbye to her on several occasions, but she kept pulling through. Dad was in and out of prison, and had my mother died when we were children I don't know what would have happened to us.
Mum's illness spurred me on to work, not through greed or fame or avarice, but because I wanted to make money so I could look after her, buy her a house, buy her health; which, of course, wasn't going to happen but in my innocence I thought it might. Once a child is confronted with the concept of death there's a certain innocence that goes. But Mum defied all the diagnoses and lived until I was 24 and a mother to my first son, James.
Mum was my best friend. When she died it was like having a vital organ removed. If I'm half the mother that she was, I've done a great job.
I'm Catholic and Mum taught me the comfort that you can get from going to church. But I'm an � la carte Catholic. I love all the pomp and ceremony of it. Both my boys have made their first holy communion and James has been confirmed; Lennon will be too. It's good to have a sense of a higher power, and faith is a wonderful thing.
Dad was the first man I fell in love with. He was a very funny man. He grew up in the East End of London and was very dynamic, and I understood why my mother fell in love with him. But seeing Mum stay with him until the end, even when it affected her health, I used to think if that was me I wouldn't put up with it. I wouldn't stick around.
My second husband Jim Kerr's mother, Irene, died just before Christmas and she was an amazing woman who brought up three sons in Gorbals, in Glasgow. And Peggy Gallagher, Liam's mum, to whom I'm very close, was a single mum who brought up her three boys. These women are my role models.
Patsy Kensit is supporting Robinsons Fruit Shoot and Parents for Playgrounds, which is asking parents to nominate a playground in need of repair to win a renovation bursary of up to �15,000. Readyforten.com, until 16 March
leslie nielsen jd salinger l\'il wayne emma watson janet jackson
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