Sarah Lancashire as Reed in Black Doves (Image: NETFLIX)
Black Doves, featuring English actress Sarah Lancashire as a top-ranking spy, is set to hit this week. Born Sarah-Jane Abigail Lancashire, the 60-year-old star hails from Urmston and was brought up in Oldham, Lancashire.
Her father, renowned TV scriptwriter Geoffrey Lancashire, penned scripts for shows like and The Cuckoo Waltz. Her mother, Hilda, served as her husband’s personal assistant.
Geoffrey started his career in journalism before transitioning to Granada Television as a continuity scriptwriter. He passed away in October 2004.
Sarah has three brothers – one older, one younger, and a twin. In a Sunday Mirror interview, she discussed her twin brother, a doctor, saying: “My twin is a doctor and I drive him mad, but he makes me see the funny side of things.”
She confessed: “I have always suffered from low self-belief. My three brothers were all quite intellectual, while I was a bit dippy as a child. I just went round singing, `La, la, la,’ and doing handstands. The best my mother hoped for me was that I would meet a nice man, settle down and have children.”
Sarah Lancashire is a mother of three (Image: Samir Hussein/WireImage)
She did become a mother of three, but her marriage to music lecturer Gary Hargreaves, who was 11 years her senior, ended after ten years.
They met when she was 18, marking her first serious relationship, and he is the father of her two sons, Tom and Matthew.
Their separation was friendly, and they’ve stayed close pals, yet Sarah confessed that the rearing of her children is “mostly down to [her]”.
In 2001, she tied the knot with TV producer Peter Salmon in a low-key ceremony in Nottinghamshire.
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Sarah Lancashire at the Black Doves premiere (Image: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)
He popped the question during a trip to New York earlier that year, after their relationship kicked off in the summer of 2000.
They first crossed paths years before while she was playing Raquel in and he was working for the production company behind the show.
In March 2003, she welcomed her third son, Joseph, and has always put motherhood before her acting career.
“To my children I am a mum. I am nothing more. I am a mum who happens to work on television, which they have been used to since they were born, so there’s no big deal,” she declared.
Her kids have been her rock, especially after battling years of depression and acknowledging a nervous breakdown during her time on .
Black Doves airs on on December 5