Death In Paradise star Ralf Little has revealed how losing his teenage sister as a child spurred him on to success in life and his career.
The actor was nine when 14-year-old Ceri fell 150ft to her death from a cliff during a family holiday to Cornwall.
Ralf said the tragedy was partly to blame for his parents’ divorce and deeply affected his other sister Rowena – but it made him push himself academically and in extracurricular activities.
He said: “It was devastating. It’s incredibly difficult to recover from something like that, particularly as parents.
“Out of everyone in the family I was the one that was affected least because I was nine years old. Kids are quite resilient anyway, but I just had stuff to get on with, all these activities.
“It could have gone either way. I could have gone to school and just had this massive meltdown, rebelling, and being angry. I know now I was absolutely filled with rage.
“But I channelled that rage into getting all of life and giving it a kicking. So, my grades went up. My achieving excellence at school just like, I was on every team; I was winning prizes.”
Ralf was interviewed on Radio 4 by Reverend Richard Coles and said the host’s book on grief had resonated with him.
The Royle Family star, who has rarely spoken of the family tragedy, added: “I came out fighting. Ceri was a real tour de force of a personality. She and I didn’t really get on that well but that’s because I was a snotty younger brother.
“Rowena, my middle sister, was very much Ceri’s shadow. She used to follow her around and do what she was told because she was the older sister and she loved her. I think she was quite lost for a few years.
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“She just kind of had no guidance, really. She had no one to follow. Suddenly, she’s got to be the oldest and just go, ‘where do I fit in the world?’
“So, I think she struggled a lot more than I did. My parents struggled about 10 years and split up about 10 years later. But I won’t blame them for that. Grief is such a difficult thing. People process it differently.”
The new series of Death In Paradise began on BBC1 Friday night.
Ralf said his character, DI Neville Parker, would be pushed “out of his comfort zone” in the new episodes.
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