'But it was not romantic working there as a young man. There is nothing romantic about a shipyard at all. Even the launch, the work the men used to put in. They are not nice places to work. I never rejoiced getting up and cycling to Wallsend Shipyard. Not one hour. I was always a clock-watcher.''
But nostalgia is not his bag. In Newcastle they wanted him to run as mayor. He declined even though his mum thought it was the greatest thing. They also asked him to invest in Newcastle United.
''I said I think they have got enough. But I do enjoy bringing investment back to Newcastle. It's emotionally very rewarding to bring work back there. It's that socialist ideal - creating employment, investing in people.
They associate socialism with poverty. They associate it with struggle. Bollocks! People will say, 'You can afford to say that'. Sure, what is wrong with that ? I have worked for it. I love champagne. What is wrong with it. It is gorgeous! I'll drink bucket-loads of it. It's much better than beer.''
It'll be interesting to see whether he'll be cracking open the bubbly after the ratings for Take Me. Though ITV insists he is still one of its more popular acting stars, he has not been immune to the critical batterings that have come along recently, particularly for Blind Ambition, in which he played an athlete competing in the paralympics in Australia but then finds out his wife was unfaithful with his trainer.
''A slump in ratings has hit a couple of the shows,'' he agrees. ''People mention the Midas touch - is he losing it ? I do the best I can. I do feel I was guilty of a couple of programmes that stiffed. I guess that goes with the territory. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.''
Those doubting the man's continued appeal as a heart-throb need only check out the various Robson internet web sites. Devotion is merely a few mouse-clicks away. Yet Robson himself says he cannot comprehend the sex symbol tag.
He says: ''I am surprised that Vanya is interested. She is so glamorous and beautiful. I think, what the hell are you doing with me ? I don't see it.'' What the fans will make of his latest screen incarnation is anyone's guess.
With Take Me, he is much less than the clean-cut hero they have come to expect. He explains: ''The experience of Jack Chambers is proof that in any relationship chaos is just around the corner. I was interested in that notion. It deals with the controversial topic of wife-swapping. Probably the most destructive thing that two people can do to one another. "
"There is this notion of trying to bring excitement back into a relationship; that you can have other sexual experiences and everything is normal. ''That is a very corrosive experience to both partners. Normal affairs, adultery, however it is found out, I think is more accepted. Swinging is just its own separate culture. I think all the characters are in turmoil, everyone is lost.''
Time was when he could have said the same about himself. Now everything in his personal life is great. He mentions that his dad bought young Taylor a baby-sized Newcastle United kit. ''Like grandfather, like father, like son,'' Robson chuckles.
Robson: Take Me is about relationships, and I play a character called Jack Chambers who essentially is trying to save his marriage. He thinks he can solve the marriage by buying things. Buying Kay his wife, played by Beth Goddard, by buying her a new house – anything she wants. Everything Jack does in life is for his family.
The reason why we are here today, we’re filming a ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ party – it’s the scene where Jack, through just looking around, discovers that everything is not what it seems.
There are only sort of three parties in the show, and what I’ll say to you is this is not a show about wife swapping – it is about relationships and the way people interact with each other.
Carl Wilde: We’re set to see a very different side to Robson. So how does it feel to be playing an altogether darker character?
Robson: I’ve no problem with playing what seems to be, or being involved in, something sinister.
You know, people say the characters I play all the time are very likeable. Well I take that as a massive compliment because its very difficult to be liked on television. But within this macabre situation, in this six part thriller, there’s tons of humour. There are wonderful scenes you wont believe and I think its very, very different from the norm in television.
Carl Wilde: Beth Goddard plays Kay, Robson’s emotionally unfulfilled wife.
Beth Goddard: We first meet Kay at the point where she realises she is quite disenchanted with Jack. They love each other but they’re trying to rekindle the magic that’s sort of lost after about 15 years, which isn’t unusual I suppose. So they go to rather bazaar lengths to try and mend their relationship.
If I was married to Robson in real life I wouldn’t swap him – no way!
Carl Wilde: A heavy work schedule has taken its toll on Robson and he’s ready for some time off with his family.
Robson: The air of normality is what I’m looking forward to when I have a break. I’m not a well lad. I need time off. I want to lie on a beach, with Vanya and Taylor and listen to Bob Marley – that’s what I want do.
Robson: Why should you watch Take Me?
Because it’s different.
Because it’s charming.
Because it’s scary.
It’s windswept.
It’s interesting.
And again – I’m in it! Please watch it…
Please… (cry) …Watch it!
Gaa-haaaaaaa… (Robson falls on the floor in front of camera!)
Robson Green chatting about ‘Take Me’ on This Morning
Transcribed by Pamela Bishop
Robson Green chats with Carl Wilde for Richard & Judy (This Morning) today, about his life and his new series called Take Me which is on ITV in August.
Take Me, starring Robson Green and co-starring Beth Goddard as Jack and Kay Chambers, sees Robson Green ditching his cheeky chappy image to play a business obsessed husband who’s marriage runs in to a bad patch.
The couple try to mend their relationship by moving to a new country house.
However, they soon discover a world of sexual intrigue when they are invited to a neighbours house for what turns out to be a wife-swapping party. The couples are sucked into the lifestyle and Jack becomes involved in what appears to be a murder.
Judy Finnigan: Now, Robson Green’s new series is called Take Me, but he wants to be careful ’cause there are millions of women out there who might see that as an open invitation – so watch out Robson!
Carl Wilde: Robson Green returns to the small screen next month in a brand new six part thriller – Take Me…
Reflecting on his appearance on the show one night last November, Green says: ''I am the biggest critic of Trisha and Kilroy. You know - talk to a therapist rather than a TV audience. And there I am with eight million viewers tuning in to me talking about my violent father.''
What Green didn't reveal on Parkinson was how he finally made peace with his dad. He says: ''I had had it out with him, mano a mano. It was all right. He said, 'I know I treated you badly, I know I was firm with you'. We had a few drinks and we had it out. Which was very healthy. "
''That was the nemesis in my life; I carried it around with me, having to confront this upbringing. I am clear of it. It was cool. I can talk to him now on any level. I was a compulsive liar when I was a kid. Because everything at home wasn't right. Even as a kid, I was acting.''
But to expose it all on prime-time TV: what did his father think ? ''He was okay about it,'' he replies. He is sure that when his mum, Anne, began divorce proceedings, there was ''haemorrhaging and guilt'' that went on between his parents that was massive.
He says: ''Divorce was not a socially accepted thing in those days. And this was happening in a little mining village. The solicitor came to the house. Who is this guy with a 'tash and the old suitcase coming in ? My brother and two sisters and me, we were sent upstairs. Were they booking a holiday ? Then mum announced it. I understood. It was deeply upsetting, their arguments.''
Paradoxically, in Green's latest television project there is a very strong whiff of art imitating life. It is more than a touch masochistic to have just emerged from this much-publicised bust-up of his eight-year marriage to Allison Ogilvie, then having been scandalised by a couple of his affairs, and later he falls in love with Vanya - and to cap it all he promptly co-stars with Beth Goddard in Take Me, Scottish Television's new six-part thriller about a couple who attempt to salvage their failing marriage by joining the swinging couples set.
Freely admitting there are uncomfortably close parallels between himself and Jack Chambers, this venture capitalist son of a shipyard worker who returns to close the Newcastle yard which employs his father who beat him as a child, Green says: ''I am happy pushing the boundaries back.''
Chambers's father was a man of the people, a great union leader. Robson's dad, also called Robson, was a miner and union man who worked down the pits.
The role will surprise the legions of female fans used more used to seeing their idol playing the romantic charmer.
But he says: ''I have made these sweeping statements many times that I would never play a baddy. But a baddy you care about - now that is interesting.''
Such risk-taking has helped boost him to one of the highest-earning television actors.
Unfortunately, his colourful private life has masked his professional achievements for which he could be viewed as a role model for inner city kids who struggle to improve their position in life.
Born in a north-eastern mining town, Green, 35, entered the shipyards after leaving school. Starting off as a welder, he became a shipwright and ended his years there as a draughtsman. Then his burning ambition to be an actor finally paid off when he was rocketed from the rank of amateur to his first shot at fame in Casualty and then Soldier Soldier.
He became the first actor to be signed exclusively to ITV when he signed a #1.75m deal. Then a second deal, signed for #2m, followed in June last year. He owns the company, Coastal Productions, that makes his TV dramas.
Though Green bosses the company, he does not make a single business deal without first consulting his executive producer, Sandra Jobling, who quit her job as his bank manager to become his main fixer. It was Jobling who was brokering the deal with Bruce Willis's Cheyenne Productions, which has bought the American rights to Touching Evil, and which wants to sign up Robson for work in Hollywood.
His last TV outing, the legal drama Close and True, was shot in and around Newcastle, which is also the setting for Take Me. During filming, the set designers had changed an old Ever Ready battery factory into a TV studio.
This thrilled Green, seeing all this activity going on. There was another scene of him filmed right on top of the roof of the shipyard which his character is closing down. He says: ''I stood on the roof of the office I worked in. It was interesting, you know; in reality, this is the place that you used to work at and you are now playing a character who is closing it down. '"
In the name of the father After exposing his violent dad on Parkinson, Robson Green tells Gavin Docherty about their reconciliation and how art is now imitating life.
Robson Green's private life has rarely been out of the papers over the past year, caught between the breakdown of his marriage and the revelations that his Page Three girlfriend, Vanya Seager, had become pregnant with his child.
Understandably, his mood swings were like uranium 235: not quite stable.
Pure Geordie and not born to be a diplomat, he was prone to sudden outbursts of temper that could make the hairs on your neck come to full attention. But all this tantrum stuff appears to be definitely relegated to the past-tense department.
Replaced by this new bloke who looked sharp, talked sharp, and exhibits more calm than a bona fide swami from India. The reason, of course, is his new-found happiness with Vanya and 12-month-old son Taylor.
When talking about them, he positively glows with pride. ''Taylor is not just the apple of my eye,'' he says. ''He is my whole orchard.''
Perhaps his time with them has also helped him come to terms with his difficult past. Which is just as well. Because on the agenda today are the thorny subjects of his unhappy childhood, the effects of his parents' divorce on him when he was 12, and the matter which he describes as ''the nemesis of my life'' - a violent father whom he so unceremoniously outed on the Parkinson TV programme.