Joanna Lumley - Personal Life

Personal Life

Following her rise to fame, Lumley revealed that she had been an unmarried mother during the 1960s when it was socially unacceptable; her son, James, was born in 1967. James Lumley's natural father is the photographer Michael Claydon and is of Anglo Indian ethnicity. The first of her two subsequent marriages was to comedy writer Jeremy Lloyd (Are You Being Served? see early career). In 1986, she married conductor Stephen Barlow; they live in London. They also have a house near the village of Penpont in Southern Scotland. Lumley is a grandmother to her son's two daughters, Alice and Emily.

Lumley was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1995. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (FRGS). She was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Kent in July 1994. In 2006, she was awarded an honorary degree from the University of St. Andrew's and in July 2008, she was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Queen's University Belfast.

Alongside her work for the Gurkhas, Lumley is a supporter of many charities, including Suffolk Family Carers and Kids for Kids. She has been a vegetarian for forty years, and a keen supporter of animal rights charities, including CIWF and Viva!. She has donated signed books for the literacy and international development charity Book Aid International. She is patron of the Born Free Foundation and passionate about the Free Tibet campaign. Other charities supported include Mind, ActionAid, SANE and Kidasha (formerly CWS) which works on behalf of children in Nepal.

Lumley was named an Honorary Patron of the University Philosophical Society, Trinity College, Dublin.

Lumley supports the Burma Campaign UK, an NGO that aims to stop the oppression of the Burmese people by the military regime.