Joss Ackland - Personal Life

Personal Life

Ackland and his wife were married for 51 years. They had seven children and, as of May 2006, 32 grandchildren. Despite his filming taking him to far-flung locations, Ackland said they never spent a night apart. In 1963, their house in Barnes caught fire. Rosemary Ackland managed to save their five children but broke her back when jumping from the bedroom window to safety. She was told she would lose the baby she was carrying and would never walk again. She managed to confound the doctors, and both gave birth and returned to walking, after two years in Stoke Mandeville Hospital.

Their eldest son, Paul, died of a heroin overdose in 1982, aged 29. In 2000, Rosemary Ackland learned she had motor neurone disease. The last two years of her life saw the degenerative effects of this disease manifest, but she maintained her humorous disposition and continued writing a diary, just as she had done for decades. Rosemary Ackland died on 25 July 2002.

In the years since her death, Ackland has read and edited the diaries and published them in 2009 under the title My Better Half and Me: A love affair that lasted fifty years.