Will Mellor was scared of his late dad's temper.
Will Mellor
The 'Coronation Street' actor has candidly opened up on his relationship with his father Bill - who sadly died last year - and admitted he struggled to show affection.
Appearing on the 'Sixteen Summers' podcast, he was asked: "If you had to choose between your childhood and the one you're giving your kids, which would you pick?"
The 44-year-old star - who has two children with wife Michelle - replied: "The way he disciplined me as a kid I wouldn’t do that to my son. But different times call for different measures, he was struggling."
He noted that despite his "shortcomings", his dad's parenting was an "improvement" on his own upbringing.
He added: "His dad was horrendous. So as I see it he was an improvement. I knew his shortcomings weren’t his fault. And he loved us.
"He didn’t really know how to show it a lot of the time; he never really hugged us that much.
"If he gave me a crack for something he’d come up and say sorry at the end of the night and I could sleep after that."
The former 'Hollyoaks' actor revealed Bill was in prison when he was "very young", and while his family grew up on a rough estate, Will and his four sisters never felt "poor".
He said: "It’s just as a kid he wanted me to have that fear so that when I wasn’t with him, I didn’t go down the route of drugs and drink and all that nonsense.
"And in our area he was terrified of me growing up in an area where it was rough. He thought the best thing he could do was teach me to fight.
"I was in the boxing ring at seven years old. I boxed a number of years until I was acting."
And while Will would "never" use the same parenting style with his own family, he doesn't feel like his upbringing had a negative impact.
He explained: "I’m glad he’s done what he’s done. I would never do that to my kids, it’s a different era, but I believe I’m a good person.
"He’s not made me a bad person. Having a bit of fear about being told off or having a crack off your dad wasn’t a bad thing in those days."
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