Robert Bathurst has said that his time at boarding school shaped him into a "wary" and "very private" person. The Cold Feet star was sent away to be educated by Benedictine monks at the age of eight, and he told the Radio Times that he was bullied by staff and older children.
"Your letters were read and if you said anything against the school you were beaten," Robert, 59, said. "It has forced me to be very private.
Robert Bathurst has revealed that he was bullied at boarding school
"You became cannier about how much you show and how much you display," he added. "I don't announce any ambition in advance of doing something. You become very much more watchful and more calculating.
"You're wary; you anticipate trouble. You work out how things might play and decide whether or not to show your hand."
Robert, who stars in Cold Feet as management consultant David Marsden, also told the magazine that he has felt "underused and underrated" at times in his career.
The English actor stars as David Marsden in hit show Cold Feet
"In the early 1990s, in the annual round-up, someone referred to me as they most underrated actor. But then I've never met anyone in the profession of any standing who isn't a bit gnarly about what parts they could have done," he said.
"As a self-employed performer, you can't be content. You've always got to be on the look-out and have a slightly beady attitude to where you might be going next and what you should be doing."
After a 13 year hiatus, Cold Feet returned with a bang at the start of September for its highly-anticipated sixth series. Already, Robert's character has found himself in a spot of trouble; in the last episode viewers saw him taken to the police station to be questioned about "misappropriating client funds".
