Holding hands
A heart-rending experience while travelling some years back prompted Melvyn, 75, and his wife Jayne, who is in her fifties, to get involved in fostering. "It was 11 years ago, and we were touring Asia," Melvyn explained. "We saw kids living in terrible poverty, and it weighed heavily on our minds. When I got back home, I said to Jayne 'There's something I want to talk to you about.' She replied, 'No, let me.' That's how it started.
"The foster care was short-term at first, then became long-term. I have six kids of my own, five from my first marriage and one daughter between us, and three foster children who have been with us for ten years. They are our family and we're going for legal guardianship."
Melvyn says that his desire to help has echoes way back in his own childhood - a fact which has particular poignancy this year, 70 years on from the Dunkirk evacuation, which resulted in thousands of British children being packed off and dispersed from the frontline towns and cities to relatively safe havens around the country.
"I was an evacuee. I think that's where this all began," says Melvyn. "It was such a strange thing, leaving London, going to a strange house in Devon. Then, bizarrely, in the 1950s one of my early acting roles was in a TV programmme called The Unloved, which was about kids in a children's home. Whichever way you look at it, the reality is there are lots of kids who just need a chance. They need a safe home, clean clothes, knowing when their next meal is, going to school - they need to know where the goalposts are. We've found that fostering can add much-needed stability, comfort and hope."
As for older people thinking about offering foster care, Melvyn says that life experience can count for so much, although it is not without its major challenges. "Inevitably there's a honeymoon period: they come to you with a bag of clothes, a book, a toy, that's all they have. Don't take it away. The reality is that some parents just can't cope, which is why kids end up in that situation. Barnardo's provide the foster parents with a lot of help, back-up and information, however, and try to match older children with older couples, and send children to families with similar backgrounds and ethnicity.
"I suppose the biggest challenge is having strangers in your house and trying to make them feel comfortable. Many can be confused and emotional, but you are there to help them."
Potential foster carers can initially dip in for a short period to see whether the situation suits them and, moreover, the child. "You can do short-term, say take a child in for a couple of weeks' holiday, or a weekend every six weeks, so by the time you're ready to make it more long-term, you know what to expect."
Melvyn believes that older people can give so much to a child, such as experience, patience, love and stability. "It can be so rewarding, particularly for those whose children and grandchildren have grown up, although it doesn't matter if you've no children of your own, if you are the right person to offer care. Through offering your love and support you will reap the rewards - that's the experience of my wife and I, although what's most important is how the kids benefit from it. Ours are now totally part of our family.
"There are 10,000 foster carers needed in the UK at the moment, for kids who don't know where their next meal is coming from. Give it a chance - there's no upper age limit. We feel we're very lucky to have had the opportunity."
Further information: to find out more about fostering and short break care, visit www.barnardos.org.uk/fosteringandadoption or call 0800 0277 280.