‘I starred in the most popular kid’s TV show of the 90s – I ditched acting for a very different career’

Children’s TV star David Peachey now lives a life worlds away from the one he rose to fame in, as leading star of CITV programme Bernard’s Watch.

The hit show, which nostalgic fans will remember as following a young boy who had the power to stop time with his magic pocket watch, originally aired from 1997 to 2001, before a new series until 2005.

And while Bernard had the leading role in its first run, he’s gone on to live a very different life now, as a GP in Nottingham.

The now-37-year-old began his career in his as a child after attending drama school alongside the likes of Line of Duty star Vicky McClure and Game of Thrones actor Joe Dempsie.

‘I was in the drama group and that’s how I got the part in the first place,’ he recalled to Metro.co.uk.

‘Bernard’s Watch finished when I was about 13 or 14, and I’d stayed on in the group for a couple of years, but by that time I’d been doing it since I was seven or eight, and I think I was just interested in other things.’

The life David opted for was very different indeed, as he went on to medicine after being interested in science at school.

‘I fell into it, in many ways, and it was a natural, obvious route to go down at that point,’ he said, adding: ‘It’s very different to what I was doing at that point.’

Highlighting the ‘more successful’ stars that he attended the drama school with, David humbly added to us that he didn’t think Bernard’s Watch would be ‘winning any Baftas’ or ‘threatening Hollywood’, as he followed his career path as a GP.

However, he still has a slight desire for fame, as, despite never seeing acting as a career option, he did apply for Claudia Winkleman’s hit murder mystery gameshow The Traitors, and even appeared on an episode of Pointless Celebrities.

He’s even opened up a Cameo account, after a family joke and seeing The Inbetweeners’ Jay Buckley rack up income on the site.

But despite being a star at the time, and a household name for many families in the late 90s, David revealed he doesn’t get recognised these days, though colleagues still approach him when they discover his acting roots.

Nearly three decades later, David certainly looks different and even has a family with two young daughters of his own, but revealed that people do end up finding out about him at work.

‘Everyone always ends up finding out I was Bernard from Bernard’s Watch, because someone knows someone, or someone will search my name for another reason and it will come up,’ he said.

‘I never tell anyone or say, “By the way, did you know I was Bernard?” but people tend to find out.

‘The days of me actually getting recognised are long gone, maybe still at university a little bit but really the three or four years after it was on TV, it stopped a little bit.’

After his time filming as a child star, which David looked back on with fond memories, recalling how production were ‘really kind’ to him, he compared his experience in fame at a young age to how it would be today.

‘I can’t speak highly enough of the experience, I used to hate if I was out and being recognised, I used to get really shy and embarrassed about it, but now I think it’s much harder in terms of the stuff people have to deal with, like social media and the instant response,’ he explained.

‘I’d film something and it would be on TV six months later, so you’re a bit detached from it as well but being able to see yourself and get instant reaction must be really hard, especially for teenagers and children.’

Going into how embarrassed and shy he was off-screen at the time, David continued: ‘The school I was in when I started was relatively small, so it was really normalised, it didn’t seem like a big thing. I certainly wasn’t batting off autographs!’

‘It was never made too big of a thing or anything, and then at secondary school, it’s bigger and there’s more people so you might get the odd comment but no one ever bullied me about it or anything,’ he added.

Unfortunately, David revealed he doesn’t make money from the show now, despite nostalgic audiences remembering him.

He said: ‘I’m sure there’s been times where I might have had a random cheque because it’s been sold somewhere, or people occasionally tell me they saw it on the plane or something… but no, I’ve not made money from it for a long time.’

While many of us as children would have stopped time for something rather different than Bernard opting to use it to paint his grandfather’s fence and play cricket with himself, David’s plans for if he ever had the magic pocket watch are far less exciting, he admitted.

The dad-of-two, whose young children have yet to fully comprehend their dad’s fame as Bernard, told us: ‘This is a question I’ve been asked a lot, and often a lot of the comments are “Why did Bernard waste the watch?”‘

He then revealed: ‘I’d just take some time out and chill out, take some time for a breather and sleep a lot, which isn’t probably very exciting, but that’s the first thing I’d do, slow life down.’

And while his choice is an option that would suit plenty of us, there are certainly some people he wouldn’t want taking hold of Bernard’s Watch.

‘I’m sure there’s plenty of people, without wanting to get too political and things, the problem is a lot of people I’m thinking about already have quite a lot of power!’ he quipped.

This article was first published on May 4.