By his own admission, David Wenham is not ordinarily the kind of guy who would agree to take part in a documentary show like SBS’s 'Who Do You Think You Are?'.
“It was not something I would normally jump at the chance to be involved in,” Wenham told The Huffington Post Australia. “But I am the last of seven children and none of us knew about our family history beyond our
parents. It seemed like the only opportunity to find out was if I said yes. So I took one for the team -- took one for the family -- so everyone would have a definitive answer.”
Another catalyst came in the form of his daughter, who – somewhat serendipitously – had to complete a family tree as part of her school homework just days before SBS approached Wenham.
As he states at the start of the episode, “My ten year old daughter...came to me and said ‘oh, dad, we’ve got a school project… you’ll have to help me with the family tree’, and I said ‘well, darling I’d love to but it’s going to
be a very small tree, in fact, it’s going to be a shrub.’”
Wenham’s family history is a mysterious one. His father was adopted at a young age by the Wenhams and little was known about his life before then -- including the identity of his biological parents. Wenham recalls his
father trying to piece together some of the information in the years leading up to his death, but the search proved fruitless. Or so Wenham thought.
“We're talking about different generations from a different time. People really did keep their skeletons in the closet,” Wenham said. “It does provoke me to think what it was like for my father... To have known so much about his
birth parents –- so much –- and for whatever reason, feeling compelled not to tell his kids."
Some of the ‘skeletons’ include an affair, a divorce, an unofficial adoption and a war hero who came home a changed man.
Wenham describes the experience as “fascinating, essentially… Obviously surprising,” though he notes he did “feel a little bit like I was going through somebody’s drawer.”
“I was driven by curiosity. I was trying to put myself in my father’s shoes and think of why he kept his past completely secret. Obviously he had his reasons.”
With the exception of his grandfather’s involvement in WWI, Wenham’s family history plays out entirely in Sydney – mostly within walking distance of where Wenham lives now.
“I was looking forward to going to South America or Europe or Asia, but everything was within only a couple of kilometres,” Wenham said.
“I didn’t get the free trip overseas. In one breath it was a little bit disappointing. All the locations in the show I could walk to, and the furthest location that is on air is Glebe.
“Richard Roxburgh got to go to Jamaica. I got to go to Glebe.”
DAVID WENHAM SEARCHES FOR CLUES TO HIS FATHER’S PAST
'My ten year old daughter…came to me and said ‘oh, dad, we’ve got a school project, um, you – you’ll have to help me with the family tree’, and I said ‘well, darling I’d love to but it’s going to be a very small tree, in fact, it’s
going to be a shrub.’ - David Wenham
Actor David Wenham rose to fame as ‘Diver Dan’ in the long-running TV series SeaChange. He has inhabited countless characters in a 30-year career spanning theatre, TV and film but the characters in David’s own
bloodline remain largely unknown to him.
David may be a household name in Australia but Wenham is a surname that he is not biologically linked to.
David was very close to his father, Bill Wenham yet he knows remarkably little about his background. In the new series of Who Do You Think You Are? David delves into the mystery behind his father’s fostered childhood and
uncovers tales of horror and valour in the trenches of Gallipoli and the Somme, the double life of a homecoming hero, and a mother’s desperate struggle to remain connected to her son.
David knows that about 15 years prior to his father dying he tried to research his own background but believes he learned very little. David’s first port of call is to visit two of his sisters, Kathryn and Anne, to see what they
know about Bill Wenham’s late life search for clues to his past.
From his sisters, David learns the names of his birth grandparents Stanley Rupert Bateup and Lillian Violet Kidney, and that his dad Bill, at birth, bore the name of his biological father – Stanley. They also show him a
photograph of a couple with a baby and although they presume it’s Bill with his parents, nobody knows for sure. David’s sisters came across one more item from Bill Wenham’s personal archive – a letter written when he was eight
years old to his birth grandfather, but which grandfather it is, is unclear. Why did this letter remain so precious to David’s father, and who is the couple holding the baby? Each new clue seems to throw up more questions for David.
David never understood why family history wasn’t discussed by his father, but he finishes his WDYTYA journey with a new appreciation of secrets and an understanding of why sometimes things are left unsaid.
Season seven of Who Do You Think You Are? stars Geoffrey Rush, Toni Collette, Luke Nguyen, Dawn Fraser, Ray Martin, Greig Pickhaver (HG Nelson) and Peter Rowsthorn. Who Do You Think You Are? is produced by Artemis
International and Serendipity Productions for SBS.
