Not one for those who haven’t lived in the U.K. for much of their lives, but while photographing Nikol Pashinian’s recent sit-in strike at Yerevan’s Liberty Square two tourists asked if I spoke English and could explain what was going on. After discovering that Norman, the father, now lived in Bristol where I spent a lot of my life as well, and that his daughter, Tamara, was half-Armenian from a former marriage, it didn’t take long before we were sitting at a nearby cafe, drinking a beer or two, and arranging to meet up for the next.

Anyway, interesting guys the both of them. Norman spent his time divided between the U.K. and India while Tamara was also a seasoned traveler who was making her first voyage to discover one side of her ethnic roots in Armenia. Interestingly, for many soap addicts in the U.K. at least, Norman was an actor and his most prominent role of recent years had been Frank Tate in ITV’s Emmerdale. There’s something about his career on Wikipedia.

Born on August 1, 1932 in London he became a member of the 1950s Soho set alongside such as John Minton, Francis Bacon and Daniel Farson, Norman Bowler played a variety of bit parts and single episode roles throughout the 1960s. He feaured in one episode of The Avengers and stared alongside James Caan in the 1968 war film “Submarine X-1″ about World War Two British midget submarines.

From 1966 to 1976 Bowler played Det. Sgt. and later Det. Chief Inspector Harry Hawkins for the entire run of the BBC TV police drama “Softly, Softly” (later “Softly, Softly: Taskforce”).

More recently, he is best known for playing the part of Frank Tate in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale between 1989 and 1997; when his character was killed off after suffering a heart attack, his TV wife Kim could have saved his life but chose to let him die as he begged for help.

Today, Bowler is very active in charity work and adult education in the Bristol area (where the original “Softly, Softly” series was filmed in the 60s)

There’s also some more on Norman on a fan page set up because of his role in Emmerdale. According to this page, at the age of 68 he hiked 100 miles up the Himalayas for charity and does other such events so for orphan charities. He also said he did some free poetry workshops in India. Fascinating guy and such an interesting life.

Norman, born in London, had become part of the Soho set of writers, artists, photographers and actors during the fifties after working briefly in his father’s watchmaking business and running off to sea at the age of 15 and sailing the world as a deckboy in the Merchant Navy. ‘I had always been interested in the theatre and adored opera,’ he recalls. ‘I used to go to Covent Garden twice a week. I had also been to see variety shows at Golders Green Hippodrome, with stars such as Max Miller. I met a lot of actors and writers around Soho and decided I would like to become an actor, so I did a part-time course at the City Literary Institute while earning money by washing up and doing other odd-jobs.’

Soon after making his stage debut, Norman was given a seven-year film contract by MGM, making his screen debut as a soldier in Tom Thumb. While living in America for three years, he performed in The Caretaker on the Broadway stage. Returning to Britain, he landed the role of Det. Insp. Harry Hawkins in Softly Softly in 1966. He stayed in the programme for its entire 11 -year run, latterly as Softly Softly: Task Force, and became quite a heart~ throb.

The actor subsequently starred on television as David Martin in Park Ranger and he has also appeared in Jesus of Nazareth, The Winds of War, Jamaica Inn, Robin of Sherwood, Casualty and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.A few years before joining Emmerdale, Norman gained soap experience in Crossroads as newspaper editor Sam Benson, who had a fling with motel owner Nicola Freeman, played by the actress Cabrielle Drake. ‘To get paid for that was a great pleasure!’ he says. He stayed in the role for only nine months, leaving after Gabrielle’s decision to quit, but his role in Emmerdale was more long-lasting.

Then, in late 1996, Norman told Yorkshire Television that he wished to go. He did agree to stay until his character was killed off, in May the following year, a few months before his 65th birthday. He went straight into a stage play in Bristol, where he lives. At an age when some people would be thinking of retiring, Norman also had plans to start a degree at Bristol University - a foundation course in art - take a summer holiday in Tibet and make a documentary with his own production company, Gong Films. This was to be about the two children he and his third wife, Diane, have sponsored in Nepal since being touched by news of famine in India in the mid-eighties. He also harbours an ambition to sail across the Atlantic, even though he has never sailed before.

‘I never thought I had a job for life in Emmerdale” he says. ‘I came for one year and stayed seven and a half I hope I’ve given some pleasure to viewers, but I’m of an age when I need to move on. I need my own space. When you’re in a long-running programme, you don’t have time to do anything. This is just the beginning.’

Anyway, I have to be honest and say that I never really watched soaps apart from Eastenders, but it was fun to run into them both and show them around town in the evenings. I’m also glad to say that such seasoned travellers enjoyed their stay in Armenia and especially loved Haghartsin and Dilijan even if it sounded somewhat vodka-drenched and Norman’s return to Yerevan last night was marked by Liverpool’s defeat in the UEFA Champion’s League which he watched at Tifosi with two Nigerians, one of whom played for a football team in Iran.

Hope to meet up with them both when I return to England in the very near future. We already appear to have chosen the pub in Bristol.