I was born in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1941 and my family lived upstairs from my Auntie Doris in a two-storey maisonette with a concrete backyard, an outside toilet and no running water. It was sheer luxury! My dad worked for London North Eastern Railways, which eventually became British Rail, and he was a good father in that he drank very little because there wasn't much money.

I was probably closer to my mother. She was very big on hygiene and keeping my younger brother Joe and me clean and well presented. She was also more affectionate than my father, who was quite a strict man and not so easy to get close to. Joe is nearly four years younger than me but once he was five or six, we played together a lot and hung out with our cousin, who was two years younger than me.

My dad bought me my first guitar for my 16th birthday. I got so into music that I pushed any academic work to one side. My parents weren't really aware of that at the time, and I sort of conned them into letting me go down to London in April 1958 to break into the music business. I wrote to them telling them everything was fine in those first six months, even though we sometimes wouldn't eat for two days. When I next saw them, in October 1958, we were doing the first tour with Cliff Richard and earning money.

Having success early had a big impact on my young family as I was away touring so much. I was just 19 when my first child was born. I was way too young to get married and I didn't fully understand the implications of it all, and probably was far too young to be a father. Suddenly, you're hit with this young child to consider and to look after and feed and clothe and educate, and try to make them into a decent human being. I've got four children from my first marriage. Our first son, Dean, died a number of years ago [from pneumonia aged 34 in 1997, after years of drug and alcohol abuse]. Then there were twin boys, Peter and Paul. Then Philippa.

Although Dean and I were estranged when he died, it was still a great shock and sadness and it affected everyone. He just chose a course in life that was really going to end in disaster and it did, sadly. It tore our hearts out, but you just have to learn to live with it as you would with any loss. The grieving eventually stops. There are other people that you have to care for and give attention to, so that takes priority.

By the time Thalia was born in 1973 and Ben in 1975, my circumstances were different. I didn't want to be away as much and, if I was going away, my wife, Carole, and the kids would come with me as often as possible and I was able to handle parenthood in a much better way, with the maturity that experience brings.

Musicality does seem to run through the family. My son Ben is a bachelor of music in contemporary guitar and he's a very good player. He and I arranged and performed tracks on my new album and he used to play in my band. Thalia and Ben, who live in Perth, Australia where Carole and I live, also have an acoustic duo. The twins play guitar; one does some semi-pro blues and folky work and the other one just does it for fun.

Family is very important to me. I've learned the importance of it as I've got older. The family is the basic unit in society and it's important to spend time together and to play together.

• Hank Marvin's new album HANK is out now on the DMG TV label