It’s easy to see our favourite EastEnders, Emmerdale and Coronation Street stars as infallible, until the worst happens.
But over the years, some stars have sadly battled serious health conditions, and dementia is among them. Soaps have brought Alzheimer’s into the spotlight with storylines including Emmerdale vicar Ashley Thomas’ ordeal with the disease seven years ago.
Art reflects life, however, and soap stars including Dame Barbara Windsor have had their own dementia struggles. She noticed the first signs of the condition while the Carry On legend was still filming EastEnders and couldn’t remember her lines.
Her widow Scott Mitchell revealed: “At this point Barbara had just left Eastenders in 2010 and just before that she told me she was struggling a bit with her lines, something she never did.” Scott said Vanessa Feltz was among the first to realise something was going on.
Speaking to her on TalkTV, he said: “You may not remember this, Vanessa, but I think the only person in show business, around 2016, 2017, you said to me at a function, ‘Is Barbara okay, Scott, because she doesn’t seem herself?’”
Barbara Windsor
EastEnders legend Barbara Windsor went public with her Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis in April 2014. She spoke about her own condition in a video, imploring people to “support ground-breaking research to find a cure for a condition that affects so many people, like me. With your help we can and will end dementia with research”.
But in July 2020, Barbara moved into a care home in London as her condition advanced. Scott told The Sun at the time: “I feel I’m on an emotional rollercoaster. I walk around, trying to keep busy, then burst in to tears. It feels like a bereavement.”
