House of Windsor

HaVing watched the BBC TV drama of Dame Barbara Windsor’s life, someone must speak up for her father, John Deeks, portrayed as a selfish, uncaring man who abandoned his 16-year-old daughter.

as Barbara’s ghostwriter for her autobiography, all Of me, i met John several times before he died, and he was at pains to tell me her recollections of his marriage split, and his subsequent behaviour, were not as he remembered them.

The biopic gave the impression he walked out of her life. But John insisted this was ‘most certainly untrue’, and told me Barbara often visited him.

The drama also gave the impression there was a family discussion about Barbara changing her name from Deeks to Windsor. But John told me the first he knew of this was when he found letters on the doormat addressed to ‘Barbara Windsor’.

Barbara and her husband Ronnie Knight visited him with presents one Christmas eve. in the TV drama, when John supposedly said he didn’t want the gifts, Knight says: ‘if you wasn’t an old man, i’d smack you one.’

in fact, according to John, Barbara ‘ exploded angrily’ and stormed out, leaving Knight holding the presents. Far from issuing a threat, Knight was embarrassed and apologised to John on Barbara’s behalf.

John Deeks did not see his relationship with his daughter in the way she does. it’s just as well he didn’t live to see the TV production she approved. ROBIN McGIBBON,

Bickley, Kent.