Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Love is like a butterfly... So why not enjoy some romance in your 80s?
was challenging the status quo, as a working woman, continuing to forge an acting career after marrying trombonist and journalist Jack Bentley, in 1955, and becoming a mum to her three children, Alaster, Ross, and Rosie.
Stage work could take her away for long periods, although sitcoms meant it was easier to get home. It helped that Jack worked at home and took on some household responsibilities, not widely the case with men at the time.
“I was very fortunate,” she says, adding: “It very much helped me to forge my career, he was tremendously supportive.”
In her 40s, Wendy found her Christian faith again. And she learned how to keep her personal life personal – no mean feat for anyone who is a household name.
Jack died in 1994 but, whatever Wendy’s had to work through, she has a great relationship with her kids, grandchildren and great-grandchild. In fact, life seems pretty much perfect today.
She has good health, her kids live close by her Berkshire home, and she’s far off retirement – although she’s quick, despite her latest storyline – to laugh off any suggestion of dating in later life herself.
“I have friends but we just go to lunch,” she laughs. Emmerdale came knocking on top of an already busy life, workwise.
The actress, also a permanent fixture in BBC drama The Royal from 2003-11, has recently appeared in a CBBC series of The Worst Witch as well as new comedy drama Girlfriends, in which she played Miranda Richardson’s mum.
She says Emmerdale has been great fun: “This is my first soap. They film such a lot, it’s amazing how well organised they are. They had three units running at once, three directors, all the make-up artists and wardrobe, and it runs like clockwork, it’s so efficient.”
Wendy explained: “Coming into a company who had all been working together for so long I thought I might feel a bit of an interloper, but in actual fact they were so charming and welcoming and warm-hearted. I felt really at home.”
Despite her long-running career, surprisingly, she admits she has always been a nervy performer.
“Will I get it right, will I let the
others down, will I remember the lines? All sorts of worries, I’ve always been like that,” she confides.
Nevertheless, she never wants to stop. “I’m really happiest when I’m working, and there seems to be some sort of point to me being around,” Wendy explains.
She adds: “Some days I feel 21, others I feel about 100, but you keep ploughing on. I try to keep busy and positive.”
However, she has made preparations for the end of her life. Touchingly, her greatest wish is that her children won’t have to worry “about all that”.
She says: “I have made a will, I have laid out how I want my service to be so the children don’t have all those problems. I have written out my personal gifts, so there won’t be any confusion when I’m gone,” she says.
“I just want to leave the children happy.
“I want it to be a positive going.”
For now though, living positively is the most important thing – and Wendy is certainly an example of that.
Emmerdale is on ITV1, 7pm tonight.