Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
LADY DODD ON
Gazing down at her wedding ring, a lifetime of memories flash before Lady Anne Dodd’s eyes. After 40 years and endless adventures together, she had finally tied the knot with the man she loved – the legendary Sir Ken Dodd – in 2018, only for him to pass away just two days later.
But today her love for him and his tickling sticks remains as clear as the inscription on the ring – which she had actually bought four decades earlier.
And for the first time in their long history, Lady Anne is ready to open up about her life with the national treasure.
She explains: “My wedding ring is his signet ring because it never occurred to me to nip out and get rings when we got married.
“I gave it to him in 1981 or 1982 and it was inscribed with a song he was doing at the time, Hold My Hand, and it’s got ‘I love you’ on it as well.”
Speaking from her home in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, Lady Anne is not only living in the house where Ken was born but also where they said their vows before he tragically died at the age of 90, from a chest infection.
She says: “It was very difficult because he was very poorly. When he was in hospital he’d been saying, ‘Look, when I come home, we must get married’. We will do it in church when I’m better’.
“But, of course, he didn’t get better, so it had to be hastened.”
Lady Anne, in her late 70s, adds: “It was really sad, but it was also beautiful. It was lovely to hear him say his vows and me say mine. He said it was ‘typical’ when I said I hadn’t got rings. Then he took off his signet ring and put it on my finger.”
The marriage was even more special, given the amount of time the couple had been together.
Lady Anne says: “It was honouring a promise made years before. He’d said, ‘Oh, we will get married, we will, we will’.
“And I think it obviously struck him – I think I better had.
“He wasn’t anyone who liked to talk about death. But I think there’s a certain point a person knows they’re not very well.
“And I believe, by the way he said his vows, he was pleased to have done it.”
Sir Ken first met the fellow northerner and lawyer’s daughter when she was in one of his shows as a dancer in 1961. She was just 20 and Ken was 34 and engaged to his business partner Anita Boutin. However, until he had said vows to Anita, Sir Ken was apparently happy to have plenty of “friends”.
Lady Anne says: “We just kept in touch and I’d see him fairly frequently. We were sort of courting but he was very, very busy and engaged to somebody.” Shockingly, in 1977, Ken’s fiancee died aged 45 from an aggressive brain tumour. Lady Anne began officially dating him the following year but believes his heartbreak over Anita may have played