Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
From actress to carer.. that was so tough
Anita Dobson nursed her hubby Brian May
ANITA Dobson has admitted it was tough going from showbiz to being “cleaner, cook and carer” following her husband Brian May’s heart attack.
The former Eastenders star said it was a “nightmare” when the Queen guitarist, 74, suddenly fell ill in May 2020 during the first coronavirus lockdown.
And she admitted she feared her showbiz life had changed forever.
Anita, 72, said: “My husband had a heart attack, sciatica and a haemorrhage, and I suddenly went from being a working actress to being a cleaner, cook and carer.
“Not a role I’m easily castable for! I did the best I could and thank God he’s all right now.
“He’s very kind. He says, ‘It’s down to Anita that I got through it’.
“But what you would have seen behind the scenes was a menial who was so grumpy it just wasn’t true.
“I’d go off into a corner and mutter away to myself, the cat, the fish and the birds in the trees – anybody who would listen.”
Anita said that when Brian – who she wed in 2000 – started to get better she questioned whether she would always have to be his carer.
She said: “Lockdown was dreadful, a nightmare that I wish never to go back into.
“Even when Brian started to get better there was this awful feeling of is this my life
now?” But the star, who is best known for playing Queen Vic landlady Angie Watts in Eastenders from 1985 to 1988, has managed to returned to acting.
She plays Grace Stephenson, the downtrodden wife of spiritual Brethren leader Dennis Stephenson (Martin Shaw) in new ITV drama The Long Call.
The actor said the part was “a gift from the Gods to play”.
She said: “She’s a sad little wretch of a woman. She’s very quiet – her social skills have gone – and she’s trapped in a limbo land, where she can’t go forward in her life, but she can’t go back. She’s slowly imploded.
“I’m stripped back to nothing. I look like death on legs. There’s not much of a twinkle.”
Anita said she hoped to continue to act for a long time and told Woman’s Weekly magazine she had no plans to retire.
She added: “I have no fears of playing old. This is what I love best.”
There was this awful feeling of is this my life now? ANITA DOBSON ON HUSBAND’S ILLNESS
Publican Margaret Lane, 64, used a Bounce Back Loan to pay off personal debts.
Her company, Peal O’bells Lane Limited, received £25,000 in June last year and over the next eight days it was withdrawn as cash or moved to her personal bank account.
An Insolvency Service report reads: “She then used these funds to repay friends and family for personal loans made to her.”
The company, based in Holt, Wrexham, went into liquidation owing more than £80,000.
Ban: Six years.
Swansea hairdresser Jamie Hill got a £25,000 loan for his company Jamie Hill Limited despite knowing it was insolvent.
The money was paid on December 2, 2020, a month after he’d started liquidation proceedings.
Over the next two days he paid himself £21,000 from the company’s bank account and on December 23 it went into liquidation with outstanding liabilities to creditors of more than £220,000.
Ban: Six years.