Not being able to say goodbye to my Vanya was awful
HEARTBROKEN soap legend Bill Roache leapt in his car after getting a text saying his beloved daughter was close to death.
The Corrie star was desperate to reach Vanya, 50, for one final hug.
But Bill, who plays Ken Barlow, never got to say goodbye as he was involved in a terrifying car crash on the way.
The star reveals his torment today ahead of the serialisation of his life story in the Record this week.
Bill, who also lost daughter Edwina when she was just 18 months old, said in an exclusive interview: “The pain of losing a child is unbearable.
“To not be able to say goodbye to Vanya was awful. But I take some comfort in now knowing she is in a better place and at peace. I like to think about the happier times we had.
“And when I say, ‘I love you Vanya’, I know she hears it.
“But your children going before you is horrendous. You’re responsible for your children. There’s a feeling of guilt. If your children die, you feel you shouldn’t have let that happen.”
Bill, usually an intensely private man, spoke to the paper from the lounge of his Cheshire home. Pictures of his loved ones adorn the walls.
It was on a bleak night in March that the devoted family man received a text message while on the Corrie set saying Vanya was about to succumb to a long-term liver condition.
In grim conditions, 86-year-old Bill drove from Manchester to London to pick up son Will and headed to Chichester, where Vanya was in hospital. Bill said: “We were 15 minutes away. There was snow all over the place. The sat-nav took us down a country road which went downhill and curved.
“The car just went straight on, smashed a sign, went over a traffic island and hit a hedgerow, smashing the whole front of the car.
“It was 10.30pm. Recovery said they couldn’t get out for five hours. By the time I got to her, it was too late.”
Vanya had been ill for three years but her death still hit him hard.
False reports suggested she and Bill had been estranged. But the actor insists they were as close as ever.
He added: “She was only 50 and that was hard to take. Just three weeks before we’d been down and had a lovely time. We had a sing-song.”
Bill believes in the afterlife and is part of a spiritual group called the Pure Love Movement. He believes Vanya has gone to a better place.
He said: “We carry on, we’re eternal. We go home (when we die). That’s our permanent home, this is our temporary school room.
“So when people have died, it’s like no more school. I know that to be true.
“So someone dying is brilliant. It may seem an awful thing to say.
“However, you miss them and you’re entitled to miss them. It does help to have that understanding.”
Bill relied on the same belief system when toddler Edwina died in 1984 – and after losing second wife Sara in 2009, aged 58.
Sara died mid-conversation at home from an undiagnosed heart condition. Bill said: “I thought she’d just passed out. It was such a shock.”