I’ve never bothered really about my age. I feel about 50
amazed at my progress. Most people are still hobbling around at my stage but lying on a bed, I could get my leg go up into a pretty reasonable high kick.” keeping myself fit so I could perform.”
Ruth also bounced back from bladder cancer after being diagnosed 16 years ago.
She said: “I have a check up every five years and all’s fine.
“Of course, it was serious but it didn’t change my perspective on life. My mother was a matron of a general hospital, so I grew up with the attitude that if you get things, you just have to deal with them.”
Ruth had no hesitation about the nudity in Calendar Girls. She said: “After all my years in the business, that didn’t worry me at all. I first bared my bosoms when I was 29 for the film of Under Milk Wood with Richard Burton. It was a scene with David Jason and my only worry was getting pneumonia, because it was freezing.
“Last year, I bared my bosoms for ITV’s The Real Full Monty: Ladies’ Night, helping raise awareness of breast cancer, which was great fun.”
Of course, you can’t chat to Ruth without asking about Hi-de-Hi! and anyone who watched it will remember her husky Welsh voice saying: “Hello campers”.
The actress loves that the show and her character still make an impact.
She said: “The effect’s never gone, really. Gladys was a wonderful, unexpected thing to happen. I was nearly 40 and it took up nearly nine years of my life and changed my career. Without that, it could have taken years longer to get appreciated.
“Also, there’s nothing like kids for keeping your feet on the ground, and my two children used to say, ‘You’re not going off to do that Gladys Puke again are you?’ That was their name for her!”
Ruth is on our TV screens again in ITV’s Hard to Please OAPs, which continues tomorrow. It sees older celebs like Ruth, June and Harry Rednapp grappling with gadgets and technology.
She said: “It’s about mature minds having to cope with the ghastly gadgets they concoct now. “But I’m definitely not a grumpy old woman who thinks things were better in the old days. “Some of the modern advances are brilliant.” Hard To Please OAPs continues tomorrow on STV at 8.30pm.
RUTH ON HOLDING BACK THE YEARS