Coronavirus keeps Little and Large apart at end

TRAGIC Eddie Large’s lifelong comedy partner Syd Little will have to miss the coronavirusstricken star’s funeral.

Eddie’s heartbroken widow Patsy, who was married to the legendary funnyman for 37 years, has been told Government rules mean only five people can attend his send-off.

She does not know if she will be allowed to see her beloved husband’s body to say her final goodbyes.

And she spoke of her despair at being forced to leave 78-year-old Eddie to die alone in hospital because of the lockdown restrictions.

In an exclusive interview Patsy, 76, told the Sunday People: “Syd should really be there because he’s essentially a member of the family and he deserves to be there.

“Syd and Eddie were teenage friends and then worked together from 1963. He’s heartbroken.”

Patsy was barred from seeing Eddie on Monday after he tested positive for Covid-19.

“When the nurses told me I couldn’t go in to see him I was in tears,” she said.

“I was saying, ‘Please... please’, but they said they couldn’t let anyone in.”

Patsy never saw Eddie again. He passed away early on Thursday.

She wept: “It broke my heart that I couldn’t be with him for those last three days. We always thought we would be together.”

But Patsy did speak to Eddie on the phone the night before he died.

She revealed: “The last words I said to him were, ‘Darling, I love you. We all miss you so much and we really want you to be able to come home’.

“He wasn’t feeling good and said, ‘I’m going to have to go, darling’. Then he said, ‘I love you’, and put the phone down. And that was it.

“At 4am the hospital rang to tell us he had passed away. We haven’t been able to see Eddie’s body since and I’m not sure if we’ll be allowed to.”

Strict rules also mean there will only be room for Eddie’s widow, their son Ryan, 37, and the star’s two daughters from his first marriage to Sandra Bigwood, Samantha and Alison, plus one of his two remaining siblings.

But Syd, 77, may be able to pay his last respects. Patsy said: “Ryan raised the idea of streaming the funeral on the internet so everyone can share in it.”

At the peak of their fame, Eddie and Syd – who met by chance in a pub – were one of Britain’s best-loved comedy duos. They regularly attracted TV audiences of up to 18 million a week.

Eddie – real name Edward Mcginnis – was born in Glasgow but moved to Manchester when he was 10.

He started work as an electrician but soon turned to comedy and joined forces with Syd, real name Cyril Mead.

Their big break came when they won talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1971. The pair had a primetime show on ITV before they moved to the BBC with The Little and Large Show, which ran from 1978 to 1991.

Eddie met former singer and dancer Patsy in 1977, when they both appeared in a Liverpool production of Aladdin.

In 2003, the comic had a heart transplant. But Patsy revealed he suffered a heart attack at home in Portishead, Somerset, at the end of January.

Speaking about it for the first time, she said: “His heart stopped for two minutes. I tried to do CPR on him and then the paramedics arrived and brought him back. They were wonderful.

“One said to the paramedic that saved him, ‘You know you’ve just brought Eddie Large back from the dead?’”

Doctors fitted Eddie with a pacemaker and after two weeks, he was