Archers star reveals secret cancer battle

DEVOTED listeners of the Archers were alarmed when veteran character lynda Snell was involved in an explosion earlier this year which left her with ‘serious injuries’ and nearly claimed her life.

now, Carole Boyd, who has played the snobby but well-meaning Snell in Radio 4’s rural soap opera since 1986, has revealed she’s been secretly fighting a brave battle against cancer in real life.

‘doctor theatre takes over,’ Boyd tells Michael Berkeley on a forthcoming edition of the Radio 3 show Private Passions. ‘You have to have this self-survival thing, that you are going to be OK.’

the actress, 74, says her main concern was the well-being of her husband, Patrick Harrison, whom she’s cared for since he suffered a stroke in 2003.

‘My real worry is, “Will my health hold out? Will i be OK? Will i go on being OK to look after Patrick, and for how much longer?”’

■ HOLLYWOOD stars might have big reputations, but they still come up short, according to British actress Olivia Williams, who starred in The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis and The Postman opposite Kevin Costner. ‘Except Kevin, all actors are shorter than you think they are,’ says the Cambridge graduate, 52. ‘As a 5 ft 9 in woman, that is a problem. I did an episode of Friends and I was standing in a corridor and this group of tiny, weeny people walked past, and that was the cast of Friends. I was like, “They’re all tiny!” ‘I’ve worked with all… name a 1980s sexy actor and I’ve snogged ’em, all in the line of duty, all for work, and they’re all tiny.’ And she’s not telling tall stories.