ON THE COVER Cathy Shipton
Casualty’s Duffy really does have healing hands
She’s spent the best part of 30 years playing Casualty’s warm-hearted nurse Duffy – but it’s not just on-screen that Cathy Shipton is a dab hand at dishing out healing advice.
The actress has always had a keen interest in fitness and health – few people know that she is actually a qualified aerobics instructor. But over recent years she’s also developed a passion for homeopathy and alternative medicines, so much so that her Casualty colleagues jokingly nicknamed her Witchy-poo.
“I’d say, ‘Try this and see if it works,’ and they’d go, ‘oh my God, my cough has gone,’ or ‘my headache has gone,’” Cathy says. “I can also do acupuncture and I can get rid of people’s headaches with acupressure.
“My mum had a crushed pelvis and I gave her Symphytum and Arnica, and she was up and about and walking, and lived five years after her crushed pelvis. Doctors couldn’t believe it. I can do all sorts!
“I should trace my ancestry, because Old Mother Shipton was a white witch who lived in Knaresborough in the 15th century, so I don’t know if we were related.”
Cathy developed her interest in health as a child when her younger brother suffered chronic eczema and asthma. “He was in oxygen tents at the local children’s hospital,” she recalls. “I was in hospitals visiting him a lot and I realised that if you haven’t got your health you haven’t got anything.”
Now 61, she’s passionate about taking care of herself. “I do Pilates and yoga ever y day without fail,” she says. “Often you’ll hear me puffing and panting in my dressing room! I’ll find a 10-minute Bums and Tums, or a 40-minute Pilates workout on YouTube.”
As a young actress, during periods out of work, she taught aerobics. Then in 1986 she was chosen to be part of the original cast of a new ground-breaking BBC medical drama series Casualty. Cast as nurse Lisa “Duffy” Duffin, it was a role that was to define her career.
Over the years she has left four times, but the lure of the wards continue to pull her back. “In a way, what draws the audience back to it, is similar to what draws me back,” she explains.
“It’s the show’s values and the character of Duffy, who from the get-go is human, fallible, good at her job and tries her best, even if she doesn’t always get it right. The path she’s trodden is very much like the girl-nextdoor and the woman-nextdoor. She’s extraordinarily ordinar y, which is what I like about her.
“She also represents someone in a public ser vice and that’s important to me. I feel a responsibility to the nursing profession – the nurses out there doing it for real are unsung heroes. I take that seriously and have always felt proud to be part of the show.”
Cathy first left in 1993 to tr y other roles. She returned in 1998 and then left again in 2003 when her daughter Tallulah was two.
“I’d been told I wouldn’t ever have children – I had unexplained infertility,” she explains. “I had a failed IVF and then she came along naturally. She was an absolute miracle baby. I was 43 and I wasn’t sure I would have another roll of the dice and I just wanted to be mum. Those early years were precious, so I took time out to be with her.”
Cathy lives in west London with her partner,
“I feel a responsibility to the nursing profession – they are unsung heroes”
actor Christopher Guard, whom she met on the set of Casualty, and Tallulah, now 17. She returned to the show in 2016 and has plenty of drama coming up.
Regular viewers will know that Duffy is currently guiltstricken after a one-night stand with former childhood sweetheart Bill, behind the back of her partner Charlie.
“She’s already having health worries which she hasn’t mentioned to Charlie, then there’s this cheating episode, so she’s got another secret,” Cathy says. “She’s losing her grip and it culminates in her waking from an unexplained fall.
“She doesn’t tell Charlie or the medics the truth. She gets hold of an iPad and starts doing her own diagnosis. She types in mood swings, anxiety, depression and falls and gets a list of things it could potentially be, ranging from tinnitus and apnoea to multiple sclerosis s and dementia.
“As if that wasn’t enough, in comes Bill as a patient. And who is the nurse looking after him? Charlie!” Casualty is on BBC1 on Saturdays.