Marathon man Scott: I still ask Barbara for advice
DAME Barbara Windsor’s widower says he has been seeking her guidance as he prepares to take part in the London Marathon.
Scott Mitchell cared for the former Eastenders star for six years as she battled Alzheimer’s, before passing away aged 83 in 2020.
He is aiming to complete his third and final London Marathon next month to raise money for Alzheimer’s Research UK.
Scott, 60, will be joined by Eastenders stars Adam Woodyatt, Jake Wood, Lacey Turner and Natalie Cassidy. They are all running in Dame Barbara’s memory, under the “Bab’s Army” banner on Sunday April 23.
He says: “I talk to her every day and I run with her, always. I often hear her when I’m running now, I have these little conversations with myself and she is there when I do solo runs.
“I just have little chats with her, I’m saying, ‘I’m still running Bar (sic), these little legs are still running, I’m still going’.
“And I talk to her about her legacy and what she has left. She’s always with me.”
The couple, who were married for 20 years, made a huge impact when they went public about Alzheimer’s, the cruel condition which affects millions in the UK.
In a bid to confront his personal pain and fear, Scott ran the world’s most famous marathon for the first time in 2019.
So far more than £4million has been given to dementia charities because of his and Barbara’s fundraising efforts.
The living room of the mews house Scott shared with Barbara in London’s Marylebone is still full of memories of their life together, with treasured pictures of them sitting alongside the trophies she won as an actor and the medals and certificates he has been awarded for his running.
Looking around the room he says: “Listen, you can see Barbara is still visibly here.yes, I still have pictures, I don’t pretend that she never existed because this was our home.” As an ambassador for Alzheimer’s Research UK he is proud to be supporting medical research which he hopes will help many in the future avoid the suffering he and Barbara went through.
Scott says: “If I said I didn’t miss her, I’d be lying. There are days the majority of when I think of Barbara, it is those positive messages.
“I think about who she was, how she loved life, how she wasn’t too judgmental about how other people led their life. In many many ways she was very much ‘you have to live and let live’!”
Barbara, who also starred in the Carry On films in the 1960s and 1970s, decided to go public with her Alzheimer’s in 2018, four years after her diagnosis.
Scott says: “Barbara was courageous enough to allow us to go public with this. In 2019, I did my first marathon and to date the money raised for Alzheimer’s Research UK, it’s still the record-breaking charity partner for the London Marathon.
“The first year, Barbara really was the face of it, she did videos for it, she campaigned for it and it became such a big thing.”
The following year the marathon was cancelled as the country was in lockdown and Scott was looking after Barbara until her death in the December of that year.
Lockdown restrictions meant just 29 of her closest family and friends were able to attend her funeral. Scott later scattered some of her ashes so he has somewhere to visit the love of his life.
He adds: “Scientifically there has been a very good breakthrough in America with a new drug.
“It will only be given to people if you catch it really early on, but they do say it’s almost like they have proof now that it can be attacked with
‘I talk to her every day. I often hear her when I’m running’
treatment.the dream would be to prevent anyone developing dementia and the hope is we can find treatments that will arrest the symptoms as soon as they start.
“Let’s stop it going down the further route where they become confused, where they generally don’t know where they are, who they were or what they did and of course looking at their loved ones and asking that devastating question of ‘do I know you?’.
“Barbara used to sit there, just occasionally she’d look at me quizzically and say, ‘do you live here?’ and I can’t explain to you what that does to you, when someone you’ve shared your life with for 25 years or so looks at you and says that.
“Someone you’ve been married to for over 20 years looks at you and says so ‘do you have someone in your life?’. She used to ask me and I’d say ‘yes, I’ve got this really cute little blonde’ and she would say, ‘oh, is she nice?’ and I would say ‘yes, it’s you’. Then she would realise and laugh, and I’d go with it.”
Scott was first introduced to Barbara by his mother, which he admits was “bizarre”.
He feels they were meant to be together, saying: “Against all odds we were just the two souls that came together, accepted each other for who we were, neither put each other on a pedestal.
“That didn’t mean to say we didn’t adore and love each other. We were the best of friends but we both knew we weren’t perfect and we both allowed each other the space not to be perfect.
“She will always be a part of me and I know she will always be in my heart, but that doesn’t mean to say that I can’t move forward with my life and be open to finding love again, or just enjoying life without a sense of guilt, which I really do have now.”
To order a copy of Byyour Side: My Life Loving Barbarawindsor by Scott Mitchell (Orion paperback, £8.99) visit expressbookshop.com or call Express Bookshop on 020 3176 3832. Free UK P&P on online orders over £25.
To donate to Bab’s Army visit bit.ly/3mgwne2