(no subject)
Further to the death of Anne Kirkbride
There has been no official statement as to what caused her death but a few of the media reports have said it was breast cancer that spread to her brain after she stopped the chemo. I don't know for sure but it sounds like it is probably a pretty good possibility. Cancer is like that. It can be very aggressive.
Not a lot of the cast and crew of the show knew of her illness, apparently, though I do wonder if more knew than we think and just kept it quiet out of respect for her fighting the disease. One report says that Bill Roache and Bev Callard ("Ken" and "Liz") were with her along with her family at the end. He did say in a media clip that he went to say goodbye so i suppose he must have been there on that last day for sure. It really is awful, though, the questions they ask. He was asked how did he feel having to say goodbye. Credit to him for not snapping the face right off the reporter and shouting how the fuck do you think i feel? He couldn't even reply at first, you could tell he was emotional and all he said was that going to say goodbye was something he knew he had to do, he wanted to be there. As sad as I had been to hear of her death, seeing that short clip is what brought the tears and the lump in my th roat.
I've read a lot of the media stories about her over the last day or two and the love and respect of everyone that knew her just glows off the screen, and there were several articles on how iconic the character of Deirdre was. One even said she was the heart of the show, that yes, there were other iconic characters, both men and women, but Deirdre is the one we saw grow up on screen, both her character and the actor herself, to face life, make choices and grow into the woman she became. Anne Kirkbride was 17 when she started so that's true. All the others, Elsie Tanner, Ena Sharples, Rita Sullivan, Vera Duckworth and all the others, those actors were already adults in their 20s or older when first appearing on the show. Maybe you could say the same for Ken Barlow but even he as an actor was nearly 30 playing a 20 or 21 year old post-university graduate.
Another two radio clips from former actors both used terms like "mad as a box of frogs" and "eccentric" but also said she was lovely and fun and warm and welcoming. She sounds like she was a live wire and totally unlike her character. I think I remember that Marc Bayliss who played Rob Donovan said that as well, the person most unlike the character they played.
And in other news, my hump day started quietly and then my mind just bounced out of my head this afternoon trying to work out a problem with a report. Good grief. I did have help and the other person was the one that figured out where the link between the data tables needed to be to get the information we needed rather than what I had put on the report query before. So the day ended ok at least thanks to a smart lady helping me. I said to another coworker that this job does my head in at times but I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Except maybe a travel agent but then the downside of that is dealing with the public and that can be a real minefield at times. With data, logic is logic. If it goes wrong, either the data is wrong or you're not getting to it the right way. People, on the other hand, are unpredictable and "not logical, Captain".
There has been no official statement as to what caused her death but a few of the media reports have said it was breast cancer that spread to her brain after she stopped the chemo. I don't know for sure but it sounds like it is probably a pretty good possibility. Cancer is like that. It can be very aggressive.
Not a lot of the cast and crew of the show knew of her illness, apparently, though I do wonder if more knew than we think and just kept it quiet out of respect for her fighting the disease. One report says that Bill Roache and Bev Callard ("Ken" and "Liz") were with her along with her family at the end. He did say in a media clip that he went to say goodbye so i suppose he must have been there on that last day for sure. It really is awful, though, the questions they ask. He was asked how did he feel having to say goodbye. Credit to him for not snapping the face right off the reporter and shouting how the fuck do you think i feel? He couldn't even reply at first, you could tell he was emotional and all he said was that going to say goodbye was something he knew he had to do, he wanted to be there. As sad as I had been to hear of her death, seeing that short clip is what brought the tears and the lump in my th roat.
I've read a lot of the media stories about her over the last day or two and the love and respect of everyone that knew her just glows off the screen, and there were several articles on how iconic the character of Deirdre was. One even said she was the heart of the show, that yes, there were other iconic characters, both men and women, but Deirdre is the one we saw grow up on screen, both her character and the actor herself, to face life, make choices and grow into the woman she became. Anne Kirkbride was 17 when she started so that's true. All the others, Elsie Tanner, Ena Sharples, Rita Sullivan, Vera Duckworth and all the others, those actors were already adults in their 20s or older when first appearing on the show. Maybe you could say the same for Ken Barlow but even he as an actor was nearly 30 playing a 20 or 21 year old post-university graduate.
Another two radio clips from former actors both used terms like "mad as a box of frogs" and "eccentric" but also said she was lovely and fun and warm and welcoming. She sounds like she was a live wire and totally unlike her character. I think I remember that Marc Bayliss who played Rob Donovan said that as well, the person most unlike the character they played.
And in other news, my hump day started quietly and then my mind just bounced out of my head this afternoon trying to work out a problem with a report. Good grief. I did have help and the other person was the one that figured out where the link between the data tables needed to be to get the information we needed rather than what I had put on the report query before. So the day ended ok at least thanks to a smart lady helping me. I said to another coworker that this job does my head in at times but I couldn't imagine doing anything else. Except maybe a travel agent but then the downside of that is dealing with the public and that can be a real minefield at times. With data, logic is logic. If it goes wrong, either the data is wrong or you're not getting to it the right way. People, on the other hand, are unpredictable and "not logical, Captain".