That’s the name that mum gave to her neighbour in the Care Home when Dame Barbara Windsor moved there in July. Our family had crossed paths with her before.

My brother and I grew up on a diet of cowboy movies and also saucy “Carry On” films with their quintessential British humour of double entendres, nods and winks. Seaside postcard humour transposed to the big screen. Barbara Windsor was one of the stars and, dare I say, we all loved her.

When my children were at primary school we were eating in a restaurant with my parents and a foreign visitor. Barbara Windsor was at a nearby table and the children (at our instigation) went to talk with her. She was lovely to them, although they probably didn’t really know who she was. That all changed when she joined the cast of the soap opera, East Enders, playing the landlady of the Queen Vic. In the serial one of Jeremy’s clients, Daniella Westbrook, played Sam Mitchell the daughter of landlady Peggy Mitchell (Dame Barbara). One day Jeremy had to go and visit his client on the set of the “soap” in Borehamwood.

He asked if he could bring his children and their cousins to the studios and it was agreed. The teenagers wanted to meet the main characters and Jeremy was keen to meet the blonde Barbara. She was gracious and friendly and gave Jeremy a signed photograph that sat on our mantelpiece in London for many years. Dame Barbara was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014 and left East Enders, living quietly with her third husband and helping to publicise the need for help with research and care for her progressive disease. In July Barbara Windsor became a resident in the same Care Home as mum. Mum said she always looked lovely and was tiny (she was only four foot ten inches tall). Mum called her, “the little lady”. I had to tell mum, this morning, that the “little lady” had passed away. Mum was sad and told me that she hadn’t seen her in the lounge in recent weeks. “But when I saw her”, mum said, “she always spoke to me and said “hello darling”!”. As Daniella said to the press, “today we lost a legend, a national treasure and I lost a friend”.