The husband Barbara Windsor has made a devastating confession about the star’s final moments.
Carry On legend Barbara passed away in December 2020 aged 83. She battled Alzheimer’s for six years, spending her last few months in a specialist care facility.
Widower Scott Mitchell, 59, and EastEnders favourite Barbara were married for 20 years.
Ahead of the publication of his book detailing their life together, Scott – an ambassador for Alzheimer’s Research UK – has opened up about his grief and sense of loss.
Scott Mitchell on grief for wife Barbara Windsor
Speaking with The Sun, Scott admitted he still wakes up in the night – and his first thought is whether Barbara is okay.
He explained when this happens that reality does hit him that his wife will never return. Scott revealed accepting that was hard to come to terms with at first.
However, nearly two years on following her death, Scott admits he has learned to ‘find himself again’ as he processes his grief.
He told the tabloid: “When you’re with someone like Barbara, she was this incredible presence that everyone was drawn to. So that’s a big thing in your life.”
Barbara Windsor’s ‘final moments’
Scott also opened up about being apart from Barbara has she slipped away.
Despite spending five days her bedside in the care home, he wasn’t with her for her last breath.
He was asleep in a room upstairs as care staff, reportedly worried for his traumatised mental state, insisted at the time he rest.
Scott explained: “The head palliative nurse had said to me, some people will not go while their loved ones are still in the room, they don’t want to put you through that, so they won’t let go.”
‘Her soul had left’
And so, by the time he was roused, it was already too late. Scott said he knew she had gone as he approached her room.
He recalled: “I took one look and her soul had left. That’s the only way I can say it. Barbara’s soul was no longer in the room.
Barbara’s soul was no longer in the room.
“At first I found it very difficult that I’d said I would be there until the end and I wasn’t. But literally, I was with her an hour before.”
Scott added he still considered himself “lucky” because during the lockdowns that year due to coronavirus, some families were only able to say farewell to loved ones via phones and iPads.
The interview also noted Barbara stopped eating a couple of weeks after arriving at the care home in July 2020.
Furthermore, Scott said she stopped taking her meds – and he believes this was his wife “signing off”.
Read more: Barbara Windsor ‘left millions to husband Scott Mitchell and money to EastEnders star in will’
Leave us a comment on our Facebook page @EntertainmentDailyFix and let us know what you think of this story.