BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts

Lauren LeVernier, we're taking our Easter break, so until we're back on air we're showcasing

a few programs from our archive, as usual the music's been shortened for right reasons.

This week's guest is the actress June Brown, who died earlier this month at the age of

195, Kirsty Young cast her away in 2017.

My castaway this week is the actress June Brown.

It was on EastEnders over 30 years ago that Dot Cotton trust up in an overall with a

fag in hand entered the national consciousness as Wolford's tragicomic Lady of the Laundret.

The storylines she's weathered throughout the decades are as nothing compared to the

vicissitudes and triumphs of the actress' own life.

A father who made and lost a small fortune, a sister her best friend who died in childhood

and yet amid all this she was a leading lady of stage classics, a mother of five children

and of course an award-winning TV actress now about to turn 90 and still working.

She says, I've never entertained the idea of retiring because I've never regarded myself

as having a proper job.

Anyway, retirement can be the death of you and so June Brown we welcome you to our desert

island. You have made dots, I think it's fair to say, into one of the great iconic TV

soap characters. You've been playing her for a long time. You're sort of frowning as

I say iconic there but I'm afraid it's true. Do you still enjoy playing the character?

I'm making faces now because I can't be. I'm just an actress, you know, I've been very fortunate

and I'm well known. I don't talk about myself as anything more than well known and I'm

lucky.

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