Does anyone remember...

the wonderful, late and great Patricia Hayes? So often the bridesmaid and never the bride, Patricia's moment came when she played the part of Edna in Edna the Inebriate Woman in a 1971 play for television written by Jeremy Sandford and for which Patricia won the Best Actress on Television BAFTA in 1972.

Although the majority of her work was in television, Patricia Hayes played parts in over forty films and who could forget (unless you have never seen the film) her role as Mrs Coady in the 1988 film A Fish Called Wanda where her little dogs met a ghastly end thanks to Michael Palin.

Patricia Hayes OBE 1909-1998

Patricia was always the straight-faced, often grumpy foil in so many television comedies that it would be impossible to list them all here but she starred in Til Death Do Us Part as the intrusive neighbour to Alf Garnet and worked with Tony Hancock and Benny Hill for numerous series where her comedic timing was always perfect.

With Benny Hill

Patricia studied at RADA until 1928 and was awarded OBE in 1987. She is my mind because Maddie Smith, whose biography comes out this summer, recalled to me in one of our interviews just what a wonderfully talented and also kind lady Patricia was and I was very moved and saddened to see a recent photograph of her grave so badly neglected in one of our churchyards. Such is history and such is our desire to remember those who have gone.