THE POCKET ROCKET (REMEMBERING BARBARA WINDSOR)

Barbara Windsor may have been small in stature but she was a big presence.

Four foot ten inches tall, her career enjoyed two bouts of popularity.

Initially after building a decent career on the West End, she became famous as Britain's best known pin-up in the smutty 'Carry On' films, charming audiences with her cheeky giggle.

Later she would be known for one of British television's most iconic soap opera characters in BBC1's 'Eastenders' - the pub landlady Peggy Mitchell who was known for her volcanic temper.

Born Barbara Ann Deeks in Shoreditch in London in 1937, her father sold fruit and vegetables on the street and her mother was a dressmaker.

Of Irish extraction on her mum's side, she was an only child and passed her 11 Plus exam after the Second World War to secure a place in a convent school in Stamford Hill.

A bright kid, she showed an aptitude for acting in school shows and that persuaded her mum to pay for elocution lessons to help Barbara shed her Cockney accent.

Barbara learned her craft at the Ada Foster Drama School and made her stage debut at the age of 13, appearing two years later on the West End in the chorus for the musical 'Love from Judy'.

Inspired by the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, she took the stage name Barbara Windsor in 1953.

She soon caught the attention of TV producers, landing work on shows like 'Dreamer's Highway' and 'On With The Show'.

In 1954, her first taste of movies came with a role as a schoolgirl in Frank Launder's hit British comedy 'The Belles of At Trinian's' with Alistair Sim.

There would be other uncredited roles in Carol Reed's 1955 drama 'A Kid for Two Farthings,' Guy Green's 1956 thriller 'Lost' and Lance Comfort's 1959 comedy 'Make Me A Million' with Sid James, Arthur Askey and Bernard Cribbins.

In 1960, she also appeared in Terence Young's neo noir 'Too Hot to Handle' with the American pin up Jayne Mansfield, Leo Genn and Christopher Lee.

There were roles in Roy Ward Baker's 1961 drama 'Flame in the Streets' with John Mills and Sylvia Sims, in Cyril Frankel's 1961 comedy 'On the Fiddle' with rising star Sean Connery and Stanley Holloway and Terry Bishop's 1962 comedy 'Hair of the Dog' with Reginald Beckwitb and John Le Mesurier.

Joining Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop proved to be pivotal to her rise as an actress, with her gaining attention for her performance in a production of Lionel Bart's Cockney musical 'Fings Ain't Wot They Used To Be'.

She also landed a BAFTA Best Actress nomination, playing a mother who leaves her husband for a bus driver in Littlewood's 1963 movie, the kitchen sink drama 'Sparrows Can't Sing'.

This helped catapult Windsor into the public consciousness in her native land.

With the country in the throes of the Swinging Sixties, she moved in controversial circles in the East End of London, with connections to the infamous gangland figures the Krays.

She dated Charlie Kray and also had a brief dalliance with Reggie.

In 1964, she also married Ronnie Knight, a small time criminal and they remained together for 20 turbulent years.

There was infidelity including a three year affair with her 'Carry On' co-star Sid James.

The marriage to Knight would eventually disintegrate in 1984 when he fled Britain for Spain, following his involvement in a multi-million pound heist from a security company.

A role in Jeremy Summers' 1964 comedy film 'Crooks in Cloisters' with Ronald Fraser and Bernard Cribbins further enhanced her profile.

However she would also appear that year in Gerald Thomas' 'Carry on Spying' as Agent Daphne Honeybutt alongside Kenneth Williams, Bernard Cribbins and Charles Hawtrey - the first of nine roles in the cringeworthy sexist comedy movie stable that would catapult her to the status of a very English sex symbol.

In 1965, Windsor landed a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical after she appeared in 'Oh What A Lovely War!' on Broadway for Littlewood.

Three years after her first 'Carry On' role, she returned as the novice Nurse May who has a thing for Kenneth Williams' Dr Tinkle in Gerald Thomas' 'Carry On Doctor' with Sid James, Hattie Jacques and Bernard Bresslaw.

In 1968, there was a notable appearance on the BBC Second World War sitcom 'Dad's Army' and in Ken Hughes' big screen musical family adventure 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' with Dick van Dyke.

1969 saw her appear in two 'Carry On' movies for Gerald Thomas.

The first 'Carry On Camping' with Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Terry Scott featured one of the most well known sequences in the stable in which her character Babs loses her bikini top during a vigorous aerobics session.

In 'Carry On Again Doctor' she joined James, Hawtrey and Jacques as a film star patient, Goldie Locks who Jim Dale's Dr Jim Nookey falls for.

There was also a 'Carry On Christmas' TV special for ITV's Thames Television and she would appear in subsequent specials in 1970, 1972 and 1973.

Frankie Howerd coaxed her into appearing as Nymphia in a 1970 episode of the BBC1 sitcom 'Up Pompeii' which regularly featured 'Carry On' actresses.

Ken Russell also directed Windsor in his successful 1971 musical comedy 'The Boy Friend' which starred Twiggy. 

There was another 'Carry On' hit in 1971 with Gerald Thomas' period drama spoof 'Carry On Henry' in which she played the Earl of Bristol's daughter Bettina who catches the eye of Sid James' Henry VIII.

Barbara would later decare that it was her favourite 'Carry On' role.

Two more 'Carry On' roles for Thomas followed in 1972.

She was Nurse Ball in 'Carry On Nurse' with all the regular cast and the sexy widow Sadie Tompkins in 'Carry On Abroad' who Sid James' pub landlord Vic Flange flirts with under the nose of his battleaxe wife, played by Joan Sims.

By the time she appeared as the biker Hope Springs in Thomas' 1973 'Carry On Girls,' she and James were having an affair, which given her husband Ronnie Knight's underworld history carried considerable risks.

David Croft and Ray Cooney tried to cash in on her 'Carry On' persona with the 1973 farce 'Not Now, Darling' with Leslie Phillips, Darren Nesbitt and Joan Sims in which she played one of the characters' mistresses.

She was an 18th Century highway robbery partner in crime to James' Dick Turpin in Thomas' 1974 hit 'Carry On Dick'.

It was to be her final role in the 'Carry On' film series but Windsor was forever appreciative of the fame it brought her.

She did participate in ATV's 'Carry On Laughing' comedy series which tried to revive the franchise on ITV after it started to flag in cinemas.

It ran for just two series but would ultimately be overshadowed by the enduring popularity in Britain of the films.

Tony Richardson cast her alongside Vanessa Redgrave and Diana Quick in a 1972 production of Bertolt Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera' in the Prince of Wales Theatre and the Piccadilly Theatre.

There was a one woman show 'Carry On Barbara!' which toured theatres in the UK, South Africa and New Zealand in 1975.

She also appeared as Maria in a production of Shakespeare's 'Twelfth Night'.

Barbara made a memorable appearance in 1980 as a foul mouthed, ship's figurehead Saucy Nancy in an episode of the hit ITV series 'Wurzel Gummidge' with Jon Pertwee and Una Stubbs.

Her friend Kenneth Williams directed her in a hit 1981 production on the West End of Joe Orton's 'Entertaining, Mr Sloane' as the sex mad landlady Kath.

She would revive the role in a touring production in the UK in 1993.

However as she entered her forties, Windsor's sex symbol status began to wane despite the enduring popularity of the 'Carry On' films.

There would be guest roles during the 1980s in sitcoms like the Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson BBC2 vehicle 'Filthy Rich and Catflap,' the ITV children's series 'Supergran,' and Harry Enfield's Channel 4 mockumentary 'Sir Norbert Smith: A Life'.

In 1986, Windsor married a second time - on this occasion in Jamaica to the restaurateur Stephen Hollings.

The marriage lasted nine years before ending in a divorce.

In 1986 she appeared as the owner of a Dorchester print shop in Bill Douglas' Tolpuddle Martyrs movie 'Comrades!' with Vanessa Redgrave, James Fox, Philip Davis and Robert Stephens.

The film had a difficult path to the big screen and did not get the release it merited but has undergone a critical reappraisal in recent years, receiving much acclaim.

In 1994, Windsor's career got a second wind when she was cast as Peggy Mitchell, the formidable mother of Phil and Grant and landlady in the Queen Vic.

A long time admirer of the BBC1 soap, she was an instant hit with audiences who loved her character's temper tantrums, her battle with breast cancer and her turbulent romances with the likes of Mike Reid's Frank Butcher and Larry Lamb's manipulative brother-in-law Archie Mitchell.

Windsor even cemented her legendary soap status with a catchphrase: "Get out of my pub!"

She would remain in the show until 2010 although in 2003 and 2004, ill health reduced her to two appearances after she came down with a debilitating bout of the Epstein-Barr virus.

During the 1990s and 2000s, Barbara would continue to appear in guest roles on shows like the hit BBC1 sitcom 'One Foot in the Grave,' as a highway robbery victim in BBC1's 'The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything' in an episode featuring Harry Enfield's Tim Nice-But-Dim and on a 2006 episode of 'Doctor Who' starting David Tennant.

In 1997, the Pet Shop Boys persuaded Barbara to appear in several roles that riffed on her screen past as Neil Tennant's mum, as a landlady and a French maid in Jack Bond's quirky musical 'It Couldn't Happen Here' which also featured Joss Ackland and Gareth Hunt.

In 2009, she would receive a Lifetime Achievement award at the British Soap Awards.

A year later, her character Peggy Mitchell left the soap after the Queen Vic was engulfed by a fire.

However she periodically returned for episodes in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 when Peggy was finally killed off.

In 2000, she was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours and 16 years later was made a Dame.

Also in 2000, she married actor and recruitment consultant Scott Mitchell who would remain with her until her death.

In an eventful year, she garnered a lot of attention for her autobiography 'All of Me' in which she candidly revealed she had had five abortions - the first three in her twenties and the last at the age of 42.

Windsor insisted she never wanted children because of her father rejecting her after her parents divorced.

In 2010, Barbara received the Freedom of the City of London.

She worked with Tim Burton that year in his movie of 'Alice in Wonderland' with Mia Wasikowska, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Johnny Depp, Alan Rickman and Michael Sheen - providing the voice of the doormouse, Mallymkun and reprised the role in his 2016 follow-up 'Alice Through the Looking Glass'.

She was also a friend of the troubled singer Amy Winehouse and after she passed away in 2011, a year later she became a patron of the star's charity The Amy Winehouse Foundation which provides support to troubled young people.

Windsor, however, succumbed to Alzheimer's Disease in 2014.

Colleagues on 'Eastenders' knew of the diagnosis but she and her husband Scott did not go public about her battle with the condition until 2018.

A year before, there was a poignant final screen appearance as herself in the BBC biopic 'Babs' in which Jaime Winstone played a younger version of her.

In 2019, she and Scott Mitchell  became ambassadors for the Alzheimer's Society, urging members of the public to write to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to help address the challenges faced by sufferers of the disease.

Eventually, it was revealed in August 2020 she was admitted to a care home and passed away four months later.

For much of her life, Windsor was often overlooked for her skills as an actor and the interesting projects she took on.

Because of her 'Carry On' and 'Eastenders' personas and her colourful private life, she was sometimes dismissed as an ageing sex symbol - an image she wasn't afraid to embrace.

However she left a huge mark on British culture in the postwar era and will never be forgotten.

(Barbara Windsor passed away at the age of 83 on December 10, 2020)