Corrie icon Anne Kirkbride’s final moments before d.ea.th as co-star sat at bedside
Anne Kirkbride and William Roache as Ken and Deirdre in Coronation Stree. (Image: ITV)
Coronation Street legend Anne Kirkbride d.ie.d 10 years ago today, aged 60, after a secret battle with breast cancer. Following her diagnosis the previous autumn, the actress, who portrayed Deirdre Barlow for 42 years, saw her health drastically deteriorate and suffered a stroke shortly before her d.e.a.t.h.
Her Corrie co-star and “work sister” Beverley Callard happened to call Anne shortly after her stroke, and her husband, David Beckett, answered and confirmed that he was waiting for an ambulance.
The Liz McDonald actress and her husband, Jon McEwan, rushed to Salford Royal Hospital, where they met Anne and David as she was being taken into A&E.
Beverley said: “It was so shocking. I’d seen her on the Friday, just two days before and I knew things were serious but I wasn’t prepared for this change in her. She was conscious but not really speaking and was very, very ill.”
As she comforted Anne, she added to The Mirror: “I was stroking her face and stroking her head and saying, ‘Don’t worry, darling. None of us are going anywhere, you’re going to be OK. We’re not going to leave you on your own. You will get through this’.”
Anne battled breast cancer before her d.e.a.t.h in 2015. (Image: Getty)
Beverley remembered the desperation in Anne’s eyes: “I held her left hand and she looked at me and squeezed it so hard. I knew she was scared. Really scared.”
Given the gravity of Anne’s condition, with the cancer having spread, medical staff promptly conducted tests to determine the severity of the stroke.
Beverley accompanied Anne into one of the scanning rooms, explaining: “She couldn’t speak very well but I could see she was panicking so I just kept saying, ‘It’s OK, I’m not going anywhere. I will talk to you the whole time through it. We will get through this. We can do it. You can do it’.”
Afterwards, Anne was taken to a room where David, Beverley, and Jon were waiting at her bedside. Doctors said that the actress had around 24 hours to live.
Beverley Callard met Anne at Granada Studios in the 1980s. (Image: Getty)
“She was in quite a lot of pain at that point but they gave her painkillers and were trying to make her comfortable,” shares Beverley, who first met Anne back in the early 1980s at Granada Studio’s canteen.
Beverley continued to comfort her friend, but says that “without a shadow of a doubt” Anne knew what was going to happen.
She recalled her final moments: “They managed to give Anne pain relief so she was calm. We took turns sitting with her, stroking her head and her hand. We kissed her and hugged her. We were talking to her all the time so she knew how loved she was, how much we cared about her and that we were all there with her.
“Without a shadow of a doubt though she knew what was happening. She wasn’t speaking but she was squeezing our hands so tightly that I know she was saying goodbye.”
