June Brown

As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on. I'd be utterly bored if I stopped.

I was always taught to say thank you for everything, good or bad.

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.

I've known great happiness.

I miss Bob, but I don't want another marriage.

I don't want a retainer for 'EastEnders,' I've left. I've left for good.

I've played two people simultaneously for 35 years.

In fact I became so punctual I used to be in an hour before I should be.

I can see where everything is around the house but nothing's clear.

If your sight is poor, there's very little you can do.

I'm not a star, darling.

I love my children but it was a lot of work.

If I'd stayed at home I'd have married as a virgin. But, in the heady post-war years, I fell in love all the time.

Just pray for your health and strength, hearing and eyesight, and an active mind.

I've got very poor sight.

I can't go out socially. I never go to soap awards now. I don't recognize people I know and they would think that I was snubbing them.

I've got extra lenses inside my eyes to try to help me read better. They help with peripheral vision, but I've got no central vision.

I usually have about 16 pills a day of various descriptions - I also have minerals from Salt Lake City and amino acids that get sent to me from Australia.

I think when you are older, you should be slowing down, but I wouldn't like not to work as I would get rather miserable.

I get lots of letters, and I reply to them all personally.

I never touch fast food.

I like the golf and the snooker, too.

I watch 'News At Ten' and 'Loose Women' and that gives me all I need to know.

I want to wear colours that cheer people. Forget all this navy and beige and black.

I am never going to be made a Dame doing Dot.

I always felt Dot was one of those characters who should stay the same. She's a simple creature.

I got a grant for the Old Vic Theatre School in London, which had just started. It was only five terms; they used to break you down and never quite put you together again but it was an excellent training.

When I was 17-and-a-half I volunteered for the Wrens. I auditioned for a play and we took it round the Southern Command area and I really enjoyed it. I got laughs and that was when the bug got me.

I wish it were September 1948 and I wish I were 21 again.

The Old Vic is special to me because that's where I began. I lived in New Bond Street in London in a flat that cost 4.20 a week. I split the rent with friends. We used to go to concerts, theatres, we went to the Proms.

My sister happened to look at The Times, and there was advertised the Old Vic theatre school. I wrote, I suppose, and got an audition. They said I was in, so I burst into tears, because in those days I cried when I was happy and I cried when I was sad.

I never wanted to be an actress. I wanted to go into the medical professional. Acting was not important enough. That was a hobby - nothing to do with what you did in life.

I think that's why a lot of people are very lonely and get ill when they're older, because I think loneliness and having no motivation, nothing to work towards... I think it kills you.

I can play CDs and I can use an ordinary mobile.

I'm technology illiterate.

I don't bother with computers, although I have an electronic reader.

I would not want to be unable to talk. Imagine not being able to talk when you're a talkative person.

I've had two pensions each that have gone down by 50%.

I do pray about my sight - maybe it will return.

Personally my mind needs occupying. If it isn't, it goes all over the place.

I was taught at my drama school that it's not what you feel, it's what you make the audience feel.

Acting is a very strange thing. It isn't about trying to feel, for me, it is about thinking.

It's much easier for me to cry and do all those things on the stage than in real life.

An actor needs his voice.

I can't afford to retire.

It's a dreadful thing to be strapped for cash when you are elderly. It's awful when you're young, too, but you always have hope.

I've always been afraid of being poor when I'm old.

I never had the money to start a pension - I didn't start to make any real money until I was 58 - and now it's not worth much.