EastEnders legend June Brown has revealed she is now battling both deafness and sight loss.
The 88-year-old actress, who plays Albert Square matriarch Dot Branning, admitted a few months ago that she was losing her vision – but now, after a recent flight, she has also been struggling with her hearing.
According to The Sun, Dot told the audience at London’s British Film Institute last weekend: “Sorry, I would like you all to shout because I can’t hear, you see. I am ever so sorry. I am straining here.”
June Brown in February (Yui Mok/PA)
When her pal Barbara Windsor, 78, brought her on stage, she asked, “Are you talking to me Babs? Tell me, because I’m deaf you see and it’s very hard for me to hear so I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She told the newspaper she had lost her hearing on a flight up to Scotland, saying: “Unfortunately it happened when I was going up to Glasgow for a charity. My ears impacted and they haven’t come back since.”
June, who has played Dot Branning – formerly Dot Cotton – on EastEnders since 1985, revealed in May that her eyesight had started to deteriorate.
