It turns out one of EastEnders' longest-serving writers doesn't actually exist...
It has been claimed that legendary writer, Julia Honour, who has been credited for more than 50 scripts on EastEnders, isn't actually a real person.
Former Executive Producer Matthew Robinson has revealed on his blog that Julia, one of the show's longest-serving writers, is actually a pseudonym that has been used on scripts since 1998.
Matthew, who was at the helm of the soap from 1998 until 2000, revealed to readers of his blog walfordweb.com recently, "Over the early weeks of my tenure I got to meet all the established writers one-by-one and face-to-face - but no Julia Honour.
"With so many other things on my mind, I didn't pursue it at first, particularly as the lovely Julia's scripts weren't half bad. In fact they were pretty good.
"Then I noticed something off. Julia's scripts always started with draft three. Drafts one and two were always missing."
So after the subject had been avoided by most of the team every time the topic arose, Matthew apparently cornered a Senior Editor to find out the truth...
"Julia Honour was the pseudonym used when a member of the editor team had to take over and completely rewrite a dreadfully poor - and thus unrecoverable - early draft from a commissioned writer.
"The practice had started just before I joined and has I believe (although I can't swear to it) continued to this day"
And it seems this way of writing doesn't just happen at EastEnders, or even just in soaps.
Matthew then goes on in his blog to reveal other times he has known a pseudonym to be used in the world of TV.
So there you have it - it seems Julia Honour will go down in EastEnders history as a legend whether she is a real person or not. Thank you 'Julia' for making EastEnders the soap we all know and love.
EastEnders airs Monday and Friday at 8pm and Tuesday and Thursday at 7.30pm on BBC1.
Picture credits: BBC/Jack Barnes
