Blast from the past

As you may have heard, Gareth Hunt died last week. Those of you who've known me for donkies will remember that Gareth was one of stars of Side by Side, the sitcom I did when I was 17/18 years old and he was such a lovely bloke. Although we hadn't kept in touch, I was really sad to hear about his death. Then I saw Alex Walkinshaw, who played my 'lurrrve interest' in Side by Side, on This Morning last week talking about his role in The Bill and his new son, Jack. It got me to thinking about Louisa Rix, who played my mum in the series and I ended up googling her. It only bloomin' turns out that she lives 10 mins away from me, so tonight, after work, I took a detour round to hers to surprise her (it did!) and ended up having a lovely cup of tea with her and Richard Ommanney, her husband and the writer of Side by Side, who now works as a writer on The Bill! Phew! She also gave me the details of Gareth's funeral next week so I will head over there to pay my last respects.