'Enders Pat: 'Losing co-stars was hard'

EastEnders actress Pam St Clement has admitted that she found it "difficult" to be at work following the deaths of her former co-stars Mike Reid and Wendy Richard.

Reid, who played St Clement's on-off screen partner Frank Butcher on the soap, passed away in June 2007 after suffering a heart attack. He had made his final Walford appearance nearly two years earlier.

Meanwhile, Richard - best known as Albert Square's Pauline Fowler - died in February last year following a battle with cancer. The 65-year-old had left the soap in 2006.

Reflecting on the loss of her colleagues, St Clement told The People: "Over the years, you spend so much time with the people that your character has relationships with. They are like your family and you do form close bonds because when you are acting you often are showing a kind of vulnerability.

"So yes, losing Mike and Wendy has made being at work very difficult at times. But I have so many happy memories of them both.

"I remember when a few of us were filming at a villa in Spain. Mike, Tony Caunter [Roy Evans] and I went out for dinner and got quite merry. We spent all night on the balcony of my villa and I don't think I've ever laughed so hard in my life."

St Clement has said that she plans to stick with her role as Pat Evans for the foreseeable future.