Windsor hoped Reid would return to Walford

The cast of EastEnders were hoping that Mike Reid would return to the soap for a guest stint this year.

Barbara Windsor, who became close friends with Mike on the set of the show, has admitted that she and Pam St Clement (Pat Butcher) discussed the possibility before Reid passed away last month.

Reid quit his role as Frank Butcher in 2001 and moved to Spain with his wife Shirley, but he made brief returns to the show in 2002 and 2005.

"Only the other week Pam St Clement was saying, 'I wonder if the old rascal will pop back?' We were always half-expecting him to return to the show for another stint, though we knew he was happy in Spain," Barbara told The Mirror.

"He and his wife Shirley had just bought a new villa over there and they were really content. I've talked to her and she's just devastated, he was a big man in his family, the rock, the one they all turned to. Now there's just this big hole."

Barbara, better known as Walford legend Peggy Mitchell, has pulled the EastEnders cast together to make sure that Mike's funeral is a fitting tribute to the actor.

"We're all getting onto a coach loaded with crates of beer and it'll be a booze-up, a proper day out, like we're going to Southend," she said. "That's the way Mike would have liked it, us lot treating it as a knees-up."