Dot Branning is one of Walford’s best-loved characters, but even 32 years into her tenure, actress June Brown says she can’t leave EastEnders yet.
Speaking to The Sun, the 89-year-old said that she doesn’t have the money to retire, and that she wasn’t earning a decent wage until her later years.
“I can’t afford to retire,” she told the newspaper. “I never had the money to start a pension, and I didn’t start to make any real money until I was 58 – it’s not worth much now.”
“I’ve always been afraid of being poor when I’m old. It’s a dreadful thing to be strapped for cash when you are elderly. It’s awful when you’re young, too, but you always have hope.”
Since joining the show in 1985, Dot Branning has been a key character across many of the ups and downs of the fictional London borough of Walford.
The Sun reported last year that BBC bosses were so keen to keep Brown’s character on the show that she would be paid £300,000 a year to extend her contract with the show.
But it’s not all about the money for Brown, who says that life would be duller if she wasn’t on the show. “As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on,” she said.
“I’d be utterly bored if I stopped.”
