Pam St Clement had a troubled childhood.
Pam St Clement
The former 'EastEnders' star has revealed her mother died when she was just 18-months-old before her father "disappeared" when she was just three years of age, leaving her in the care of her nanny.
She shared: "I close my eyes and try to visualise my mother, but I can't. I have no memory of her at all. She died of tuberculosis before she was 30 and I was 18 months old. She left me with her green Irish eyes and a faded photograph of herself...
"My father, Reginald, found it difficult to cope, so throughout my childhood I was foisted on others... When he wed his third wife, Mary, I was looked after by a nanny and didn't share their lives.
"Then they disappeared, leaving me and nanny alone. It became apparent I was an inconvenience so I was off-loaded. I was three years old."
The 72-year-old actress - who played Pat Butcher in the BBC One soap - admitted that things changed for her once she attended an all-girl secondary school in 1953.
She said: "I loved the regime. Acting was a passion and I was student president of the Drama Society."
Pam also admitted that during her first ten years on 'EastEnders', her weight "ballooned".
Writing in her autobiography, 'The End of an Earring', as obtained by the Daily Mirror newspaper, she wrote: "During the first 10 years of my time in 'EastEnders', my weight ballooned .
"I don't like having my main meal at work, so there was a great temptation to reward oneself with a big meal late in the evening, with a few glasses of alcohol. Maybe I am too indulgent but I definitely put on weight and retain it more easily than many people...
"I found a good fighting weight which I thought I could maintain and threw out my larger clothes. Fatties will know that's a mistake. Having worked so hard it's been disheartening to be putting on weight again."
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