Carry on Cork: Barbara Windsor's roots in the Rebel County

— the actress's family left Ireland during the Famine

Barbara Windsor dies aged 83

Barbara Windsor, the star of Eastenders and the 1960s Carry On films, who died yesterday evening, had once visited Cork to trace her ancestors. 

She was filming the BBC family history show Who Do You Think You Are? and discovered that her mother's side of her family had originally come from Cork.

She may have seemed pure Cockney through and through but the genealogists discovered that her maternal great grandmother was Mary Ann Collins, a matchbox maker, who lived in the notorious slum, Old Nichol Street.

Barbara Windsor, waving farewell before leaving London Airport for her first ever visit to the United States. Picture: PA Wire

Mary's parents came over to England from Cork between 1846 and 1851 to escape the potato famine. Yet even though they swapped the fresh air of the mid-Cork countryside for the squalor of London, they were lucky in many ways.

Up to a million people died in the famine, with a further two million emigrating. Barbara was shocked to discover that her great grandmother was the second Mary Ann Collins in the family. The first named child had died in 1851 of scarlet fever shortly after escaping the famine.

The actress, wore a glamorous cream-coloured outfit with head scarf, when she flew into Cork in January 2006 with her television production crew.

An only child, Barbara was born Barbara Ann Deeks in London in 1937 to a dressmaker and a bus driver. She went to drama school at an early age, later taking roles on the stage and films including Death Trap and Sparrows Can’t Sing.

But her appearance from 1964 onwards as the bubbly blonde in the Carry On films won her international recognition.

Even though she only appeared in nine Carry On films, the 4ft 10in actress remained one of the leading stars of the series.

Her most memorable appearance came in 1969’s Carry On Camping when she played giggly Babs alongside the disapproving Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques.

Carry On stars Sid James and Barbara Windsor welcoming guests to a party for ITV's Christmas performers at the New London Theatre in 1973. Picture: PA/PA Wire

Windsor returned to stardom in 1991 when she won a role in Eastenders as tough Cockney Peggy Mitchell, landlady of the Queen Victoria pub and mother of hard-men Phil and Grant Mitchell.

She drew inspiration from real life for the part, basing her character partly on Violet Kray, the mother of fearsome 1960s Cockney gangsters the Kray twins.

Queen Elizabeth II was accompanied by Barbara Windsor during her 2001 visit to Elstree Studios where Eastenders is filmed. Picture: Michael Stephens/PA Wire

Her husband, Scott Mitchell, said she had died peacefully from Alzheimer's at a London care home on Thursday evening.

He said she would be remembered for the "love, fun, friendship and brightness she brought to all our lives".

In a moving tribute, he called her his "precious Bar" and said: "I've lost my wife, my best friend and soul mate."