When Did Barbara Windsor Die? How Old Was Barbara Windsor When She Died?

EastEnders actress Barbara Windsor, died on December 10, 2020. She was 83 years old at the time of her demise.

Windsor was born in Shoreditch, London, in 1937 (her birth was registered in Stepney), the only child of John Deeks, a costermonger, and his wife, Rose (née Ellis), a dressmaker.

The family lived in Angela Street. One of her maternal great-grandmothers, Mary, was the daughter of Irish immigrants who fled Ireland to Great Britain between 1846 and 1851 to escape the Great Famine of Ireland.

In 1939 at the start of World War II, Windsor’s father was called up for the war, so her mother and she went to live with her mother’s relatives in Yoakley Road, Stoke Newington, where Windsor attended St Mary’s Infants’ School in nearby Lordship Road.

Windsor’s mother initially refused to let her be evacuated, but conceded after one of Windsor’s school friends was killed by a bomb.

She was evacuated to Blackpool to live with a married couple, although they sexually abused her. One of Windsor’s friends, Mary, who lived a few houses away heard Windsor’s screams and alerted her own parents, who called the authorities.

The couple were arrested and they were found to not be married, but brother and sister. Windsor moved in with Mary and her parents, although they struggled to cope with her loud behaviour.

They sent Windsor and Mary to dancing school, which sparked her interest in performing, although one night after a class, Mary’s mother walked Windsor and Mary home, when Windsor found Mary’s father kissing another woman in a bus shelter.

Humiliated by this, Mary’s mother sent her back to London in 1944 along with a note from Windsor’s dance teacher which read: “Barbara is a born show-off who loves to perform.”