Dame Barbara Windsor, the infamous EastEnders actor and Carry On films star died in her London care home yesterday after suffering from Alzheimer’s for seven years. Announcing the news, her husband Scott Mitchell she would be remembered for the ‘love, fun, friendship and brightness she brought to all our lives’.
Read the Barbara Windsor tributes and you’ll note all she achieved outside of her most notable roles, that she took on all the raging classism and sexism of the 60s and 70s with vigour to forge her own incredible legacy and most of all, that she was a genuinely thoughtful and lovable star to anyone that met her.
But if you look at what people are wondering about her life, you’ll see a very different trend. Search Barbara Windsor’s name on Google Trends – which details what people are searching for most in relation to a topic or person – and the breakout search terms are all focused on her status as a wife or mother.
‘Does Barbara Windsor have a child,’ ‘How old is Barbara Windsor’s husband’ and variations of ‘Barbara Windsor’ with ‘husband’, ‘children’, ‘kids’ are all top searches under her name. Of course, it’s natural for people to wonder about a person’s family once they die. Perhaps people simply want to know who she’s leaving behind, but it’s still very telling that when a woman only known to us as an Eastend legend dies, the first thing anyone thinks to ask is whether she ever had any kids.
In fact, Barbara chose to never have any children. When she was 63, she told the Sunday Mirror that she had had five abortions across her life and was often made to feel selfish for her decisions to avoid motherhood.
‘People think you must be a monster if you don't want kids but I've never been one of those women who go ga-ga over babies,’ she explained, noting she didn’t have any regrets about her decision not to have children. ‘I’ve been told it is [selfish], but I’ve just never had those maternal feelings. I am a nurturer by nature, but I nurture adults – my friends, the people I work with. I don't want to nurture children.’
I even hated dolls as a girl.
Instead choosing to focus on her career, Barbara said that her home life was difficult growing up and that since her mother wasn’t particularly maternal, she wasn’t either.
‘My home life as a child was so unhappy that the people in showbusiness became my family,’ she continued. ‘Children never featured. I even hated dolls as a girl and every time a new baby came into the family I was completely bored by it.’
The fact that so many people are obsessed with whether Barbara Windsor has any children would likely come as an annoyance to the late star and her family, given how much grief she undoubtedly faced over the course of her life for choosing not to have children at a time when women we’re expected to even more so than they are now.
The obsession with how old Barbara Windsor’s husband, Scott Mitchell, is might also be slightly infuriating. At 57, he is 26 years younger than the actor and has often been branded her ‘toyboy’ despite the couple being married for 20 years before her death. While the couple have always kept their life relatively private, Barbara opened up about people’s perceptions of the age gap between her and Scott in her biography, All of Me an Extraordinary Life.
‘We did discuss the age gap, but agreed it would be more of a problem for other people than for us,’ she said in regards to when they first started dating. The pair met through family friends and had a platonic relationship for years before her marriage to Stephen Hollings broke down and things became romantic when they went out for dinner.
‘We were very tipsy and I was happier than I'd been for ages,’ she said of the night. ‘Suddenly I grabbed Scott's hand and started running along Marylebone Lane, giggling like a naughty schoolgirl. We both knew deep feelings were stirring. I sensed it was serious when I did something out of character: I rang Scott and invited him out. I felt like Mrs Robinson in The Graduate.’
Much like the rest of her life then, Barbara has always owned her decisions with pride and continues to be an incredible role model. Not just for her attitude towards love and motherhood, but for her legacy as an actor.
Beginning her career on stage in 1950 at the age of 13, she made her film debut in The Belles of St. Trinian's while studying Shipping Management at Bow Technical College. She went on to star in Sparrows Can’t Sing for which she received a BAFTA Award nomination and the following year, a Tony Award nomination for the 1964 Broadway production of Oh! What A Lovely War. As well as her infamous roles in the Carry On films and EastEnders, she had film roles in A Study in Terror, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Alice in Wonderland.
Her hard work also extended to charity, so much so she was awarded a Damehood in 2016 for services to showbusiness and charity, becoming the face of Dementia Revolution – a joint campaign between Alzheimer's Research UK and Alzheimer's Society – in 2019 following her battle with Alzheimer’s herself.
Ultimately, her work – career and otherwise -, her lovable persona and forcefulness in being completely herself no matter what is what we should all be talking about this week. Her family life matters deeply, of course, but her legacy goes far beyond her decision not to have children and marry a younger man.
Read More:
Barbara Windsor Had An Unlikely Friendship With Amy Winehouse
The Rise Of Over 30 Abortions: ‘I Do Want Children, But When It Actually Happened, I Wasn't Ready’
What's It Really Like To Date Someone Three Decades Older Than You?