Get outta my pub, boy! Barbara Windsor’s people were from Cork

The late Carry on film actress and Eastenders star Dame Barbara Windsor seemed East End to the core of her tiny 4ft 10 inch frame but an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? once traced her roots back to Cork.

The 83-year-British national treasure passed away on Thursday at a London care home six years after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

During the 2006 filming of the BBC ancestry series Barbara was informed that her great grandmother, Mary Ann Ellis, was a matchbox maker, probably employed by the Bryant and May factory in Bow in the early 1880's.

She worked from her home in a slum in Old Nichol Street in London with her children helping her.

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Barbara heard that Mary was likely involved in the matchgirls strike of 1888. This was one of the first significant strikes in English industrial history.

Ninety per cent of these workers were Irish. Having researched the 1871 census it was uncovered that Mary Ann Ellis had a maiden name of Collins.

Her parents had emigrated to London’s East End at some point between 1846 and 1850 as result of the Famine.

Dr Louise Raw, a historian of match women and the author of Striking a Light, met Windsor for the BBC series. She told her of her Irish roots and of the life of her great grandmother.

Dr Raw said it was a “huge pleasure” to discuss genealogy with Windsor at the old Bryant and May factory in Bow.

“Between takes she talked about the class prejudice that made her hide her East End accent which then brought her a new wave of fame in Eastenders. She was a great woman. Not ‘starry’ at all. She was lovely with us ordinary folk. In breaks she happily signed every autograph, chatted to all who came over.

Windsor travelled to Cork in 2006 as part of the filming of the series.

Actor Christopher Biggins told ITV's This Morning on Friday that Windsor never left home without making an effort with her appearance.

True to form she jetted in to Cork Airport 14 years ago wearing a cream outfit with a glamorous head scarf. Even a journey from Heathrow which was delayed by 50 minutes didn’t cramp her style, according to an Irish Examiner report on the visit.

When she arrived in Leeside she was shocked to be told that her great grandmother was the second Mary Ann Collins in the family. A child of the same name in her family had passed away of Scarlet Fever in 1851.

Windsor was born Barbara Ann Deeks in London in 1937 to a dressmaker and a bus driver. She went to drama school and shot to fame in the Carry on films in the 1960s.

Although she appeared in only nine of the films she was the face of the series for a generation with her saucy humour and irrepressible giggle endearing her to fans.

She reached a renewed resurgence of fame in the 1990s when she was cast as Peggy Mitchell in Eastenders. Peggy, who doted on sons Grant and Phil, had the iconic catch phrase "Get outta my pub" which has trended on Twitter since her passing.

She dropped her original name of Deeks and took on the stage name of Windsor shortly after the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. She was appointed a Dame in Britain's 2016 honours list not only for her acting career but for her services to charity.