Beverley Callard believes Anne Kirkbride "knew" she was dying.
The 58-year-old actress has revealed how she felt when she went to visit her best friend and ‘Coronation Street’ co-star – who died, aged 60, from cancer – on her death bed in January.
Beverley – who plays Liz McDonald on the ITV soap – said: We took turns sitting with her, stroking her head and her hand. We kissed her and hugged her. We were talking to her all the time so she knew how loved she was, how much we cared about her and that we were all there for her.
"Without a shadow of a doubt though she knew what was happening. She wasn’t speaking but she was squeezing our hands so tightly that I know she was saying goodbye."
Beverley went on to talk about how she and Anne – who played Deirde Barlow on ‘Corrie’ – had a lot of fun on set, and sometimes joked their characters would end up in a relationship.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror newspaper, Beverley said: "The more traumatic the scenes, the more we’d get the giggles and not be able to look at each other.
"They used to make us sit much closer to each other for filming than you’d ever sit in real life, and we’d be saying, ‘OK, this is it, Deirdre and Liz are about to become lesbians any moment now.
"We both had the most stupid sense of humour and I loved her because she was a very honest, loyal person…We used to joke we’d have to be friends forever because we knew too much about each other not to be."
Beverley Callard: Anne Kirkbride ‘knew’ she was dying
