In January 2012, one of EastEnders'' longest-serving and best-loved characters breathed her last when Pat Butcher succumbed to cancer. Her departure from the show gave actress Pam St Clement time to reflect, not only on almost 26 years playing a role that she loved, but also on her whole life.
Pam''s mother died when she was a baby, leaving her with a father whose life didn''t really have space for a child. What followed was an itinerant childhood, with various stepmothers and foster families, before an advertisement in The Lady took 11-year-old Pamela to the farm in Devon that was to become her true home, with the ''aunts'' who became her surrogate parents. Time on the farm at Dartmoor, where she discovered her love of animals, alternated with life at The Warren boarding school in West Sussex, where she discovered her passion for acting.
On leaving school, Pam was unsure of what direction to take but gradually realised that acting was what she wanted to do with
